Abstract
The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 confers equality on all South African citizens regardless of race and gender. It has been reported that, under apartheid, gender inequality was a way of life and even social liberation movements observed it. Education is not exempt from gender inequality; the Department of Education in 2003 produced the Gender Equality In Education policy. The then Minister of Education committed to the policy and adopted the mainstreaming of gender and the training of education administrators in the implementation of gender equity programmes. Despite these efforts, male dominance continues in areas such as educational leadership. This paper employs a case study approach to investigate the role of institutional culture in undermining the constitutional aim of attaining gender equality. Using feminist critical policy analysis theory to study the mentoring and management style employed in a South African rural high school, the article concludes that despite the policy imperatives, the conservative and patriarchal tendencies within educational leadership undermine the attainment of gender equality. To attain success, implementation of gender policies needs to be strictly monitored.
Introduction
It is expressed in the National Policy Framework for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality (Office on the Status of Women) that South Africa’s goals towards achieving gender equality are guided by a vision of human rights that includes acceptance of equal rights for all men and women. Under the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (Act 108 of 1996) (Republic of South Africa, 1996), this is a fundamental ideal. It emerged from a history of apartheid or separate development where life chances were developed along racial and gender lines. Women were less likely to be in decision-making positions and men had more power. To remedy the situation, the Presidency proposed the adoption of the National Policy Framework for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality. This gender policy framework puts gender equality in the middle of transformation as it establishes guidelines, defines new terms of reference and proposes a new institutional framework that facilitates equal access to opportunities for men and women, which is a progressive step. The policy is broad and is not sector-specific. All the various government departments are signatories to it and, with guidance from the gender policy framework, they must create their own policies in relation to their challenges.
In South Africa gender equality is pursued through the constitution, the establishment of a Commission on Gender Equality, the gender policy framework and the various strategies and policies in particular departments, and the establishment of the Department of Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities. To be aligned to this policy framework, Professor Bhengu, the first Minister of Education in the democratic South Africa, commissioned research to advise on the role education could play in addressing inequalities on the basis of gender (Chisholm and September, 2004). Among other areas dealt with, the Gender Equity Task Team (GETT; DoE, 1997) report charted the need for intervention in gender and educational management and the training of men and women in administration. This section was of great value not just because education reform depends largely on good leadership, but also because South African educational leadership has a record of resisting change and favouring males (Chisholm, 2001).
To change educational management, the report recommended that the department establish a Gender Equity Unit and train administrators (Pandor, 2004). The Department of Education went further than this: in 2003 it produced the Gender Equality in Education policy. The then Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor, committed to the policy and adopted the mainstreaming of gender and the training of education administrators in the implementation of gender equity programmes.
Despite this policy framework, achieving the goals was not easy. If anything, in some cases, people took one step forward and two backward. In an analysis of the institutionalization of gender in the South African state, Chisholm and September (2004) discovered that the shifts and gains in education in terms of gender relations were almost minimal because of social resistance. As a result of this resistance, researchers of gender in education focused more on trying to understand why there was resistance and how to overcome this challenge. It is against this background that I developed an interest in studying how schools, as a part of the government machinery as well as being institutions in their own right, were interpreting and consequently implementing the policy of Gender Equality in Education. My motivation came from understanding that the national policies were not addressing questions of what happens inside educational institutions (Chisholm and Unterhalter, 1999). I chose to study a rural high school. In particular, I was interested in the gendered processes of the decentralized system of education governance and leadership, and if and how the policy helps to transform the gendered culture of schools and alters power relations between men and women.
Literature review
Gender gap
Despite the policies, strategies and mechanisms put in place by the South African government to implement gender equality in state institutions, Chisholm (2001) shows that South African educational leadership favours males and resists change. In a study of females who managed to break through into the leadership of the Department of Education in Gauteng province, Chisholm (2001) discovered that some of those who were promoted became frustrated and ultimately left the education sector. This failure to transform the system, make it more inclusive and fulfil the gender equality mandate, implies that females are disregarded in relation to their constitutionally bestowed right of equality, especially with regard to preparation for appointment to, or retention in, educational management positions (Diko, 2007; Mogadime et al., 2010). Race compounds the difficulties that women face in educational leadership. Mahlase’s study (1997) of the impact and effects of apartheid policies on educational leadership used race, colour and ethnicity as lenses to investigate the problem. Studies such as those by Chisholm (2001) and Diko (2007) go beyond studying how apartheid policies continue to limit women’s opportunities as educational leaders, even in this era when democratic policies should protect and support the advancement of women leaders. They also explore how institutions, such as schools and government departments, fail to open up spaces for women to lead or encourage them to perform well once they attain leadership. They expose how leadership is constructed and reproduced as a masculine trait, despite the array of policies formed to mainstream gender and transform educational leadership. In this paper I intend to highlight how the gendered practices of education leaders at the case study school work against the constitutional goal of gender equality and thus perpetuate gender inequalities.
In this case, leadership means influencing other people’s actions to achieve desirable ends, and a manager is someone who effectively and efficiently maintains current organizational arrangements (Bush, 2007). These are distinct and yet important actions in terms of fulfilling institutional goals and visions, and school principals need to be able to perform activities that demonstrate their visionary and strategic leadership and management skills. They should be able to understand and implement new policies.
The role of culture in maintaining the status quo
Moorosi (2008), Diko (2007), Chisholm (2001) and Mahlase (1997) blame the under-representation of South African women in educational leadership and management on institutional culture, and argue strongly that unhelpful cultural expectations about women prevail to the present day. Gender stereotyping is one of the major causes of under-representation of women in educational leadership (Chabaya et al., 2009). Men are socially constructed so as to have the upper hand in areas of power. Culture includes the way things are done, as well as the beliefs and values that people hold (Thurlow et al., 1999). Byrd (2009) reports that men have more social power, dominance and control, and that this encourages and enables them to become leaders. Moorosi (2008) and Diko (2007) assert that the cultural context of rural schools is particularly slow to adapt and transform, and that this provides men with opportunities to dominate. According to the Chisholm (2001) study, the key issue for the women who were leaders within the Gauteng Department of Education was a culture where men were taken more seriously than women. Women reported that, generally, there was a lack of recognition, visibility and support for women from their superiors. They were promoted to leadership positions and yet the context was not changed to accommodate them. People still bypassed and overlooked them, and ignored their work. Chisholm argues that the situation was different for black men. They had a much stronger sense of recognition and visibility.
Although the racial classifications of the apartheid era no longer carry legal weight, studies like that of Chisholm prove that gender discrimination is worsened by race. A study supporting this view was conducted by Mahlase (1997). She concluded that race, culture and ethnicity affect and define females in educational management positions and that even policies intended to improve matters for females are not effective where they are not uniform. She observed that a lack of policy and the persistence of cultural stereotypes were some of the main factors that militate against women’s appointment and promotion into educational leadership and management positions.
The policy context of gender inequality
Today, in gender terms, the South African Parliament is one of the most progressive in the world. The country has a Department of Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities; many ministers are women; the Department of Basic Education is headed by a woman, and her predecessor was a woman as well. But there are challenges. Not all of the nine provincial departments of education are aggressively pursuing policies of gender equality in education. Some do not yet have specific gender policies. This situation has negative implications for schools, with students lacking positive role models, and the school leadership and management tending not to mainstream gender issues or being slow implementing the process. The following question is thus central to this article: what factors might be impeding the implementation of the progressive policy of gender equality in educational leadership and management in the case study school?
There have been specific government-initiated attempts to reverse gendered thinking around the issue of education management and leadership. One of these is the South African Schools Act of 1996 (SASA) (Department of Education, 1996), responsible for the creation of School Governing Bodies (SGBs). Amongst its many objectives, this act attempts to rectify gendering of roles in schools. It abolishes the sex-typing of leadership and the top-down approach to education leadership that operated under apartheid. It allows the various school interest groups, including women, the right to be represented in school leadership and governance, and to lead.
Despite this corrective step, SASA does not do enough. It fails to stipulate ways of avoiding re-enactment of the traditional gendered power relations in school management and governance. Instead, it encourages the continuance of past practices, particularly in rural areas and townships where parents are not literate enough to participate effectively in such management. School principals, who are predominantly male, continue to direct schools through their own interpretation and implementation of SASA (Diko 2004). Consequently, gendered practices continue to be prevalent in some schools. Ramagoshi (2005), observing this tendency to revert to the familiar, reported that females aspiring to become education leaders are still sidelined. Naledi Pandor (2004), a former Minister of Education, concerned about this continuing situation, said that where women strive for management positions, there is a notable failure to open up space for them.
Theoretical framework
Feminist critical policy analysis assumes that women’s oppression is inscribed in the positioning of women in the social, political and cultural order. According to this theory, policies must be analysed in a way that acknowledges the influence of broader cultural, social and political factors on women’s lives. It recognizes that policy arenas are managed and controlled primarily by men, and that therefore they marginalize women’s needs and perspectives (Marshall, 1997a, 1997b). In this view, women are placed at the margins of policy arenas, and mainstream policy privileges acts that maintain oppressive relations.
This paper borrows from such feminist critical policy analysis, which places the power, policies and structures that maintain the domination of women at its centre and acknowledges the broader cultural, social and political factors affecting women’s lives. It examines how the management style of the principal and the rest of the management structure in the case study school, as well as the accompanying smaller management structures, fail to promote gender equality in the school and consequently pander to maintaining the status quo instead of dismantling it. This scenario is placed against the background of the country’s transformative constitutional mandate as well as national performance in the promotion of gender equality since 1994. According to the National Gender Policy Framework, the main objectives of the current government include ‘engendering all institutions of the state, increasing the number of women occupying senior positions in government institutions and transforming gender relations’. The issue I discuss here is important because educational leadership is central to the improvement of instruction and educational quality (Spillane, 2003), and female principals have a huge role to play in improving educational quality. Even though the fieldwork was conducted some years ago, the study remains relevant. The problems we faced at that time have not been fully solved.
Research methodology
This is a qualitative case study of how a South African high school was slow to meaningfully open up educational leadership to accommodate women. According to government standards, the school examined in this study is a high-performing rural coeducational high school. Many of the teachers live in the towns around the school while some live in staff cottages or nearby villages. The school is an interesting case for studying the implementation of the gender equality policy because it is perceived to be one of the best in the region. It is always one of the top-performing schools in terms of matriculation results. Its mission and vision aim at promoting teaching and learning. It can definitely be classified as a functional school with all the necessary management systems in place (Bush, 2007). The various management structures and subcommittees in operation at the school will be discussed later.
The research methodology included observation and individual and group interviews. I interviewed all of the teachers in the various management structures, some parents in the school governing body (SGB), some education development officials, the then Member of the Executive Council for the Eastern Cape Education Department, the Secretary-General of the Eastern Cape branch of the South African Democratic Teacher’s Union (SADTU) and the head of the Women’s Desk for the Eastern Cape branch of SADTU. The interviews lasted between 30 and 90 minutes. Some were tape-recorded, and in some cases I took notes. I observed teaching and sports, and disciplinary and staff meetings. To comprehend the Department of Basic Education’s concept of gender equality, the interviews were followed by documentary research. This involved studying school policies, minutes of meetings, notices sent to teachers and all available departmental communications. Data analysis and coding followed Miles and Huberman’s (1984) reiterative approach. The research question, stated in the section ‘The policy context of gender inequality’, guided how I responded to the emerging themes as I read and reread the transcriptions and notes.
Key findings and discussion
Leadership and gender equality
The key policy for governing South African schools is the South African Schools Act of 1996 and the case study school implemented this policy in conformity with its stipulations. Clearly, the school leadership understood its duties in this regard. When the study participants were asked to explain the mission and vision of the school, they were all clear that it is teaching and learning. As its vision and mission indicated, the school was very compliant with regards to implementing instruction-related government policies. To support teaching and learning, the school also observed strict governance. There was strict observance of teaching time, with very few deviations. This was supported by the enforcement of a strict code of discipline for teachers and learners.
Borrowing from feminist critical policy analysis, which assumes that the oppression of women is inscribed in their positioning, this section of the paper focuses on five of the subcommittees (sport, entertainment, disciplinary, catering and cleaning) as they were those that were fully operational at the time of the study. There is a focus on gender relations in the school through studying the power and influence of the women in these committees, as well as how the people in them construct leadership and respond to it. Because school leadership is a practice and not necessarily a role (Scribner and Bradley-Levine, 2010), in order to understand where the influence and power of school leadership lie it focuses on the processes of influence that occur during social interactions in these committees. Such investigation does not cover formal educational leadership alone. It also studies its cultural constructions that tend to assign power to men (Scribner and Bradley-Levine, 2010).
Gender in the school’s leadership and management committees
Our Constitution establishes the democratic principles of governance. School governance and leadership has to abide by these principles as well as the SASA. As stated above, the case study school was a firm observer of SASA and the school was fully functional. Assisting the principal in this regard were the five leadership and management subcommittees listed above. Diko (2004) argues that three of the subcommittees were critical to the operation of the school: the sport, entertainment and disciplinary committees. Considerable power and control were attached to positions on these subcommittees, and teachers holding them could control resources, punishments and even information.
The sport and entertainment committees were headed by a young male assistant teacher. In his position as a sports master and head of the entertainment committee, he was in overall charge of the planning of extracurricular activities for the academic year. The school had a demanding sports and entertainment calendar. This opportunity provided the sports master with exposure to a detailed understanding of leading and managing a school, such as planning, problem solving and the handling of extremely challenging assignments. He had a budget, from which he had the authority to distribute funds, and at the end of the year he was accountable for expenditure. The disciplinary committee was another subcommittee that was headed by a male. It was fully functional, and discipline was enforced in the form of corporal punishment. Learners and parents were highly cooperative in this regard. When there were serious disciplinary issues, they were referred to this committee. This teacher enjoyed the same prominence, exposure and professional development benefits as the head of the entertainment and sport committees. Females were entrusted with heading the catering and cleaning committees. The teachers heading these committees were not usually busy and the positions had very little power attached to them. There was little if any planning required, neither was there budgetary or any other type of strategic management. The teachers did not always interact with the other teachers or learners regarding activities that need to be performed by the two committees. There was no need for a year or quarterly plan because cleaning that involved all the school was left to the end of the term or was done in an ad hoc manner, and could be assigned to offenders when punished for some transgression. Catering too was intermittent, carried out when there was a game or celebration. Even in such cases, the duties performed by this committee did not provide teachers with the necessary mentoring, guidance, space and expertise required to advance to school management positions. The nature of the positions only allowed the kind of training that teaches women how to be good mothers, as they entailed food preparation, cleaning, laundering and caring in the school. These tasks are not as mentally engaging and challenging as those done, for example, by a sports master. Heading the cleaning and catering committees for the most part needs practical organizational skills and sufficient care for others, rather than strategic skills. In addition, the person heading these committees does not have the power of the sports master or the chairperson of the entertainment committee (Diko, 2004).
At face value, the school observed gender equality. The school management team had five members: three females and two males. Numbers are not reliable indicators of gender equality. They tend to mask gaps in the implementation of gender equality. In this case, despite the numbers, males were still able to continue to entrench their authority in the school and delegate minor roles to females. This tendency is not new. Doing business as usual is one of the ways in which the education system perpetuates gender inequality in educational leadership, a phenomenon Chisholm (2001) observed in the Gauteng Department of Education, where females were disregarded in relation to their constitutionally bestowed right of equality, especially with regard to preparation for appointment to or retention in educational management positions. By continuing to maintain power relations of the past, the case study school fails to transform, fails to make its management more inclusive and fails to fulfil the gender equality mandate. By implication, females are disregarded in relation to their constitutionally bestowed right of equality, especially with regard to preparation for appointment to or retention in educational management positions.
Below is given the story of a controversial decision taken by the school principal about a female teacher who had just graduated from one of the universities in the province. This teacher volunteered to help in the teaching of mathematics and physical science until she got a job. The manner in which the principal handled the issue showed how he had consolidated power in his hands. Academically, the volunteer teacher was well-qualified and no one doubted her educational qualifications. Moreover, she was a graduate of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, one of the best universities in the province. The teachers were excited about her volunteering; however, there was also disagreement about her role as she was inexperienced in teaching. The head of the department for mathematics and science, a female, as the person who had the subject expertise to decide how this teacher could be utilized, said that due to the competitive nature of the end-of-year Grade Twelve examinations, the interests of the school would be best served if the volunteer teacher were to teach only up to Grade Eleven. The principal wanted the volunteer teacher to teach all grades, including Grade Twelve. As a compromise, the head of department suggested that Grade Twelve teachers who used the volunteer teacher should go to class with her regularly and should never leave her alone with their classes. After the arrangement was initiated, the volunteer started teaching; the male teacher responsible for teaching mathematics to the twelfth grade class would take advantage of the differences in opinion and sit in the staffroom and chat, instead of going to class with the volunteer as requested by the subject expert. The head of department told me that she was frustrated by the issue and she felt she was being doubly undermined because of the use of the volunteer for twelfth grade and, even worse, because the subject teacher was not going to class at all. She told me it would have been better if she had been consulted by the principal prior to agreeing to have the volunteer in the school to see if and how they could use her services. The teachers took the principal’s consent to the volunteer’s request as permission for them to stay away from classes. The teachers’ understanding of who has authority in the school and their rejection of female authority is quite telling. Ramagoshi (2005: 136) argues that the culture of associating educational leadership with a male figure persists, and continues to undercut the policy of gender equality. This example supports that view.
Failing the policy
The transformation focus of my research school was narrow. It focused on curriculum implementation and school governance and less on altering the gendered practices of the leadership. In all of the time that I was in the school, I never observed a situation where the male teachers assigned with management responsibilities were publicly overruled by the principal or undermined by other staff members. However, when it came to the case of the females in leadership positions, this practice was common. Such episodes followed a fairly similar pattern. They would start with teachers complaining to the principal about a decision taken by a female teacher, and the principal reversing the decision even if it had already been implemented. It is clear that the way in which leadership is constructed at the case study school, and the context within which the school operates, still favour males. Though officially the school management team (SMT) has more females than males, in practice it is males who have the necessary connections. My observation is that women’s roles in the management of the school are insignificant. Male staff members consolidate control and subtly ignore the voices of women. It is clear that gender bias in the case study school is implicit in the management and training structure, and thus reproduces it. The structure has adapted to the stipulations of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa and SASA, but the thinking is still based on the social and cultural construction of gender roles.
Indeed, in spite of the fair representation of women in the SMT, the other indicators of gender equality as discussed above tell a different story. Males performed significant administrative roles. Despite that females were in school administrative positions, they remained outside the informal network of administration. Their contributions to management, notwithstanding the challenges, were limited to those involving curriculum coordination and the provision of support to the system, while men controlled the decision-making processes.
Conclusions
The findings suggest that the implementation of gender equality at the case study school is appropriated by the school in ways that are subtly defiant toward bringing about gender equality in the school. For pragmatic purposes, the principal chose to support and encourage the status quo, and gender equality was interpreted as token inclusion of women in leadership structures. This selective implementation of gender equality is a way of defending male authority and perpetuating past practices, which is not resonant with the spirit of gender equality or the vision of human rights that extends equal rights to all men and women.
This study concludes that if the case study school does not put its own gender policy in place, it will continue to fail to respond to the transformational mandate of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. It should put in place a policy framework for implementing the country’s gender policy and to support women who are in leadership positions. For the school to attain and maintain meaningful gender equality, it should borrow ideas from what is being done by the national government. It should develop gender-sensitive policies and aggressively implement them. The policy framework should address each of the different areas that encourage the anomaly to continue within the school, be they sport, educational leadership and so on. The few examples discussed of the gendered nature of school practices are only a small part of the areas that schools use to maintain their cultural heritage. Schools should discuss their most problematic areas and agree on relevant gender mainstreaming activities and begin with those. Females could be allowed to lead such initiatives as they are more likely than men to know what the problems are. To encourage buy-in, the policies should be drawn and implemented by the whole school community, and they should be reviewed from time to time to indicate areas of success and areas that need improvement. This will prevent compromises and relapses. Schools can also recognize gender-sensitive activities performed by communities, teachers and learners, particularly actions that are initiated by individuals. This will encourage people to think of ways to help women to advance to and to stay in leadership positions.