Changing the deafening silence of indigenous women's voices in educational leadership

Abstract

The critique of western ethnocentric notions of leadership presented in this paper is informed by debates on issues such as gender and educational leadership that have produced meta‐narratives that explore and explain women and men's ways of leading. One of the troubling aspects of western leadership theories is the claim that the functions and features of leadership can be transported and legitimated across homogenous educational systems. Despite changes that have been made in definitions and descriptions of educational leadership to provide a focus on gender, there is the implicit assumption that while educational leadership might be practised differently according to gender, there is a failure to consider the values and practices of indigenous educational leaders. Thus, the construct of educational leadership needs to be more broadly theorised in order for knowledge of indigenous ways of leading to emerge.

If stigmatized, self-esteem is not enough: Effects of sexism, self-esteem and social identity on leadership aspiration

“…Also the personal conflicts experienced by women and the internalization of values requested to aspire high position, poor self-image or self-esteem, socialized role expectations as well as modest career goals can deflate the possibility to reach powerful job positions (e.g. Fitzgerald, 2003; Gardiner, Enomoto, & Grogan, 2000; Wojtalik, Breckenridge, Gibson Hancox, & Sobehart, 2007). …”

Remote and unresearched: educational leadership in Canada's Yukon Territory

“…(64) In North America, while the term leader in Apache might translate to somebody who is boss or tells you what to do, in other contexts it might mean someone who goes first, or refer to the distributed actions of a group of people conducted in a decentralised and organic manner (Bryant 1998). As a result, the discourse of homogeneity (Fitzgerald 2003) is one to be avoided, no matter the leadership views under study.…”

“…This choice has been made for the following reasons. First, as evidenced by the citation from Fitzgerald (2003) employed at the beginning of this section, further examination of Indigenous theory would serve to add to and enrich the body of knowledge specific to leadership. Second, if context is indeed relevant to the enactment of leadership, examining this further fits well with the northern context within which the author is situated as a resident, educator, and school administrator.…”

Advocating a Post-structuralist Politics for Educational Leadership

“…The field of ELMA has long been associated with maintaining its own logic and presuppositions have not only remained impervious to much of the theoretical and analytic practices of the social sciences, but these presuppositions have also marginalised discourses relating to feminism, ethnicity and race (Blackmore, 1999;Fitzgerald, 2003aFitzgerald, , 2003b. More recently, issues of social justice and equity have emerged as foci of study, yet to date, there has been a limited critical engagement with the troubling of these concepts in themselves (see Gowlett, 2013b).…”