This article seeks to expose principals’ functions from three different axes –the normative ideal, the current regulations and the principals’ professional practice– and highlights the level of disagreement that exists between them. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that the policies directed to the principals are being conceived in an inaccurate manner due to the lack of connection in between these three concepts. Thus, we are helping to develop an erratic policy. The methodology used for this research comes from the Critical Theory, based on the work of Axel Honneth, and seeks to reconstruct the normative ideal of the principals in Peru with the purpose of exposing the social pathologies around that notion. The main results denote that, to achieve a better performance of the principal, it is not only needed to provide a correct training to be a change agent. It also involves fulfilling a series of requirements that go from the ethical and the search of educational equity, to the improvement of quality through investment and decentralization.
https://doi.org/10.15366/reice2017.15.2.001