Feminist Educational Leadership: Locating the concepts in practice

Beyond obstacles and problems: women principals in Spain leading change in their schools

“…Studies highlighting women in administration and the management process (Shakeshaft 1987, Gatenby and Humphries 1999, Skrla 2000, Young and McLeod 2001, Martin and Collinson 2002, Hatcher 2003, in leadership roles (Hall 1996, Drake and Owen 1998, Strachan 1999, Coleman 2003, Fennell 2005 or in the principalship (Smulyan 2000, Oplatka 2001, Eckman 2004) have shown that women in management positions work in organizational cultures dominated by masculine visions and models that reinforce situations of inequality and marginalization. Thus, organisational cultures have created obstacles to women's progress and their access to management positions (Gherardi 1995, Evetts 2000, Rutherford 2001).…”

Gendered views of managing discipline in school and classroom

“…A great deal of research has addressed the differentiation between the attitudes and behaviors of men and women in principalship (see Grace, 1995;Shakeshaft, 1995;Mertz & McNeely, 1998;Strachan, 1999;Oplatka, 2002). Researchers of gender in educational administration posed questions such as: Do male and female principals differ in their behaviors and actions in school?…”

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

“…As Jill Blackmore (1999) has argued unitary theories that explain ways in which women lead and experience leadership are problematic; women leaders are neither the binary opposite of male leaders nor can there be a model of the 'natural and strong' female leader. Although accounts exist that explore the complex and contested educational work of women leaders (Strachan, 1999), further work needs to be completed on the interplay between gender, ethnicity and educational leadership. In particular I am concerned that Indigenous voices are heard; not as a harmonious choir but as a cacophony of voices that celebrates distinctiveness within an Indigenous framework.…”

“…There are now considerable theoretical and empirical studies on women and educational leadership that have emerged predominantly from the United States (Chase, 1995;Grogan, 1996;Shakeshaft 1987), Britain (Adler, Laney and Packer, 1993;Coleman, 2001;Ozga, 1993), Australia (Blackmore, 1999;Limerick and Lingard, 1995) and New Zealand (Court, 1995(Court, , 1998Strachan, 1999). These studies have fundamentally contested claims such as those expounded by two of the 'fathers' of educational administration theory, Hodgkinson (1991) and Sergiovanni (1992) that top-down 'visionary' leadership was possible and permissible and that issues of social class, gender, race and ethnicity are unproblematic.…”