While accountability has become a popular discourse in educational policy and practice in schools, little is known about how accountability is interpreted and practiced in school principals' daily work. School leaders' perceptions of accountability are critical to leadership practices due to how they understand and interpret accountability as guiding how leaders act, which can beget change in schools. I particularly focus on aspects of accountability revealed in the daily practices of school leaders whose voices have been marginalized in extant knowledge of accountability in research and policy. My inquiry asks three questions: (1) How do school leaders interpret and enact accountability in their day-to-day practices; (2) How do school leaders understand accountability as supporting or undermining their leadership practices; and (3) How do school leaders respond when they confront ethical dilemmas under conflicting accountability demands? Using multiple qualitative methods including interviews, shadowing, focus groups, and artifacts, I explore leaders' understanding of accountability by examining daily practices of three principals working at urban, rural, and suburban elementary schools over the course of 2018- 2019 school year. I conducted narrative analysis informed by portraiture to present my findings. My findings first suggest that accountability for my participants can be understood as both a virtue and a control mechanism. I found that leaders' enactment of accountability could be understood as a balancing act for equity in which they push agendas and efforts that are missing or overlooked in existing educational systems. Second, my analysis highlights that accountability, as perceived by individual leaders, needs to be interpreted within its context, that of which is flexible and complex. Third, these understandings of accountability generated constant negotiations and dilemmas for school leaders. My participants often experienced dilemmas when externally developed protocols followed by consequences conflicted with their relational ethos in schools. My dissertation has been designed to expand literature on accountability and leadership by adding insights into how school leaders understand and enact accountability in their daily work. I intended to value my participants' experiences, bringing their embodied knowledge and humanity in constructing knowledge of accountability.
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