Chapter
Twelve: Discussion
I started this research
to gain greater insight into the influences on the journey of a woman who has “arrived”
at the apex of school leadership in New Zealand. This investigation has revealed that there
are no magic answers into how women can prepare for the position but it does
document Janet’s career path and therefore her life journey (Jones & Le Fevre, 2015). My conviction
has been strengthened that from very early on in their careers women need to be
aware of the barriers that may stop or slow them down on their trek upwards towards
principalship especially in New Zealand’s neo-liberal context and learn how to
navigate through or around them. Simultaneously,
women must grow the enablers that will support them in any future expeditions. Individual women do have to take
responsibility and champion themselves (Kelsey et al., 2014) but society also
needs a political shift to incorporate these ideas (Grogan
& Shakeshaft, 2011).
12.1 Confidence “I didn’t have the
confidence, I actually didn’t think that I could do the job” (Janet)
One of the key themes
that came through in my interview with Janet was her confidence in her own
ability to contemplate principalship. Men
often just take a chance on a promotion whereas women may feel like they need to tick all
the boxes before they can confidently apply for a role (Futures Leaders Trust
as cited in Tickle, 2015, September, 29).
Society
must find ways to develop confidence in female leaders by building up the
enablers and minimising or breaking the barriers to guarantee an increase in the
number of female principals in schools as well as male principals who do not
fit into a constricting masculine construct (Moorosi, 2015).
12.2 Strengthening enablers
The enablers that
guided Janet up the mountain towards principalship and also keep her strong while
she stays there include: role models, mentors, networks and professional
development. It is important for other
female future leaders that individual women, schools and the Ministry of
Education/Government consider how to strengthen these enablers.
12.3 Principals as role models
to boost women’s confidence
Principals, including Janet,
hold powerful positions and their leadership impacts on large populations of
students and staff as they enact expectations about how men and women should
behave (Fawver, 2014; Fuller, 2013).
Cultural scripts are immersed and learned across the gender divide
reproducing social codes and behaviour (Shah, 2015) and if there are not female
principals, such as Janet, in positions of power then power becomes associated only
with males (Lumby, 2009). Of course there shouldn’t be tokenism
but as humans vicariously learn women and girls along with men and boys need a
range of role models (Fawver, 2014; Neale & Ozkanli, 2011;
Painter-Morland, 2011). By challenging negative perceptions
and stereotypes, and specifically showing that being a principal and a mother
of young children is compatible (Tickle, 2015, June 2), would-be female leaders
will be encouraged to scale the mountain and a wide pool of successful women
leaders can be developed (Sanchez & Thornton, 2010; Webster, 2015).
12.4 Mentors and networks to
support women leaders
Mentors helped Janet
and continue to assist other women to increase their self-concept, self-belief
and confidence levels in their career development and psychosocial roles (Christman
& McClellan, 2008; Kelsey et al., Litmanovitz, 2011; 2014; Randell, 2015;
Sanchez & Thornton, 2010; Sherman, 2005). However, mentors need to
be reflective and if possible trained (Jones & Le Fevre, 2015;
Wilson-Tagoe, 2015). Alongside this a
mentee needs someone she respects and admires (Shoaf & Britt, 2009); someone
who owns her values, thoughts and emotions and who “walks the talk” (Gardner, Avolio,
Luthans, May & Walumba, 2005; Shamir & Eilam, 2005; Shoaf & Britt,
2009). If a woman cannot find a mentor
or needs extra assistance she could join a network for women leaders to
counteract the old boys club (Martin, 2015; Masters, 2015; Wilson-Tagoe, 2015).
This network could organise opportunities to shadow female principals (Kelsey
et al., 2014; Taukamo, 2011), give encouragement and increase confidence
levels.
12.5 Professional development
as an enabler
Janet identified professional
development as an enabler in her career path.
She concurs with Patuawa (2006) that experience or “just in time
learning” is the most powerful. However,
formal
professional learning may boost women further up the mountain as female exceptional
candidates may create a more level playing field to compete with males (Shakeshaft et al., 2015; Skinner,
2009).
The National Aspiring
Principals Programme and the University Educational Leadership Programmes are avenues which could specifically support
female leaders as advocated by Taukamo (2011) in New Zealand for Māori
women, Oplatka and Tamir (2009) in
Israel, and Young and McLeod (2001) in the USA. A proposal of
the Pay and Employment Equity Review (Ministry of Education, 2008) was that the
National Aspiring Principals Programme should provide specific career
development for women but this hasn’t been specified as part of its remit from
the Ministry of Education (J. Lunn, National
Aspiring Principals Programme, personal communication, October 15, 2015). Currently, the focus of the National Aspiring
Principals Programme is on developing “adaptive, culturally responsive,
digitally literate leaders through inquiry learning, and building their
understanding of the research base around leadership” which are all vitally
important skills especially relationship building and conflict resolution (Duncan,
2013). Regrettably, as women like Janet,
already have some of these skills through their pastoral responsibilities in
school (Coleman, 2009) this remit may limit them because they need to develop
the “hard skills” for their neo-liberal principal tool kit. Janet specifically discussed her lack of
financial skills that she needs now as a principal.
12.6 Pulling down barriers
Gender is a common theme
in Janet’s identified barriers and women’s choices can be encumbered by
society’s expectations of them (Hansen, 2014). Janet did not verbalise that
becoming a wife or a mother was a barrier (with all the negative connotations
associated with the word barrier itself) in her career path towards
principalship. Nevertheless, as shown
above, gender barriers still do exist for women (and some men) and that individual
female leaders in schools, schools themselves and the Ministry of Education/Government
should consider how to pull them down.
12.7 Conscious raising - with the whole school community
One way to pull down
the gender barriers is through consciousness raising with the whole school
community. Leadership is still defined
in masculine terms and women are “systematically and systemically” (Reilly, Bauer, McNee & Reed, 2015)
subordinated through the construction of masculinities (Hansen, 2014). Prestigious positions are seen as male only
by both men and women (Fitzgerald & Wilkinson, 2010; Kelsey et al., 2014; Lyman et al., 2012) and female leaders, like
Janet, as well as men, who might not display the masculine attributes
associated with principalship (Fawver, 2014) will continue to find their
journey difficult until these stereotypes are destroyed. New Zealand needs
authentic leaders who can walk the talk and are trusted by the whole school
community if it is to advance social justice outcomes (Gardner et al.,
2005; Lyman et al., 2012) and authentic leaders
come in all shapes and sizes, ethnicities and genders.
To challenge the stereotypes
of educational leaders (Hansen, 2014) society needs to have macro-institutional
change driven at a micro-institutional level in this case schools as they are
developmental institutions (Morrison, Blood & Thorsborne, 2005). However, before teachers can develop students
they need to be given many opportunities to
discuss social justice concerns where stereotypes of gender and leadership are
explored (Grogan & Shakeshaft, 2011) and reflect why they believe
what they do (Coleman, 2009; Gardner et al., 2005; Lyman et al., 2012; Raffo & Gunter, 2008).
Once this has happened
teachers can use ako (3) (Ka Hikitia, 2008) by collaborating with our young
people to build an understanding of social justice issues and equity including:
what leadership is, their perceptions of who leaders can be, as well as build their
(students and teachers) own capacity and confidence to see themselves as
leaders (Blackmore, 2009; Kelsey et al., 2014).
By doing
this schools can mould culturally and ecologically conscious whānau
(and communities) who are capable of caring for and contributing to the
well-being of others (Taysum & Gunter, 2008).
12.8 Gender mainstreaming and offering a
pluralistic approach
A second way to break down gender inequity and to build
a “gender positive culture” is by schools putting gender back on their agendas
(National Council of Women of New Zealand, 2015, p. 37). To do this they could utilise gender
mainstreaming which is a “gender-political instrument” (Bauer, 2015) to assess
the different implications for women and men of any planned policy action,
including processes, policies and programmes in all areas and levels. When
applied in the right way gender mainstreaming creates new chances and resources
for an organisation to achieve gender equity for both sexes by offering a
pluralistic approach that values the diversity among both women and men (Bauer,
2015). It places a “gender lens” (Bauer, 2015; Ministry of Education, 2008; Robinson & Shakeshaft, 2015) on different
circumstances and investigates the interests of women and men on a regular
basis in all development plans since there is “no gender-neutral reality”
(Gruber, 2015, p. 45).
12.9 Being a wife and a mother
- keeping women “on ramp”
For New Zealand society to
have the best people, like Janet, as principals it is important that policies in
schools are implemented to abolish the barriers that stop mothers from becoming
leaders if they choose to. Schools need
to keep women “on ramp” by understanding the complexities of women’s non-linear
careers and by being prepared to support not punish this (Hewlett, Luce, Schiller
& Southwell, 2005). Men (and women) need to be taught to “wait for” women
on maternity leave and nurture them to gain or retain positions of leadership
when or if they return (Fuller, 2015) perhaps by providing onsite
childcare.
Most
studies pinpointed a supportive spouse and a delay of career until children are
older, which I also found in my study with Janet, as the factors that make the
time commitment to a principal role more bearable (Kelsey et al., 2014) but
this is not the case for all women. Some
women don’t have a supportive spouse or desire to become a principal when their
children are younger. Therefore schools have
to support all women if they choose the very time consuming, multi-layered and
multi-faceted position of principal (Duncan, 2013; Fuller, 2013).
12.10 The role of fathers
As well as breaking down the barriers
for mothers there also needs to be a change in the attitudes and values towards
fathers’ roles including the stigma for men attached to parental leave. In the UK less than 10% of men are taking
more than their two weeks statutory leave as research by law firm Slater and
Gordon revealed that they are too embarrassed to ask for more (2014, as cited
in Jenkin, 2015). In New Zealand paid and
unpaid parental leave can be transferred to fathers (Ministry of Business,
2011) but the majority of men in New Zealand do not take more than the minimum (Gibson,
2013, July 17). "[A]s at 30 June 2014, there were 659 employees (1.4% of
the workforce) on parental leave, 643 of whom were female and 16 male (2013
figures were 617 total, 603 female and 14 males)" (State Services
Commission, 2014, March 12). To counteract this in Sweden the Government insists
that from 2016 men must take 3 months of the 16 months of parental leave
(France-Presse, 2015, May 28).
12.11 My reflection
I have touched on the barriers
and enablers in the climb to principalship for one female, New Zealand European
principal who is over the age of fifty. Women
are not a homogenous or collective group (Fitzgerald & Wilkinson, 2010) and
each woman leads with her intersecting identities (O’Brien & Shea, 2010)
and has different enablers and barriers.
However, I have to agree that it is easier to say: “let’s fix the women
problem” (Smooth, 2010) by itself as social relations of gender and its
intersection with other socio-cultural categories such as race, ethnicity and
socio-economic status are much more complex (Fitzgerald & Wilkinson, 2010; Lyman et al., 2012). I am also the first to admit that I need to have
more understanding about how socio-cultural characteristics influence not only career
paths but lives generally (Fitzgerald & Wilkinson, 2010; Grogan & Sherman Newcomb, 2015) and have
a greater appreciation that they cannot be examined separately from one another
(Grogan & Sherman Newcomb, 2015).
Janet has given me many
insights into the principal role and her career path has thrown up new thoughts
and revelations to myself and hopefully others.
Society needs to build the confidence of future women leaders to believe
that they can be effective, authentic principals as themselves and do not have
to try become “one of them” (Webster, 2015) and
join the old boys club, albeit as an honorary member. It is essential that New Zealand society
encourages and advocates for principals who have similar values to Janet as these
principals have passion for their communities and don’t want to see “any more kids falling through the
cracks.” They are prepared to find creative ways to reconcile social justice
aspirations with neo-liberal market constraints (Stevenson, 2007) to create
equitable outcomes for all students to escape from “exploitation, economic
marginalisation and deprivation” (Taysum & Gunter, 2008, p. 197).
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