The teacher's extra-role behaviors: Some illuminations from a study of the israeli religious state education system

The study aimed to trace teachers' role behaviors that religious teachers perceive as mandatory versus discretionary and nonprescribed at work. Based on interviews with 15 teachers working in the Israeli religious state education, it was found that teaching the subject matter, preparing students for national exams, encouraging students to learn, and teaching religious values unrelentingly is perceived as in-role tasks, while helping students and colleagues, committing to the school as a whole, and refraining from wasting learning time is perceived as extra-role activities. Most interesting is the impact of Jewish heritage and belief on our interviewees' tendency to perform extra-role activities.