Management skills of school administrators in the framework of critical thinking

In this study, it is aimed to describe how school administrators working in high school in Gaziantep province, within the framework of critical thinking, make sense of the 21st century skills of education administrators, which are the phenomenon of the study, and how they reflect them on their administrative behaviors. The working group consists of 10 school administrators working in high schools in the 2020-2021 academic year. By accepting the scientific framework of the research, ontologically subjectivity, epistemologically rationality and axiologically the existence of values; It is built on the hermeneutic paradigm. The data of this study, in which the phenomenology pattern, one of the qualitative research methods, was used, was obtained with a semi-structured interview form. The questions in the data collection tool are feelings, perceptions and experiences related to the phenomenon of the research, "Educational administrators 21st century skills". The findings that emerged as a result of the research were gathered under 12 themes, which are also the subjects of the data collection tool. It has been observed that school administrators mostly care about the subjects and concepts related to 21st century skills and express their experiences clearly. It was concluded that the participants generally exhibited the 21st century skills of educational administrators as an activity and behavior. Of these skills; It has been observed that the skills related to creativity and innovation, information literacy, flexibility and adaptability, social and intercultural skills and critical thinking are not exhibited as activities and behaviors as they should be. Based on the research findings, some suggestions were made regarding school improvement. Keywords: School manager, Critical thinking, Education administrators 21st century skills,