This study was undertaken to provide preliminary information, gathered from individuals representative of selected higher education groups, concerning the selected role norms of deans of education.Dean of education is a widely known job title. A post occupied by hundreds of administrators throughout the country, it has been in existence for a number of years.However, the specific duties associated with the deanship have yet to be enumerated systemmatically.One reason for the absence of a comprehensive job description is that, unlike other educational leadership positions, this particular one has not received the serious attention of educational administration researchers. Not until 1976, the year in which Cyphert and Zimpher (1976) reported on their survey of education deans, had any professional literature of substance been addressed to this leadership position.This study was undertaken to provide preliminary information, gathered from individuals representative of selected higher education groups, concerning the selected role norms of deans of education. Getzells (1958), an organizational theorist, contends that leader behavior results from the interaction of two factors : the idiographic and the nomothetic. The idiographic is the personal dimension made up of the incumbent officeholder's personality and needs disposition system. The nomothetic, on the other hand, is the institutional dimension consisting of roles and role expectations which are associated with a given job title. The way in which an observed organizational behavior is performed, these theorists suggest, can be traced to the manner in which the two dimensions have interacted.This study focussed on the nomothetic dimension as a step toward developing a better institutional understanding of the education deanship. That dimension constituted its principal investigatory framework. Four questions gave this study its principal direction:1. What do deans of education consider to be their roles?2. How do these role perceptions compare with role perceptions of the education deanship held by university central administrators (presidents, vice presidents, chancellors, and provosts), and by department chairpersons and faculty members working in colleges or schools of education ?3. To what extent do the individuals making up each of the four occupational groups (presidents, et al., deans, department chairpersons, and faculty members) agree among themselves concerning each role norm included in this study?4. To what extent do the four groups, as separate populations, agree with the other occupational groups concerning each role norm? Method Role norms are specific observable behaviors which an officeholder is apt to exhibit when facing a particular recurrent situation. These elements collectively make up the role of the officeholder, in this instance, the dean of education. Such behaviors may be good or bad, desirable or undesirable. They are not to be construed as making up the organizational member's total role. Rather, they are representative of it.