Decentralization and role conflict in Catholic elementary schools : post Vatican II

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of perceived decentralization on role conflict among administrators of Catholic elementary schools. Literature on changes in the authority structure of the Catholic Church and Catholic elementary schools, centralization/decen- tralization, and role conflict contributed to the development of the problem statement and questions for the study which are summarized as fol lows: For each role, what is the relationship between perceived decentralization and perceived conflict about roles? How well can each respondent perceive conflict about the role of the other respondents? Which type of respondent will tend to perceive the greatest degree of conflict about the pastor's role, the principal's role, and the school board member's role? Which group perceives the highest degree of decentralization? Which type- of respondent is perceived to experience the highest level of role conflict? The centralization/decentralization subscale of the Hall-Bonjean Bureaucracy Scales was used to measure the independent variable, centralization/decentralization. The Rizzo, House, and Lirtzman Role Conflict Scale was used to measure the dependent variable, role conflict. The population for this study was composed of pastors, principals, and school board presidents from 43 parishes in the Galveston-Houston Diocese. [...]