Female secondary school principals

Purpose

This study examines two female principals in upper secondary schools ¹ and the development of their professional identities. Professional identity develops from individual self-concepts based on beliefs, values, motives, attributes, and experiences with others (Ibarra, 1999; Slay and Smith, 2011). Scribner and Crow (2012) define it as a way to understand “…what influences a leader’s behaviors and what drives a leader’s willingness and ability to take on and enact creative and effective leadership in a high-stakes, dynamic knowledge society” (p.245). Møller (2003, 2004) adds that professional identity connects one’s personal and professional arenas.

This study, which focuses on women leaders in upper secondary schools in Sweden and Texas, USA, is part of a larger international research project and global conversations about what successful leadership means. In this study we explore the following question: In what ways do female secondary school principals’ professional identities inform equity issues in leadership with implications for recruitment, hiring, and evaluation practices?

Rationale

The gender distribution of women in school leadership, especially in secondary schools, continues to be uneven in many countries (Blackmore, 2002; Coleman, 2000; Lee et al., 1993; Moorosi, 2010; Pont et al., 2008). The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), for example, notes that, while women comprise the majority of teachers, they are underrepresented, especially in secondary school leadership (Pont et al., 2008: 30). This raises concerns in relation to how and if women are considered for leadership positions, and how they may be valued, mentored, or evaluated once in the position. Coleman (2003) describes school leadership as male-dominated and presents an apparent gender-free discourse where “gender does not seem to be considered an essential component of the discussion and classification of leadership theory in education” (p.326). However, she questions how a profession where women tend to numerically predominate in teaching, can carry assumptions that the sex of the individual is irrelevant when holding authority.

While a gender-free discourse allows for more focus on the technical aspects of leadership, such as adherence to state standards and accountability, Scribner and Crow (2012) perceive it as curtailing the value of the professional, including their motivation or commitment in improving schools, arguing that “What is glaringly missing is any mention of creativity, imagination, values beyond local adherence, ingenuity, social contribution, or civic engagement” (p.244). Hence, these scholars argue that gender-free policies do not necessarily mean gender-neutral practices (Bacchi, 1999; Møller, 2003; Reynolds, 2002).

The school principal is perceived as instrumental in providing a vision and mission in improving schools (Leithwood and Day, 2007), and several scholars express a concern related to a shortage of principal candidates (Gajda and Militello, 2008; Gronn and Rawling-Sanaei, 2003; Pounder and Crow, 2005). While the shortage of principals is often attributed to their increasingly complex role, the scholarship on women and educational leadership signals barriers from recruitment to stability, with gender issues not fully incorporated in relation to career barriers women encounter in secondary schools.

Arguably, in response to valuing professional capacity beyond technical skills, USA’s national standards for educational leaders, revised in 2015 by the National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA) (e.g. previous ISSLC standards), have now included human relations terms beyond technical skills, including ethics, equity, and cultural responsiveness, building a community of care, and the engagement of families and community. In addition, the standards include student well-being. The inclusion of terms such as well-being were absent in early versions which emphasized technical skills and knowledge alone, and have now incorporated human considerations about students, teachers, and principals, similar to those found in the Ontario leadership standards (Murakami et al., 2014).

These considerations will hopefully make their way into the processes by which principals are recruited, hired, and evaluated, where gender-informed criteria are established. However, such initiatives can only occur when barriers are extensively researched and confirmed. This study contributes to the examination of values and motivators in the professional identity of female leaders in order to inform such processes. In the following section we provide an overview of the literature related to females in school leadership, and an examination of how gender influences the practices and career promotion of these principals.

Challenges in the work of female secondary principals

Female upper secondary school principals confront male-dominated challenges, including overcoming stereotypes (Andersen, 2016), the effects of political circumstances (Coleman, 2007), and/or negative views of females in leadership (Smith, 2011). Andersen (2016) considered the current market-driven reform as colliding with principals’ values and beliefs. Her research included the UK, Australia, USA, Kuwait, Botswana, and Canada between 1980 and 2013, where “much of the increased complexity in secondary principals’ work has resulted from new rules and models for leadership practice and the requirement to implement mandated policy reforms” (p.690).

Tensions related to accountability vs. professional responsibility challenge the work of female secondary school principals, and affect the development of professional identities. The work of principals involves technical tasks, skills needed to manage tasks, and roles required to perform (Smulyan, 2000). Within this role, Smulyan argues, “The principal is one of many players affected by the interpersonal, political, and physical context within which she works” (p.10). Professional identity involves motivational drivers. Cunliffe and Eriksen (2011) defined this perspective as relational leadership—one that requires “a way of engaging with the world in which the leader holds herself/himself as always in relation with, and therefore morally accountable to others” (p.1425).

In relation to career progress, Grogan and Shakeshaft (2011) challenged us “to imagine the value of everyone leading like a woman” (p.2)—an approach that reflects what Coleman (2000) defined as “the female manager…studied in her own right” (p.14). Even though women demonstrate years of experience as teachers, and are the foundation for the preparation of children, including their own, they are not valued for such skills in the bureaucratic workplace or, moreover, the educational workplace. Assets women bring to schools include a “pupils first” philosophy as the strongest social justice leadership element (Smith, 2011), or the importance of work–life balance as mothers and wives (Bradbury and Gunter, 2006). Nonetheless, Bradbury and Gunter indicate how motherhood and school leadership are set in a flexible state, sometimes conflicting within female leaders’ dialogic identities. Such leadership cannot be perceived as the norm if it is made up of conflicting compromises—of what gives, in the sacrifice of leading schools. Smith recognized that there are less regarded values in analyzing the performance of women leaders, such as presenting a deeper understanding of children and families in the home, being perceived as tough but caring, having a people-oriented focus, and carrying personal and professional ethics adaptable to the local community. Hence, studies that objectify and bureaucratize the organization of schooling continue to raise ethics and equity concerns with regard to the contributions of women.

Gender and professional identities

Professional identity stems from developmental psychology, sociology, social psychology, philosophy, and administrative ethics (Caza and Creary, 2016; Pless, 2007). Pless’s (2007) work is particularly relevant for women leaders, since it relates to female leaders’ motivational systems. Pless focused on the individual’s inner theatre, showing how these motivational and internal drivers guide an individual’s ethics for “responsible leadership behavior and responsible action for social change” (p.438). Emotional and moral experiences beginning in childhood are seen as influencing leadership behavior. Kets de Vries (2004) similarly explored inner motivation as being established in infancy, and influencing behavior throughout an individual’s life cycle. Pless emphasized that the relational nature of leaders is a normative disposition developed under three basic needs: (a) justice, ethics, and morality; (b) recognition, respect, and value; and (c) a sense of care for self and others. These characteristics seem to be significant for school principals. Instrumental is the fact that leadership can be better understood when examining inner motivation coupled with interactions with others.

When observing motivational drives in professional identity, Hall and Southworth (1997), Møller (2003, 2004), Scribner and Crow (2012), and Crow et al. (2017) emphasize the importance of observing the individual’s passion, commitments, and shortcomings. Caza and Creary (2016) reflected that “when professional workers become identified with their profession, they will incorporate distinctive professional values and attitudes into their own self-identity as a result of that membership, and will enact the role expectations of their profession” (p.8). Hall and Southworth (1997) expand:

Using a gender perspective creates new possibilities for exploring the lives of men and women who teach, manage and lead in education. As researchers into headship we have both concluded that educational leadership is firmly rooted in professional identity. Gender, in turn, is a crucial component of that identity. (p.167)

Female principals in Sweden and the USA

School leadership has been male-dominated in Sweden (Davis and Johansson, 2005; Franzén, 2005). The number of female leaders in Sweden in the 1980s was only 7 percent, while 60 percent were female teachers. Males were quickly promoted to leadership, while females stayed as teachers. In the 19th century females were only allowed to lead schools for girls. However, it was not until 1917 when the government allowed women to carry the title of principal (Söderberg Forslund, 2009). In 1958, the title of “Rektor” was adopted for public schools, independent of gender. In the 1960s, girls’ schools were closed and the public view about female leaders started changing. Whether the principal was a man or woman did not seem to matter, especially when the focus on school leadership was connected to democratic values.

A government proposition in 1987/1988, titled “Jämställdhetspolitiken inför 90-talet” (Equality politics for the 1990s), raised the number of females in state organizations. The proposition required that at least 20 percent of principals be female, and at least 30 percent of assistant principals be females (Regeringens proposition, 1987/1988: 105). As a result, the number of female leadership positions increased in the 1990s, while the government decentralized much of the educational responsibilities to the municipalities. With this reform, municipal school boards welcomed females into leadership positions (Davis and Johansson, 2005). Concurrently, preschools, first supervised by social services, were now incorporated into the public education sector, further increasing the number of female leaders in the municipalities. In 2015 there were over 5700 principals and 4900 preschool heads within the Swedish school system. Ninety-two percent of preschool heads and more than 60 percent of all principals in public and independent schools were occupied by women. Currently, 50 percent of 1174 secondary school principals in Sweden are female.

In the USA, women were seen as ideal in the role of teachers in the 19th century, mainly due to their “preponderance of affection over intellect” (Rousmaniere, 2013: 21). Educators followed a path from teacher to principal, with an over-representation of women in leadership positions in the early grades. The average tenure for women principals in one state between 1900 and 1930 was about five years.

Rousmaniere (2013) explains that a change in women’s leadership happened after 1944, with the adoption of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, known as the GI Bill. This Bill covered the cost of higher education for returning war veterans who were mostly men. Due to the Bill, 37 percent more males obtained a teacher’s degree in comparison to 18 percent of women in the mid-1960s, and twice as many males earned master’s degrees in education. A push from states requiring master’s degrees for school administration licensure dramatically restricted the opportunities for women. By 1970 only 20 percent of women were principals in elementary schools, and only 3 percent were employed in secondary schools. It was not until the 1990s that the representation of women in leadership began to increase again. There have been no specific requirements for the representation of women in school leadership positions.

Female principals in the USA now compose 52 percent of the workforce. From a total of 115,540 principals in public K-12 schools in 2012, 64 percent of females led public primary schools, 42 percent led middle schools, 30 percent led high schools, and 40 percent led combined schools (Bitterman et al., 2013). Thirty-two percent of 5079 female principals work in secondary schools (AskTED, 2014). The average age for female principals is between 48 and 52 years old. About 62 percent of these females hold master’s degrees and 10 percent hold doctorate degrees. The average number of years of experience among female principals is 7.2 years. These leadership experiences among women in these two countries motivates this examination. In the next section we expand on the methodological approach for this study.

Procedures

A feminist post-structural discourse analysis was employed. This is defined as “a feminist approach to analyzing the ways in which speakers negotiate their identities, relationships and positions in their world according to the ways in which they are located by competing yet interwoven discourses” (Baxter, 2003: 1). The approach equips researchers to “see through” the ambiguous “discursive contexts where females are located as simultaneously powerful and powerless” (Foucault, 1972: 32). Foucault’s point relates to revealing individual experiences in organizations through meaning, relationships, and “the construction of speakers’ subjectivities or identities” (p.8), especially when observing the impact of oppressive social processes. Interviews, observations, and documents were used in the investigation. Questions in the interview included: (a) Considering your professional identity as a secondary female leader, what images of the school leader role reflect what you believe, value, and do?; (b) How do you think teachers, students, parents, partners, supervisors view you in terms of what you do, value, and believe?; (c) What are the major values that motivate and influence your work?; (d) How do emotions influence your values, practices, and images of the role?; and (e) In what ways has gender influenced your development as a professional? Principals were interviewed twice in 60–90-minute sessions. One principal was interviewed after leading a successful school in Sweden for two years, and one in the USA after leading her school for six years.

Participants

Two female principals in secondary schools from Sweden and Texas, USA, were selected through a purposive sampling based on ISSPP criteria. The schools presented student academic achievement above the mean for municipality/district expectations, and supervisor/superintendent and/or teachers perceived the principal as successful based on actions and results. Here we present more details about the two participants:

Analysis

The analysis considered national differences in the acceptance of women in school leadership positions. Language and projection of images stemming from professional identity discourses were observed, knowing that “women leaders have to be more concerned with the impact of their language upon their professional colleagues than male leaders have to be, and consequently have [to develop] a range of linguistic strategies to counter negative judgements” (Baxter, 2009: 9).

Ethical considerations included one researcher from Sweden and one from the USA to assist in validating assumptions and problematizing our analysis of data. We considered the participants as case exemplars of successful school leadership but not as representatives that can be generalized to state or national contexts. A dialogical process (Gillespie and Cornish, 2009) considered implicit and explicit implications for potential application into recruitment, hiring, and evaluation practices. In the analysis first cycle we interpreted definitions (such as head teachers in Sweden, and principals in the USA). Subsequent cycles analyzed images and motivational drivers used to develop a professional identity. Trustworthiness was observed through disciplined subjectivity of assumptions and interpretation of data from different countries through a member-checking process to avoid possible biases.

A democratic leadership style: competency, professionalism, and ethical behavior

The principals centered their leadership style based on terms that included competency, professionalism, and ethical behavior. The participants showed democratic leadership, when considering Eagly and Johnson’s (1990) measure of women leaders as presenting a democratic style (as opposed to autocratic) where women encouraged participation and collaboration in decision-making. Interestingly, in Sweden, democracy is highly emphasized in society. However, in Texas, democracy is not necessarily a common word used to define civic participation. As an example of democratic leadership, Angela encouraged member participation in decisions:

I would describe myself as a very collaborative leader. I involve all the people that want to be at the table making a decision. I am not the kind of person that if you disagree with me, I am going to be mad at you.

Angela included professionalism in her discourse, working hard to demonstrate a strong work ethic, and to project an image of reliability. She was soft spoken and courteous with students and faculty, and friendly and accessible with parents and students. She saw herself as a leader who others would follow. Her example related to teacher relations, which can threaten how principals are perceived. She talked about her previous female principal to explain her commitment to student improvement:

People loved and hated that principal. She was very strict, very to the point—“Here is how we are going to do things.” But if you were ethical and did your job, she did not bother you at all. So the people who did not do their jobs did not like her. I understood the implications of being strict and ethical. That was actually the point in which I thought I might want to be a principal.

Professionalism in leadership included being attentive to meeting the needs of teachers, parents, and students for Linda. She saw professionalism as pedagogical: “I have to be able to be pedagogical, and explain things to the teachers in a way that they can understand the whole situation….” Values related to democratic or participatory leadership style were demonstrated, including notions of pedagogical leadership, and female qualities focused on competency, professionalism, and ethics as positively impacting schools.

Leadership development: working towards recognition, respect, and value

When focusing on professional development, the principals’ discourse involved awareness of their representation as females. Their reflections about women at home, school, work, and society provide direction for career stability and job satisfaction. The principals expressed the development of women in leadership in relation to individual and public recognition, where respect, and value for young and adult females, is lacking. In Texas, female upper secondary school principals have the lowest retention in the position when compared to males and females in all other school levels (Fuller and Young, 2009). In the state, just over 50 percent of newly hired principals stay for three years and less than 30 percent stay for five years.

Angela was in her sixth year as a principal at Knight High School and reported the importance of mentorship and support among supervisors. In her district/municipality, the salary compensation for program supervisors (i.e. directors of programs) and high school principals were at the same pay scale. Thus, program directors who supervised programs competed for visibility. She found it harder to receive mentoring, especially when the directors were female:

It is a bit related to where historically males are the ones to be respected, and there is a competition for women to have visibility. The environment is male-oriented at the superintendency level. Then, as a co-worker you become a competition and not really a collaborator. There is no way for you to have a relationship if the person is focused on competition. I have never been asked “Is it harder for you to be a principal as a female?” It is not hard to be a principal. It is harder to deal with unsupportive co-worker relations. There are fewer colleagues to build a relationship when there is only one other upper secondary school in town led by a male. It is common to hear about the male principal something like “Oh, what a good principal!” and it is also common to hear about female principals something like, “Who does she think she is?!”

Crow et al. (2017) argue that principals are developing an identity as they interpret and act upon dynamic patterns of negotiating policies, exercising their authority based on past and future projections. Angela demonstrated this idea and felt she was breaking historical barriers even when in dialogue with her mother:

When I was working on my principal certification my mother asked, “Are you going to be an elementary [primary] principal?” I said Mom, I have never even taught elementary, why would I be an elementary principal?” “Well because you are a female.” I said, no Mom, I am not going to be an elementary principal, because I do not know anything about elementary. But in her mind, that is what females did, they were elementary principals.

Angela perceived that effectiveness had to be demonstrated in spite of public gender perceptions. She described the struggle of being a mother and wife while building a career as a leader, not only from the family point of view, but from the expectations from others. For example, she talked about societal perceptions of girls. She recounted:

There was something on the news the other day. It said we teach little girls not to be bossy. A lot of times we are taking away leadership skills from girls. It said little girls are not supposed to be bossy but submissive and cute.

Linda also perceived that leadership is less assessed in relation to care and more about responsibility. When becoming the principal of the same school where she was a teacher, she perceived that the job required her to change from an ethic of care to effectiveness:

I thought I was going to be a great colleague and help teachers have a great job when I became the principal—but my focus quickly moved to making sure that students here had a good experience—much more than ensuring that teachers had a good job. It was a process I had to go through of seeing things more from the students’ success point of view.