HAMKA INSIGHT
Vol. 5 No. 1 (2025)

Building school community resilience: the principal's role as an emotional anchor and communicator during crisis

Lydia Pujol (Educational Department, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas 1080-A, Venezuela)
Martín Enrique Durán-Aponte (Educational Department, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas 1080-A, Venezuela)



Article Info

Publish Date
25 Jun 2026

Abstract

Purpose: This study investigates how school principals navigate compound socio-economic crises, hyperinflation, and acute infrastructure collapse in Maracaibo, Venezuela, to sustain organizational resilience and pedagogical continuity.   Method: Employing a qualitative case study design, empirical data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions involving school principals, pedagogical coordinators, teaching staff, administrative personnel, and parent association (Consejo Educativo) representatives, analyzed via inductive thematic analysis.   Findings: Institutional resilience relies on three operational mechanisms: (1) principals serving as psychological anchors through authentic emotional validation; (2) opportunistic, transparent communication establishing cognitive immunity against misinformation; and (3) a transition from hierarchical dependence to guided autonomy, which fosters distributed leadership and emergency offline learning innovations.   Practical implications: The study offers educational authorities an actionable framework for integrating trauma-informed governance, low-bandwidth crisis communication protocols, and decentralized decision-making into administrator training programs for volatile environments.   Originality/value: This research extends socio-ecological resilience theory by demonstrating that administrative emotional validation and radical data transparency are essential structural prerequisites that unlock collective adaptive capacity during systemic collapse.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

hamka

Publisher

Subject

Education Languange, Linguistic, Communication & Media Mathematics Other

Description

HAMKA Insight E-ISSN: 2962-8334, ISSN: 2985-8445, DOI Prefix 10.22236/HAMKA Insight is a peer-reviewed open-access international journal that aims to the sharing, dissemination, and discussion of current trends research results, experience, and perspectives across a wide range of education, ...