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Performing and reforming leaders: Gender, educational restructuring, and organizational change

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Abstract

Performing and Reforming Leaders critically analyzes how women negotiate the dilemmas they face in leadership and managerial roles in Australian schools, universities, and continuing education. To meet the economic needs of the post-welfare nation state of the past decade, Australian education systems were restructured, and this restructuring coincided with many female teachers and academics moving into middle management as change agents. The authors examine how new managerialism and markets in education transformed how academics and teachers did their work, and in turn changed the nature of educational leadership in ways that were dissonant with the leadership practices and values women brought to the job. While largely focused on Australia, Performing and Reforming Leaders strongly resonates with the experiences of leaders in the United States and other nations that have undergone similar educational reforms in recent decades.

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... The effectiveness of teachers' lessons is crucial for raising students' success levels. Since the principal is the campus's educational leader, they must evaluate the working knowledge and motivation of the faculty about effective instructional strategies and then comprehend the demands of their employees to meet those needs (Blackmore & Sachs, 2017). www.ijisrt.com ...
... Furthermore, employee motivation plays a vital role in the delivery of quality instructional strategies by teachers (Blackmore & Sachs, 2017). Employee motivation relates to instructional strategies and teachers' psychological fulfillment and well-being. ...
... The experience of teachers plays a vital role in terms of job performance. The motivation of employees is an essential element for the delivery of quality teaching strategies by teachers (Blackmore & Sachs, 2017). Thus, instructional strategies meet the needs of students, and student performance leads to retention (Tehseen & Ul Hadi, 2015). ...
Research
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This study determined the mediating effect of employee motivation on the relationship between professional knowledge and instructional strategies of teachers. A non- experimental quantitative research design using the descriptive-correlational technique was employed. There were 300 Technology Livelihood Education (TLE) teachers in the Division of Davao de Oro who were chosen through simple random sampling. Three adapted instruments were used to gather the data from the respondents. The tools used in analyzing the data were Mean, Pearson r, Regression and Medgraph using Sobel z-test. Results show that the TLE teachers posted a very high-level professional knowledge, instructional strategies of teachers, and a high level of employee motivation. Findings also reveal that there is a significant relationship between professional knowledge and instructional strategies of teachers, professional knowledge and employee motivation and employee motivation and instructional strategies of teachers. Further, it was found that employee motivation significantly mediates the relationship between professional knowledge and instructional strategies of teachers. With this current propositions, TLE teachers who are highly motivated and are knowledgeable with their work influences their instructional strategies in teaching.
... While the literature (Blackmore & Sachs, 2007;Lai, 2011;Pounder & Coleman, 2002) tells us that there are differences in how males and females approach leadership, does gender determine a leadership style, or does this put us in danger of stereotyping? Women leaders are positioned to function simultaneously in domestic roles and in educational leadership, given that there is an expectation that they are to lead, to elicit change and manage organisational "housework" (Blackmore & Sachs, 2007, p. 15). ...
... This leads us to consider why women are underrepresented in leadership. We know that it is not about capability or ambition; rather, it appears to be the result of limited opportunities compared to the possibilities available to male colleagues, which suggests systemic gender bias (Blackmore & Sachs, 2007). Studies in schools (Blackmore & Sachs, 2007) and industry (Kark et al., 2003) have shown that males consider that women are treated equally; however, women do not agree with this assessment. ...
... We know that it is not about capability or ambition; rather, it appears to be the result of limited opportunities compared to the possibilities available to male colleagues, which suggests systemic gender bias (Blackmore & Sachs, 2007). Studies in schools (Blackmore & Sachs, 2007) and industry (Kark et al., 2003) have shown that males consider that women are treated equally; however, women do not agree with this assessment. There is a tension between how women see themselves and how they are seen by others. ...
... This chapter argues that we are experiencing a second phase of higher education restructuring that is also reconfiguring the social relations of gender within the field (Brooks and Mackinnon 2000, Currie et al. 2000, Deem 2003). The first phase of restructuring that unified, marketised and managerialised higher education systems (Blackmore and Sachs 2007) in Australia and the UK was nation-centric. The second phase emerges from the context in which academic capitalism has gone truly global, fuelled by new technologies and increasingly mobile students, academics and content (Slaughter and Leslie 1997). ...
... Market distinctiveness is also produced through individual university compacts leading to greater institutional differentiation. This globalised phase of restructuring is characterised by the intensification of the processes of corporatisation (managerialism, marketisation and privatisation) that were emergent during the 1990s (Brooks and Mackinnon 2000; Blackmore and Sachs 2007;Marginson and Considine 2000). This resulted in a blurring of public/ private provision, a renewed focus on branding and ranking, moves towards institutional restructuring to encourage interdisciplinarity, demand-driven online curriculum, industry partnerships and the intensification of academic work (Shapper and Mayson 2005;Epstein et al. 2008;Menzies and Newson 2008). ...
... In particular, markets produce 'social settings that foster specific types of personal development and penalise others' (Bakker 1994, 4). In the case of the performative university, they encourage self-interest and self-promotion, being seen to be performing, thus producing an entrepreneurial intellectual habitus and managerial leadership habitus (Metcalfe and Slaughter 2008;Blackmore and Sachs 2007). Markets produce and exploit emotions of anxiety and desire. ...
... In the second half of the 20th century global forces increasingly influenced social and economic policy including education policy. Neoliberal discourse dominated the education policy agenda and reform initiatives both locally and internationally (Apple, 2000;Ball, 1994Ball, , 2008Blackmore & Sachs, 2007;Burbules & Torres, 2000). This played out in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, where social and economic conditions created a context ripe for significant change. ...
... The growth of super national institutions reaches beyond national boundaries to influence decisions at the local level (Apple, 2010;Burbules & Torres, 2000). According to Blackmore and Sachs (2007), the 1990s was a period of contestation between social democratic, neoliberal market, and neoconservative political responses to globalization within many Anglophone governments. This globalization and associated integrated economies strongly influenced education policies. ...
... It is market driven and emphasizes economic efficiency and utility. From an educational policy perspective, it promotes business approaches to school policy, rational management of school organizations, calls for greater efficiency, demands for accountability standards related to curriculum outcomes, and increased performance (Apple, 2000;Ball, 1994, 2008, Blackmore & Sachs, 2007Burbules & Torres, 2000). From a political perspective, this has resulted in the state favoring economic policies over social policies, cutbacks in social programs, regulations favoring corporate growth, and attacks on organized labor. ...
Article
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Neoliberal discourse dominated education policy for decades and fueled reform movements with lasting effects. Through a critical lens this qualitative case study explored policy direction, the influences that shaped multiple years of reform initiatives and the impact of these changes in one Canadian province. Data sources including policy documents, surveys, and interviews, revealed that with each restructuring there was a loss of professional expertise and local governance affecting working conditions, communication, and relationships. Consequently, there was a decline in support for student learning, teachers, and schools. This historical overview informs policymakers challenged with shaping future policy direction in education.
... Acredita-se que a gestão do conhecimento e da aprendizagem organizacional pode facilitar a consecução dos resultados pretendidos pela organização, se alinhados aos fins estratégicos e ao conjunto de competências organizacionais e individuais (BEER et al., 2005), como ao portfólio de recursos da organização (CHIA; MACKAY, 2007;HOLSAPPLE;SINGH, 2001;TEECE, 2010). Acredita-se, ainda, que o conhecimento e a aprendizagem organizacional, ao se vincularem às estratégias (ANTONELLI; CAPPIELLO;PEDRINI, 2013;ALLEN, 2002;MEISTER, 1997), favorecem ao desenvolvimento de competências individuais e organizacionais (BLACKMORE; SACHS, 2012;EL-TANNIR, 2002;GONÇALO;BORGES, 2010;SLAVIN, 2011). ...
... Nota-se que não basta ter o planejamento estratégico e, por isso, acredita-se que há outros elementos que impactam os resultados estratégicos das organizacionais. Neste tema, há evidências teóricas de que a educação corporativa pode se posicionar transversalmente nas estratégias organizacionais, no conjunto de ações e práticas de elaboração das estratégias, de atos decisórios, de execução e análise dos resultados obtidos versus os esperados (BLA-CKMORE;SACHS, 2012;EL-TANNIR, 2002;MEISTER, 1997;SLAVIN, 2011). ...
... Assim, acredita-se que os sistemas educacionais corporativos em hospitais podem melhorar os resultados estratégicos, ao oferecer aprendizagens e conhecimentos que garantam a execução do planejamento e, consequentemente, do desempenho. As ações e políticas educacionais, quando alinhadas ao processo formal de elaboração, formulação e implementação das estratégias, sem negligenciar as estratégias emergentes, podem beneficiar-se de aprendizados e de conhecimentos que melhorem os resultados estratégicos (BLACKMORE; SACHS, 2012;SLAVIN, 2011). ...
Article
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RESUMO Este estudo aborda a "educação corporativa e estratégia organizacional" a par-tir da convergência de práticas que permitem entender como a educação cor-porativa dá suporte ao planejamento estratégico. Adotou-se o estudo de caso como estratégia de pesquisa, por duas razões: a complexidade das decisões, formulação e implantação das estratégias e a variabilidade das práticas educa-cionais em suporte aos objetivos estratégicos. As descobertas empíricas reve-lam que as organizações que não conseguem integrar a educação corporativa às estratégias de negócio subutilizam o potencial da informação, da aprendiza-gem e do conhecimento e, consequentemente, apresentam pior desempenho em tempo e recursos, no cumprimento dos objetivos estratégicos. Como meio para superar estas limitações, identifica-se que as aprendizagens e os conheci-mentos organizacionais, quando integrados aos objetivos estratégicos, podem produzir melhores resultados esperados. Assim, todo objetivo estratégico deve possuir um mapa de aprendizagens e de conhecimentos necessário para atingi-lo, integrado ao plano de ação baseado em competências. PALAVRAS-CHAVE Educação corporativa. Estratégia. Aprendizagem. Conhecimento. Hospital. ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY AND EDUCATION IN HEALTH CARE SERVICES
... Esta situación ha visibilizado la reproducción histórica de los roles de género, es decir, la mujer se dedica al trabajo no remunerado (al cuidado del hogar y familiares) más el remunerado, y el hombre sólo al trabajo remunerado (ONU Mujeres, 2023). Este exceso de responsabilidades para las mujeres, bajo la suposición cultural que posiciona la responsabilidad de la familia en las mujeres, no queda ajena a las mujeres que asumen puestos de liderazgo (Blackmore y Sachs, 2017), y se transforma en uno de los mayores obstáculos para que las mujeres se conviertan en líderes (Coleman, 2020). ...
... Por ello, se puede indicar que no solo el género ha sido motivo obstaculizador de las mujeres directoras, sino también la raza, la sexualidad y la clase (Chase y Martin, 2019;Jang y Alexander, 2022;Weiner et al., 2022), afectando a su identidad como líderes (Cruz-González et al., 2021). En este sentido, el contexto condiciona la identidad de liderazgo, por tanto, en espacios educativos patriarcales, con una cultura de "masculinidad hegemónica", tienden a generar construcción de roles e identidad de liderazgo en base a trayectorias marcadas por contextos masculinizados (Blackmore y Sachs, 2017;Jones, 2017). Por lo tanto, las trayectorias de mujeres directoras, se construyen entre las exigencias de un liderazgo "masculino" y la búsqueda de prácticas de sus propias formas de liderazgo más democrático (Arroyo y Bush, 2021). ...
Book
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Financiado bajo el proyecto #DocentesFeministas en la convocatoria de Proyectos de Innovación Docente INNOVA de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid durante el curso académico 2023/2024, concedido en modalidad competitiva
... Women's leadership often involves working within, around and underneath institutional, cultural and societal contexts. Blackmore and Sachs (2007) discuss how this leadership style, born of a hostile environment, may well involve a process of both performing and reforming, of simultaneously working within existing institutional arrangements and structures, while also arguing for new ways of organising and modelling new forms of leading. Their view of leadership is more about articulating and sharing ideas and understanding when to take action. ...
... Female leaders demonstrate a sensitivity to the context of interpersonal relations, habits and customs that determine the meanings and associated expectations of formal rules. Blackmore and Sachs (2007) note that this social capital often came from outside rather than within their organisations (unions, social movements, professional organisations, community networks). ...
... Thus, women working in universities can experience multiple forms of disadvantage which, not surprisingly, lead to increased stress (Morrish, 2019) and become evident throughout their careers (Pyke, 2013;Kefting, 2003) as they are blocked for promotion (van den Brink 2009;Kandiko Howson et al., 2018), passed over for higher duties, pushed side-ways (White, 2013) and not acknowledged for their contribution to the work team (Bevan and Gatrell, 2017). Understandably, some women may experience self-doubt and/or resistance to their current working environment (Blackmore and Sachs, 2007;Morley and Crossouard, 2016) and eventually find themselves positioned as outsiders on the inside (Gherardi, 1995). ...
... A good deal has been written about women's academic career progression in Australia (see for example, Currie et al., 2002;Chesterman et al., 2003;Winchester et al., 2006;Blackmore and Sachs, 2007;Fitzgerald and Wilkinson, 2010;Marchant and Wallace, 2013;Lipton, 2017;Sharafizad et al., 2018), including analysis of why affirmative action initiatives have had minimal impact despite considerable investment over the past 30 years (Fitzgerald and Wilkinson, 2010;Diezmann and Grieshaber, 2019). But there is little research on the careers of professional women in HE. ...
Article
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This article examines the link between terms of employment (full time, part time and casual) at an Australian regional university and women’s career progression. The literature identifies lack of transparency in recruitment, promotion and retention; mobility and location; and management perceptions of women’s choice to work flexibly as factors impacting on career progression. However, the voices of women working in regional universities and particularly those of professional staff are often not present in current research. This study moves towards addressing this research deficit. Feminist institutionalism is used to analyse the relationship between national legislation, university policies and informal institutional practices in relation to women’s career progression In early 2020, twenty-one women provided written responses to questions on the link between terms of employment and career progression. The main findings tend to support other research about women working in universities; that is, carers need flexible work arrangements. But there are particular differences for women in regional universities who have to travel between dispersed campuses, which brings an added dimension of complexity to career progression. Their choices about terms of employment and fulfilling carer responsibilities resulted in insecure employment for some participants which had an impact on wellbeing and confidence. In addition, care/household responsibilities and the choice to work flexibly had a negative effect on career progression, and managers did not necessarily support flexible work options (despite national legislation that enables employees with child care responsibilities to negotiate flexible work arrangements with managers, and institutional gender equality policies).
... Women's leadership often involves working within, around and underneath institutional, cultural and societal contexts. Blackmore and Sachs (2007) discuss how this leadership style, born of a hostile environment, may well involve a process of both performing and reforming, of simultaneously working within existing institutional arrangements and structures, while also arguing for new ways of organising and modelling new forms of leading. Their view of leadership is more about articulating and sharing ideas and understanding when to take action. ...
... Female leaders demonstrate a sensitivity to the context of interpersonal relations, habits and customs that determine the meanings and associated expectations of formal rules. Blackmore and Sachs (2007) note that this social capital often came from outside rather than within their organisations (unions, social movements, professional organisations, community networks). ...
... In our analysis, we focus particularly on the educational organizational context because educational institutions are important pillars of any society and of the economy in general: they are responsible for bringing economic development, and creating a knowledge economy and sustained change (Blackmore & Sachs, 2012). Prior research (e.g. ...
... Several researchers (e.g., Blackmore & Sachs, 2012;Marinakou & Giousmpasoglou, 2017) have argued that women can be the agents of change in leadership practices because of their greater inclination to share knowledge and care for people. These characteristics are increasingly considered features of professional leadership in educational organizations -and in expert organizations in general. ...
... Much work has been done on the persistence of gender inequality in higher educational institutions (HEIs) (Benschop and Brouns 2003;Heijstra et al. 2017;Morley 1994Morley , 2013Nielsen 2016;O'Connor 2014O'Connor , 2020cBenschop 2011, 2012). However, with a small number of notable exceptions (such as Morley 2014;Blackmore 2002;Blackmore and Sachs 2007) much of this work has concentrated on the organizational level. In this article we focus on a specific national context, highlighting multi-level state interventions and looking at their gendered impact on HEIs. ...
... However, although the percentage of female applicants for professorships rose from 26 per cent to 32 per cent over that period, the percentage who were promoted rose only marginally from 27 per cent to 29 per cent. Thus, the success rate for women at professor level actually declined from 50 per cent in 2007-2012to 45 per cent in 2013(TF 2018. In contrast, at the associate professor level the increase in the percentage applying was mirrored by an increase in the percentage promoted: increasing from 29 per cent to 35 per cent in applications; and 27 per cent to 35 per cent in those promoted (TF 2018, p. 74). ...
Article
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Much of the work on gender equality in higher educational institutions (HEIs) has concentrated on the organizational level. The original contribution of this article lies in its focus on state policy developments and interventions. We focus on Ireland as a specific national context, highlighting multi-level state interventions and looking at their impact on HEIs. Using secondary data analysis (including documentary analysis) and focusing particularly on the period since 2014, state initiatives to tackle the problem of gender inequality from various angles are outlined. They include the introduction of Athena SWAN; the Expert Group Review; the Gender Equality Taskforce; the Senior Academic Leadership Initiative; research funding agency initiatives and those around sexual harassment. In evaluating their impact, we look at the gender pay gap, the gender profile of the professoriate and senior management as well as other indicators of cultural change in HEIs. The article concludes that the best possibility of leveraging change arises when it is driven at the state (macro); the HEI (meso) and the situational (micro) level simultaneously, by gender competent leaders willing to tackle the historically male dominated, masculinist criteria, procedures, processes and micropolitical practices that are "normalized" in HEIs.
... Research highlights the pivotal role of leadership in implementing GM initiatives (Bacchi and Eveline 2010;Blackmore and Sachs, 2007;de Vries and Anne 2015). Scholars contend that achieving gender equality and challenging power relationships within organizations requires the commitment of senior leadership. ...
Article
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This qualitative study explores the perspectives of senior leadership on gender equality within higher education institutions (HEIs) in Kazakhstan, addressing a gap in the literature on the agency of senior leaders in mainstreaming gender equality in post‐Soviet contexts. Kazakhstan is a significant case due to its high ranking on gender indicators in Central Asia and its unique blend of modernization and traditional gender discourses. We interviewed 13 leaders across 10 universities to analyze how they perceive the relationship between gender and education and their potential role in advancing gender equality. Utilizing Butler's theory of performativity, our analysis reveals that senior leaders disregard structural or institutional gender‐related concerns. They tend to uphold and embody traditional gender norms and attribute existing gender inequalities to cultural norms which limit their agency. While leaders acknowledge the role of higher education in promoting gender equality, they perceive gender issues as resistant to change, which creates obstacles to effective gender mainstreaming. The findings provide insights into reimagining gender mainstreaming strategies in HEIs in post‐Soviet contexts and beyond.
... Για να επιτύχουν τους στόχους όμως, σύμφωνα με τη σχετική θεωρητική και ερευνητική παραγωγή της σχολικής αποτελεσματικότητας (Ζάχος, 2007), οι εκπαιδευτικοί και τα σχολεία θα πρέπει να έχουν ικανή ηγεσία. Η ηγεσία αποτελεί κρίσιμο παράγοντα για να επιτευχθούν εκείνες οι αλλαγές στα σχολεία (Fink, 2005) που θα εναρμονίσουν την εκπαίδευση με τις νεοφιλελεύθερες αξίες και πρακτικές (Blackmore & Sachs, 2007). Στην Ελλάδα, παρά τις πιέσεις που ασκούνται από τους δανειστές, μέχρι τη στιγμή που γράφεται η παρούσα εργασία, ένα μόνο μέρος του «πακέτου» των μεταρρυθμίσεων του «σχολείου της αγοράς» έχουν εφαρμοστεί. ...
Chapter
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Σ’ αυτή μας την εργασία επιχειρούμε να αναλύσουμε κριτικά τη σχέση της ηγεσίας με την επικοινωνία στο δημοτικό σχολείο. Στόχος μας είναι να διερευνήσουμε τους τρόπους με τους οποίους η επικοινωνία μπορεί να αποτελέσει ένα σημαντικό εργαλείο για να γίνουν τα σχολεία καλύτερα. Ξεχωριστό ενδιαφέρον έχουν για μας εκείνες οι πλευρές της σχέσης αυτής και εκείνα τα στοιχεία, τα οποία θα συμβάλλουν στη δημιουργία ενός σχολικού περιβάλλοντος που θα ευνοεί ιδιαίτερα τους μαθητές και τις μαθήτριες που το χρειάζονται περισσότερο, δηλαδή όσους και όσες προέρχονται από χαμηλά κοινωνικά στρώματα και «διαφορετικές» κοινωνικές ομάδες και έχουν χαμηλές ακαδημαϊκές επιδόσεις.
... El peso de las mujeres se invierte respecto al peso de sus compañeros a medida que sube la categoría académica (Blackmore, 2002). Si bien el peso en el colectivo de doctores ha aumentado en siete años unos 9 puntos porcentuales, la proporción en las titularidades y cátedras lo ha hecho sólo un punto (Blackmore, & Sachs, 2007). ...
Article
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El escenario económico actual y sus evidentes resultados aquejan de modo directo, y como resultado ineludible, al crecimiento financiero. Ello, acarrea graves consecuencias colaterales: sociales, culturales y políticas. La investigación, fundamentada en documentos bibliográficos fue utilizada para la redacción de este artículo que tiene como objetivo demostrar la interacción indispensable y objetiva entre la Universidad, el Estado y la Empresa, como motor imprescindible del desarrollo económico del país, con un enfoque hacia la equidad de género. Las Instituciones de Educación Superior, intervienen como un ente de generación y transferencia del conocimiento, desarrollando la investigación científica y que adicionalmente escudriña la industria, para que sea en ella donde se ejecuten los resultados de dichos descubrimientos, fomentando de manera técnica la innovación en servicios, bienes, y mercancías ya existentes, así como la creación de nuevos productos. Es responsabilidad de las IES promover una educación inclusiva, además de la concreción de la Declaración de los Derechos Humanos. Se considera que la equidad entre mujeres y hombres se ha visto agravada por la crisis socioeconómica actual. El Estado interviene como una entidad inversionista que direcciona los recursos con el objetivo de obtener una rentabilidad social y cultural, afianzando su política de gobierno, fortaleciendo los índices de competitividad. El eje final en esta trilogía es la Empresa, como beneficiaria de estos productos debido a que podrá contar con información actualizada y exacta para implementarla ya sea en la tecnificación salvaguardista de la producción o en la creación de nuevos planes de negocios, como fruto de esta integración se obtendrán resultados óptimos como la fomentación fortalecida del emprendimiento.
... Así, surge el concepto de "gerente ideal" (Moorosi, 2007), que trabaja remuneradamente sin desatender sus responsabilidades domésticas. Las contribuciones de liderazgo femenino suelen categorizar a las mujeres como supermujeres, agentes de cambio o administradoras eficientes de lo público y lo privado (Blackmore & Sachs, 2017). Sin embargo, esta expectativa sobrecarga el rol de las mujeres, obligándolas a sacrificar aspectos de la maternidad para cumplir con sus objetivos profesionales. ...
Article
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A pesar de que en los cargos directivos escolares en Chile las mujeres representan el 66% (Mineduc, 2023), siguen enfrentando desafíos significativos en su carrera profesional, especialmente vinculados a la conciliación entre trabajo y familia. Este artículo examina los resultados de una encuesta realizada a 313 directoras escolares en la Región Metropolitana, para identificar su capacidad de conciliación entre el rol profesional (directoras escolares) y la vida privada (cuidado del hogar). Los hallazgos revelan que una mayor experiencia en el cargo directivo está asociada con una mejor percepción en torno a la conciliación. Por el contrario, las directoras con hijos menores de 18 años presentan niveles más bajos de conciliación y se sienten menos satisfechas con esta situación. En el artículo se concluye que, en general, las directoras consideran que logran conciliar su rol como directoras escolares con el cuidado del hogar, pero no sin costo, ya que las tareas directivas tienen prioridad sobre las demandas familiares. Por tanto, el ámbito familiar es el que más resiente el costo de la conciliación.
... Female academic leaders tend to receive more scrutiny, to have their management skills evaluated with stricter criteria, and to be discriminated against by both male and female subordinates (Ryan & Haslam, 2007). Women in leadership positions are usually labeled as "caring and sharing" (Blackmore & Sachs, 2012). ...
Chapter
This chapter presents a systematic review of four major aspects of the relevant literature: (a) intellectual leadership; (b) academic disciplines; (c) gender, culture, and academic careers; and (d) Hong Kong society and women scholars. This chapter first introduces concepts related to leadership in higher education, including academic management, academic leadership, scientific leadership, and intellectual leadership (with a focus on Macfarlane’s intellectual leadership model). It delineates Macfarlane’s model of intellectual leadership in different roles: knowledge producer, academic citizen, boundary transgressor, and public intellectual. It also illustrates differences in intellectual leadership across academic disciplines and its potential impact on women professors. Following this foundational concept, it reviews the literature on major issues in women scholars’ academic careers around the globe and in Confucian heritage culture (CHC)-influenced East Asian societies. Lastly, it analyzes Hong Kong’s higher education landscape and women scholars’ careers with an overview of the social milieu in the region. Connections between the challenges, opportunities faced by academic women, and intellectual leadership are drawn.
... Female academic leaders tend to receive more scrutiny, to have their management skills evaluated with stricter criteria, and to be discriminated against by both male and female subordinates (Ryan & Haslam, 2007). Women in leadership positions are usually labeled as "caring and sharing" (Blackmore & Sachs, 2012). ...
Book
This book depicts the diverse approaches of established women professors in perceiving and developing intellectual leadership in Hong Kong. It analyzes the combined influences of various disciplines, different higher education institutions, and gender on the careers of female scholars in the East Asian region. The complexity and interaction of academic careers for women, disciplinary contexts, higher education systems, and socio-cultural environments may present a relatively holistic landscape for readers interested in academic life and leadership. Scholars, administrators, managers, and policymakers in higher education-related fields may gain comprehensive ideas to facilitate faculty and institutional development through a cultural and sociological lens. This may empower female academics and students, while also providing benefits for doctoral students and early-career researchers seeking insights into the evolving advantages and disadvantages in women's academic careers. Audiencesinterested in gender issues may find it intriguing to compare women scholars with women in other professions and in different cultural contexts.
... In addition to this, the societal perception, interpretation and construction of educational leadership is heavily influenced by the dominant society's cultural and belief systems. suggest that despite the increase in universal official public proclamations of organisations advocating for equal opportunities, the vast amount of literature in the field of gender and educational leadership (Blackmore and Sachs, 2007;Grogan and Shakeshaft, 2011;Shah,2012Shah, ,2016 and the burgeoning literature on BME and black women and educational leadership (Bush, Glover, & Sood, 2006;Coleman & Campbell-Stephens,2009), as well as the very little literature that has focused on the underrepresentation of Muslim women teachers, demonstrates that this is not the case. Rather this failure to manage equality and to provide a diverse workforce implies that 'an increasingly diverse workforce is viewed as opportunity, threat, problem, fad, or even non-issue' (Dass & Parker, 1999, p. 68). ...
Thesis
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The main purpose for this dissertation is to examine the experiences and perceptions of Muslim woman teachers and leaders in British state schools. To achieve this, the researcher examined the types of challenges and barriers these teachers experienced and how they coped with often being the only Muslim BME woman in a predominantly white team. Using a qualitative research method, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with six teachers and leaders, from different London state schools and boroughs, who consider themselves to be Muslims and declared themselves ethnically as Kenyan (1); Somali (1); Pakistani (3); and Turkish (1). The results show that on account of the intersecting facets of her identity Muslim women are simultaneously oppressed in the midst of being awarded opportunities. Due to the interplay of these intersections as well as stereotypical assumptions which impacts attitudes towards Muslim women, she encounters the Muslim penalty, institutional racism and Islamophobia simply on the grounds of being visibly different.
... Arguably, although the added value women can offer in institutional leadership (Trinidad & Normore, 2005;Eagly, 2007;Blackmore, 2012), women's participation in university leadership remains below the desired level and, thus, a source of concern (Ghoneim, 2020). This is consistent with local and global trends toward enhancing women's participation in leading development in all sectors. ...
Article
This study reflects the growing national and global trend toward empowering women and enhancing their role and participation in national development. It aims to develop a roadmap to add value by empowering female academic leaders (FALs) in Saudi universities. Lean leadership principles are recommended to eliminate hindrances of women's leadership activities, increase the quantity and quality of their leadership opportunities, and enhance their leadership roles' effectiveness. This study identifies critical organizational obstacles preventing Saudi universities from realizing the added value by empowering FALs and the requirements for achieving this from the perspective of women and those who work with female leaders. The study adopted a mixed-methods approach and various tools, including 3 exploratory workshops with 65 FALs, a field survey of the entire study sample, and 6 focus group interviews (FGIs) with 35 FALs. The results revealed several obstacles and requirements, from which we derived a roadmap. Some of the roadmap's most important features include changing the institution's culture, establishing a culture that encourages female leader empowerment, appointing inspiring-for-change leaders of all genders to senior and middle leadership roles, and establishing a dedicated office for achieving empowerment that reports to the university president. Furthermore, the roadmap emphasizes the importance of "field visits" to work sites to help understand the university's "current state" vs. the "target states" to create a roadmap to achieve the desired state. For this, consistent implementation and management of the roadmap, supervision, follow-up of progress, and continuous improvement are essential.
... On the other hand, research reveal that there are many disadvantages to foundation universities comparing public universities in Turkey (Birler, 2012;Blackmore & Sachs, 2007;Gürüz, 2006;CHE, 2017). In Turkey, the employment statistics for adjunct faculty members has risen significantly for almost 45 years. ...
Article
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p style="text-align: justify;">The main objective of current study was to determine the opinions of adjunct faculty members regarding the flexible and precariat form of employment policies at universities in Turkey. The research was conducted qualitatively. The participants were 16 adjunct faculty members who were chosen with purposive sampling method. An interview technique was implemented in order to obtain data, and content analysis method was used to analyze the data. Results revealed that this form of employment policy causes organizational, academic and personal problems. As for organizational problems, it causes to prioritize financial points of views rather than academic expectations. Regarding personal problems, adjunct faculty members are underpaid, overworked, ignored regarding their professional development. Also academic and scientific knowledge production are ignored. Students do dot respect adjunct faculty members. It is recommended that this kind of employment policy should be reconsidered and full-time employment should be preferred.</p
... The chapter has suggested that the research may work against women in several ways, essentialism bleaching out the irrepressible diversity and creativity of women's leadership, creating pressure to lead in a particular way and implicitly devaluing those who wish to lead by adopting more stereotypical male characteristics. It also sustains the hegemony of white, middle-class women from the Anglophone world (Blackmore and Sachs 2012). Certainly, let us continue the feminist project of understanding better how particular women or groups of women experience leadership: 'Such nuances need recognition' (Fuller 2014: 334). ...
Chapter
This chapter, ‘National and District Support for Women Aspiring to Careers in School Leadership in Ethiopia’, is by Turuwark Zalalam Warkineh, Tizita Lemma Melka and Jill Sperandio. These authors focused on the experiences of women leaders as they are struggling to make a career in administrative districts and school principalship in Ethiopia. This chapter is based on rich qualitative experiences of twenty-one women currently employed in one district and also serving in some elementary schools. The authors bring attention to structural barriers of patriarchy and gender stereotypes at play against women as they navigate careers in educational leadership and working against traditional stereotypes of the role of women in society. Their analysis highlights why women continue to be under-represented in all levels of educational leadership in Ethiopia, despite policy efforts. The authors end with helpful recommendations on what needs to be done to advance women already serving in educational leadership and those in the pipeline who aspire to serve as school principals. They draw implications for leadership development and bring attention to the need to provide guidelines for pre-leadership training for women at national level and to establish forums for women educational leaders at district level. A more poignant suggestion is made regarding the need for explicit commitment to gender equality through gender training of male officials and principals to change their attitudes and mindsets about their treatment and perceptions of women and their place in society.
... Vatansever ve Yalçın (2016) çalışmalarında, vakıf üniversitelerinde öğrencinin, en azından üniversite yönetimin gözünde, bir hizmetin alıcısı olan müşteri konumunda olduğunu vurgulamaktadır ve bu bulgu, vakıf üniversitesinde çalışan akademisyenlerin öğrenci merkezinde hareket ettiklerini destekler niteliktedir. İşbirlikçi ve demokratik bir kurumdan uzaklaşıp müşteri odaklı ve ticari bir kuruma evrilen üniversitelerde, öğrenci-akademisyen ilişkisinin kalitesi pedagojik olmaktan uzaklaşıp sözleşme bazlı duruma geldiğine (Blackmore & Sachs, 2007) ve akademisyenlerin girişimci, öğrencilerin de müşteri şeklinde konumlandırıldığına (Kirp, 2003) dair eleştiriler mevcuttur. Vakıf üniversitelerinin sebep oldukları düşünülen bir diğer olumsuz etki de öğrenci-öğretim elemanı arasındaki ilişkiye zarar vermeleri ve bu ilişkiyi para alan-para veren ilişkisine çevirmeleridir (Erguvan, 2013). ...
... In this vein, authors such as Cubillas Rodríguez et al. (2016) have highlighted that although the change in woman's role related to their participation in the area of work has been accepted, in their private lives, women are still the ones who take on the family responsibilities, household tasks, and raising of children. Also, traditionally, as shown by Blackmore and Sachs (2007), entrepreneurship has been associated with men, conferring men with positive value. However, it had negative connotations when the leadership was associated with women, as it was thought that men had more qualities conducive to leadership and that leadership was not the correct environment for women. ...
Article
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This article presents the process of adaptation and validation, and the resulting psychometric properties, of the “Questionnaire of Barriers Perceived” (QBP). The scale identifies whether a student’s perceptions and expectations are mediated by stereotypes or roles associated with gender through the study of their professional aspirations, fear of negative judgement, and perceptions/awareness of gender roles of men and women. Two descriptive studies were conducted via a cross-sectional poll. The questionnaire was administered first to 240 students and then to a total of 1044 student from all the degrees studied at the Faculty of Education at the university at which the study took place. The data were subjected to item content analysis, descriptive analysis, analysis of internal consistency, study of the relationship between variables, correlational analysis, and an exploratory and confirmatory factorial analysis. The results showed that the scale had a high goodness-of-fit index, as well as validity and reliability. The dimensions that the model comprised were found to be interrelated and coherent with the theoretical structure considered in the initial version of the instrument. The resulting questionnaire presented sufficient validity and reliability to be used in other contexts and studies of the same nature.
... These comments about compliance indicate a tension in relation to issues of resistance and speaking out -and who can and cannot. Principals and resistance have been explored in previous research (see, for example, Anderson and Cohen, 2015;Blackmore, 1999;Blackmore and Sachs, 2007;Longmuir, 2019;Niesche, 2013;Starr, 2011;Thomson, 2009). The principals interviewed in this study were all very experienced with some having recently retired, and as such felt able to speak out and resist the things about school autonomy policy that they did not like, did not see as being of benefit to their schools and communities, or felt that they could ignore. ...
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This paper examines principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and leadership as part of a 3-year research project looking at the implications of school autonomy on social justice across four states of Australia (Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland). Drawing on interviews with principals and representatives from principal stakeholder organisations in these four state jurisdictions, the paper identifies a number of key issues for school principals and the implications for understandings and practices of educational leadership. These include varied understandings of autonomy, practices of leadership and implications for health, workload and well-being. The paper argues that while principals have mixed perceptions of school autonomy policies, there has been a narrowing of leadership experiences by principals in the form of managerialism and compliance. Furthermore, principals continue to experience high levels of workload, and some principals, depending on career stage and experience level, feel better able to work within and sometimes against these policies in their schools and communities. These practices are sometimes felt to be despite the system and not due to school autonomy policies themselves. The implication of these findings is that principals are inequitably able to respond to and implement school autonomy policies, an issue often glossed over in educational leadership research.
... Power is required to meet organizational goals. In universities, with the impact of managerialism, there is an increasing centralization of power in the President/Rector and/or in the legitimacy of such centralization (Blackmore and Sachs, 2007;Deem et al., 2008;Lynch et al., 2012;O'Connor, 2014;O'Connor et al., 2019). In this context, many university structures (such as Executive Committee) become largely advisory, while others (such as Academic Council) are limited by lack of access to resources. ...
Article
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ender equality is a whole-organization endeavor. Building on Agócs (Journal of Business Ethics, 1997, 16 (9), 917–931) concept of institutionalized resistance this article undertakes a feminist critique of policy and practice around internal promotions to the equivalent of Associate Professor level in one Irish university (called the Case Study University). This university was selected because of its low proportion of women in senior academic positions. The methodology is a single case study design, employing documentary analysis, including secondary data. Since 2013 the proportion of women at Associate Professor in the Case Study University increased significantly (bringing them close to the national average): this being associated with increased transparency, with the cascade model in the background. However, men’s “chances” have varied little over time and at 1:4 are the highest in Irish universities. This article uses Agócs (Journal of Business Ethics, 1997, 16 (9), 917–931) stages of institutional resistance to show that while some changes have been made, ongoing institutionalized resistance is reflected in its failure to accept responsibility for change as reflected in its refusal to challenge the “core mission” and restricting the focus to “fixing the women”; and its failure to implement change by focusing on “busy-ness” which does not challenge power and colluding with foot-dragging and slippage in key areas. It is suggested that such institutional resistance reflects the enactment of hidden or stealth power. The article implicitly raises questions about the intractability and the covertness of men’s power and privilege and the conditions under which women’s “chances” are allowed to improve, thus providing insights into the extent and nature of institutional resistance.
... In particular, most of the previous studies were conducted with a focus on academic career stories of women, women, and leadership, the relationship between career and balance for women (Betz & Fitzgerald, 1987;Eagly & Carli, 2007;Hacıfazlıoglu, 2010;Hoskins, 2015;Madsen, 2008;Ozkanlı & White, 2009;Tucker & Bryan, 1991). Some research has emphasized the subjects of gender and scientific careers (Fox, 2020;Huang et al., 2020), gender disparities in international research collaboration (Kwiek & Roszka, 2020), women academics and research productivity (Aiston & Jung, 2015) while others has focused on a Bordieuan lens and women (Acker, 2010;Blackmore & Sachs, 2007;Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992;Taşçı-Kaya, 2016). Considering this background in literature, some feminist scholars (Armstrong, 2020;Arnot & Weiner, 1987;Barrett, 1988;Breeze & Taylor, 2020;Erny, 2014;Holvino, 2010;Lorber, 2010;Nehere, 2016;Stevi, 1998;Van Zoonen, 2002;Young, 1986) have considered that women are under-represented in academia. ...
Article
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Today, internationalization is among the most important strategic goals of higher education. In this context, academicians hold a significant place in academic knowledge exchange since they constitute the key mechanism in internationalization. Despite this fact, female academicians continue to be underrepresented in the internationalization of higher education. Considering the emphasis on Sustainable Development Goal 5, which states that gender equality is the basis of sustainable development for all individuals until 2030, it is clear that women faculty members should be supported more in the internationalization process of the higher education. Further studies are required to determine how much of the inequalities experienced by women academics in terms of international academic mobility, visibility, and international publication opportunities are being transferred to international academic environment. For this reason, the present article aims to investigate the representation of female academicians in the internationalization of higher education from a feminist theory approach. Results of our study clearly indicate that there is a need for new policies in terms of the "visibility" of female faculty members in higher education in the world.
... In some instances, they reproduced existing structures and inequalities in the university. This echoed the dominant finding in the research literature that women in leadership are complicit in reinforcing neoliberal inequalities (Blackmore & Sachs, 2012). But our methodology also allowed us to see how some women, when they moved into positions of leadership, used their reflexive and critical capacities (Hyatt, Shear and Wright 2015) to identify and act on spaces of hope and make a difference not only for themselves, but for others, by changing the university landscape. ...
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(254 words) This paper offers a new way to engage with gender, race and class relations in academic leadership and organizations. Viewing our research materials through different images helps us to ask new questions, open up new kinds of answers and ultimately other ways of knowing gender and leadership in academia. Our approach has three connected steps. Firstly, we engage with the ruins of the three main promises upon which the contemporary university has been built: enlightenment, liberalism and feminism, drawing on Anna Tsing's mushrooms at the end of the world and Gibson‐Graham's notion of a post‐capitalist economy. Secondly, we use intersectionality as a methodological lens, combining it with Karen Barad's ideas about how ´matter comes to matter´. We explore the intersections between four themes arising from the accounts of our participants: Reshaping the disciplinary field; Gender, Class and Race; Travelling and mobility; and Institutional structures and policies. The third and final step, engages with how some women successfully coordinate these intersecting themes to navigate their careers and achieve leadership positions within the contaminated and ruinous university environment. In doing so we draw on the musical form of the fugue with its four themes that at different moments diverge, clash and, if successful, achieve resolution, to provide us with a way for analysing the women's stories as ‘polyphony‐in‐action'. By using this musical approach to retool intersectionality we are able to show how some women managed to bring all four themes of their lives into symbiosis and achieve value in the ruinous academic landscape. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... School reforms are often an object of research (Blackmore and Sachs 2007). Frequently, a gap exists between what ministerial policy makers and administrators aim to achieve through reforms and how professionals and teachers as education professionals approach achieving those aims and meeting expectations (Saquin 2019;Lundberg 2019;Downes 2019;El-Taliawi & Van Der Wal 2019). ...
Article
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This paper argues that dialogue, as a processual tool, is sometimes not enough to solve deep-seated power-relations in the policy design of school reforms. We show this through a case study of a comprehensive school reform in Denmark that has lasted from 2011 until 2020. An active policy entrepreneur, Antorini, the Danish Minister of Education, tried to design a policy process that included a broad coalition in parliament and aimed to include the teachers as professionals. Since the teachers’ union opposed the effort to change the collective wage agreement prior to the reform, the reform has remained controversial. Power and deep-seated interests blocked the dialogue. We discuss the reform’s development inspired by an analytical reform policy framework by Patashnik. The lessons learned for other countries are that the power resources that policy makers and professionals possess needs to be acknowledged openly, and that dialogue therefore doesn’t always work for school reforms.
... And while managerialism has offered the promise of better careers for women, the result has often been little change in the gendered organizational culture (O'Connor, 2014). The cost to the academy is that some women can become uncertain about their commitment to the institution and disengage (Blackmore and Sachs, 2007), while others consider and then reject HE leadership, deciding in the present organizational environment not to apply for leadership roles (Morley, 2014). This article will use two different pieces of research across two different generations to explore metaphors and images of leadership. ...
Article
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This article explores the metaphors and images used by different generations of women to describe women's leadership in higher education (HE) and the impact these perceptions have on their careers and career ambitions. It also explores how such metaphors and images can position them as “other,” silence their voices in the dominant masculinist discourse, and marginalize them. The emphasis in the gender and higher education literature has been on identifying the barriers that impede women's progress in academic organizations, including images of continuing hegemonic masculine leadership, and their promotion to leadership positions. These models position women leaders who are assertive as troublemakers, and women as “the problem” either because of their attitudes or perceived domestic and family responsibilities. And while women leaders are often not gender conscious, they are frequently doing gender in their senior roles. The metaphors and images that portray women's leadership are often of hidden work, supporting more senior males, or “ivory basement” leadership. Combined, they suggest a deficit model that positions women as lacking for top jobs, and institutions therefore needing to “fix the women” generally through leadership development programmes, sponsorship and mentoring. The article examines the metaphors and images used to describe women's leadership across two generations. Older women often saw their leadership as conforming to male leadership models, as fitting in, and not challenging or unsettling their male colleagues. However, a younger generation of leaders or prospective leaders had a very different set of metaphors for their leadership. They saw themselves as unsupported by what they described as the current mediocre, institutional leaders, weighed down by inexorable organizational restructure, and merely in survival mode. Hence, they refused to accept the masculinist leadership model which they perceived as ineffectual, outdated and not meeting their needs. The article suggests that the prevailing culture in higher education leadership and the metaphors and images used to describe successful leadership narrows the options for women leaders. While older women were prepared to accept current masculinist leadership, younger women had contempt for the way it marginalized them while at the same time encouraging them to lift their game and had a different set of metaphors and images to portray what successful leadership should look like.
Chapter
In this chapter, I present an intimate portrait of Christine, an experienced principal near the end of her career. Her leadership is explored through the metaphors of monitor, ministry and mentor. First, her life history informs the development of her primary and secondary habitus. The metaphor of monitor is used to explore the ways in which Christine surveils the staff and students in her rural school through an ethics of care. Ministry is deployed as a way of examining Christine’s workload in caring for the wider community. The metaphor of mentor outlines Christine’s commitment to share her knowledge and experience with teachers and aspiring principals in the service of public education.
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In this chapter the rich narratives and life histories of primary participants begin. These narratives are explored through metaphors. Drawing on the methodological tools of narrative inquiry I sought to understand the life experiences of the participants of this study. These are explored and analysed through Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and field and the field mechanisms of capitals, social class, and doxa, as well as field conditions such as illusio, to consider how these life histories can be understood in light of the participants’ crucial roles in leading in primary schools in marginalised communities. In so doing, these chapters explore what educational leaders understand by social justice, how these understandings influence their social justice leadership practices. It uncovers disjunctions between participant articulated understandings of social justice and the social justice leadership practices they report on. For Rachael, this chapter explores aspects of her leading practices through the metaphors of mission, macrocosms, and mothering. ‘Mission’ explores Rachael’s moral understandings of her work as a principal in a school located in a highly disadvantaged community. ‘Macrocosms’ explores her relationship and work for and with her community. ‘Mothering’ explores Rachel’s ethics of care through a feminist lens and exposes the enormous workload she has taken on. A disjunction in Rachael’s articulations of socially just leading practices is uncovered in her adherence to the discourses of meritocracy, a function of her experiences as an immigrant to Australia.
Article
هدف البحث إلى التعرف على متطلبات تمكين القيادات النسائية الأكاديمية بالدامعات السعودية، بجانب متطلبات التميز الأداء المؤسسي في الجامعات السعودية، وقد اعتمدت البحث على المنهج المسحي الاستنباطي، وأظهرت نتائج البحث الى أن القيادة النسائية لا تفرق في فاعليتها عن القيادة الذكورية، ومن أبرز متطلبات القيادات النسائية في الجامعات السعودية والتي شملت: دعم القيادات النسائية وتمكينهن، وتوصيف الوظائف القيادية بما يتلاءم مع طبيعة ومتطلبات عملهن. كما أوصى البحث الاستمرار في نشر ثقافة التمكين في الجامعات بما يحقق التميز المؤسسي، ووضع السياسات التنظيمية لرفع مستوى تمكين القيادات النسائية، وتوفير المتطلبات لتعزيز الصلاحيات لدى القيادات النسائية.
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We are very happy to publish this issue of the International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research. The International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research is a peer-reviewed open-access journal committed to publishing high-quality articles in the field of education. Submissions may include full-length articles, case studies and innovative solutions to problems faced by students, educators and directors of educational organisations. To learn more about this journal, please visit the website http://www.ijlter.org. We are grateful to the editor-in-chief, members of the Editorial Board and the reviewers for accepting only high quality articles in this issue. We seize this opportunity to thank them for their great collaboration. The Editorial Board is composed of renowned people from across the world. Each paper is reviewed by at least two blind reviewers. We will endeavour to ensure the reputation and quality of this journal with this issue.
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The leadership role of school principals has been receiving much attention in most educational systems, especially when such schools contain gifted students' classrooms. Thus, this study sought to identify the types of leadership that female principals of gifted students' classrooms have, and how such roles impact teachers and school culture. This study, which took place in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia, adopted a qualitative approach represented by a multi-case study. To achieve the objectives of the study, the researchers used a semi-structured interview method to collect data from the sample of four principals of gifted students' classrooms, selected by the available method. Qualitative data were analyzed by the traditional manual method. The study revealed that the roles played by the leadership were wise, transformative, and cultural, regarding the skills of the principals of gifted students' classrooms. The study, in addition, concluded that the wise educational role raised the level of teachers' satisfaction and adaptation to the school environment, although there were some negative points, such as dictatorship of dealing and dealing with superiority. The results also unveiled the contribution of female principals, within a transformative role, to solve the problems of teachers and their environment. Additionally, it was found that each principal has a unique method that reflects the vision she adopts and tries to consolidate in school culture. There are some differences in some female principals' traits towards gifted students.
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Advertising in time globalization turns into a "powerful instrument" for organizations to offer their items, great and administrations. Females play fundamental role for various figures in her day to day existence. Females assume an extremely imperative part in human advancement and have a huge spot in the general public. This paper centers on the advertisements in academies of SAHIWAL according to a Feministic perspective by following research design of Fairclough CDA of language and Machin multimodal examination. This examination for the most part centers on the utilization of language in academic advertisements and procedures utilized by experts to impact their clients. The review shows how language is utilized in advertisements and how female body is represented through language. The result of this paper shows that higher female portrayal has worked on institutional quality.
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I was a student of Stephen Harris during the late 1980s. I am fortunate to have experienced a lecturer and researcher of Stephen’s calibre. He was a person who pushed back against the colonisers’ account of my Aboriginal family and the many other people whose lives were dramatically and negatively affected by simply being ‘different’ in a world of Western imperialism. This chapter is dedicated to him, in acknowledgement of his legacy. It has been conveyed through the voice of an NT Aboriginal, critical race theorist. The ideals that Harris stood for remain centred, unresponded, unresolved and unstable within policy debates concerning NT Aboriginal education. Australia’s official policy environment targeting NT Aboriginal families, particularly those living traditionally oriented lives in remote communities, has marginalised Aboriginal children. This policy environment has prevented Aboriginal children from gaining a good quality education, as Australia’s National Assessment program (NAP) has continued to remind us since 2008. For Stephen, ‘quality’ was achieved by succeeding in a broader world of Western capitalism through an Aboriginal identity, rather than despite it. This key existential principle is discussed in this chapter, and I show why Harris’s ideals, which are punctuated throughout my discussion, remain relevant today. They are in fact more relevant than ever, particularly given that Australia’s education system still grapples with a pattern of unsustainable schooling performance, layered by wealth and racial identity.KeywordsCritical race theoryIndigeneityRacismClassismCapitalismNeocolonialismNeoliberalism
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This study aims to define the role of money, social maturity, and stress among young lecturers in Indonesia and their effect on teaching performance as educators. The population of this research was the young Indonesian lecturers actively teaching in university who were considered to have distinguished characters apart from their seniors. A questionnaire was spread to 13 public universities. The findings show that low social maturity escalates teaching performance. Meanwhile, lecturers' orientation on money does not affect teaching performance. Furthermore, stress has a positive effect on teaching performance. The unique fact is that the stress of the lecturers can be alleviated precisely by interacting with students in the class during the teaching and learning activities. Received: 11 November 2021 / Accepted: 28 February 2022 / Published: 5 May 2022
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This chapter takes a different trajectory from the book thus far. It shifts from ontological questions of the constitution of educational leading as practice, how it shapes, enables and constrains, to epistemological questions of how we come to know in a practice such as leading. In so doing, it addresses a major silence in practice approaches, namely the crucial role that emotions play in the unfolding, evolution and transformation of educational practice. The chapter brings practice architectures theory into dialogue with theorising on emotions and affect in the social sciences, feminist scholarship in gender and organising, and the concept of emotional labour. It extends and deepens recent theorising of emotions and affect in practice theory, including practice architectures theory and site ontologies. As such, it addresses the vexed question of how and why emotions matter for practice, pedagogy and praxis in educating and leading.
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The primary theoretical lens that I adopt in this book is that of practice architectures. However, one of the key advantages of employing a theoretical tool kit approach is that it can provide complementary theoretical lenses whose ontological similarities and differences can “entail… intervening in the world and giving it a chance of biting back at us, our presuppositions, and our inquiry tools” (Nicolini, 2012, p. 216). When it comes to educational leading as practice, questions of politics and power are central to its study. Historically, however, such questions have been silenced in mainstream educational scholarship, such as the school effectiveness and improvement literature that dominates current thinking. This chapter challenges these silences by bringing practice architectures theory into dialogue with Bourdieuian thinking tools, undergirded by feminist critical scholarship. This tripartite approach opens up crucial questions regarding the power, politics and contestation of educating and educational leading as practices, and how they are accomplished, made durable and/or resisted in the moment-by-moment encounters of diverse sites of education.
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This article takes the author’s personal experience of being a Head of Department (HOD) in an English University, and frames this experience as a transition narrative. The format draws on the work of Sandra Acker, who framed her own experience as a Head of Department in Canada, in three areas. Utilising literature both on Higher Education Management and the emotions of leadership, the article proposes that a focus on the personal affective side of leadership can help the nascent department Head understand more clearly how the personal and the political, policy frameworks intertwine. Finally, the article suggests that understanding one’s own leadership skills in a particular context is crucial to working with academic colleagues.
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This chapter introduces the topic of gender equality and inequality in higher education, using feminist institutionalism as the underlying theoretical perspective. Drawing on a range of methodologies and focusing on key topical themes it identifies the discourses which have inhibited change, as well as what can be done to facilitate transformation. Thus, it focuses on institutional resistance; and the legitimating discourses of excellence, choice, displacement, biological essentialism and gender neutrality. In highlighting the importance of gender-competent leadership and empowering equality structures as ways of creating change, it explores the situation in 14 countries—Australia, Austria, Germany, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, the Czech Republic, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States and Turkey. The chapter examines the relationship between their ranking on global gender gap indices and key indicators of gender equality in universities, and suggests that without organisational transformation the effect of any intervention will be continuously undermined by the ‘normalised’ gender inequality perpetuating processes in higher education.
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This chapter examines why progress towards getting more women into senior management has been slow in Australian and New Zealand public universities. It argues that despite implementation of gender-equality policies, the structural sources of gender equality have not been tackled. Most recently this has been reflected in merging gender equality with other initiatives, transforming it from a separate and stand-alone goal. The data is derived from senior managers who were responsible for gender equality during COVID-19 and an analysis of the strategic plans of all public universities. While such senior managers expressed a commitment to change, the university strategic plans revealed either an absence of gender-equality initiatives or their low priority. “Gender” has mostly been subsumed into crowded equity/diversity/inclusion portfolios, making gender inequality invisible.
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Drawing from intersectional feminist scholarship, we communicate how Salina and Marelis, both women of color, teach science for social justice in the face of significant institutional challenges. Theorizing from their experiences and practices, we articulate a feminist praxis for school science, which includes (1) building community and collectivist orientations, (2) cultivating joy from/within the margins, (3) naming and dismantling inequities, and (4) repositioning students—practices that have profound implications for improving the school science experiences of underrepresented students in science, including girls of color and other marginalized students. Finally, we highlight the ways in which women of color negotiate, repurpose, and transform institutional and disciplinary barriers to reimagine the world(s) of school science.
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What counts as knowledge? Who are valid, legitimate ‘knowers’? In this chapter we revisit work that we have conducted collaboratively over the last decade, focusing and elaborating on a single theme that has threaded through much of our work: the dynamics of gendered knowledges in higher education. We draw on a range of intersectional perspectives in discussing the dynamics of gender and the politics of knowledge in higher education institutions, drawing on work we conducted on the gendered, classed and racialised assumptions underlying notions of a perceived ‘feminisation’ of the higher education sector. We then move on to discuss more recent studies we have conducted to explore the continuing effects on knowledge production (and the teaching and learning of knowledge) of audit accountability measures such as the UK’s Research Excellence Framework, and the casualisation of teaching in the sector. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the growing challenge to the ‘elite’ academy from the radical/far right and how this is involving new (and some very old) gendered conceptualisations of what knowledge is seen as valued, acceptable and appropriate in the contemporary academy.
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The purpose of this chapter is to provide insight into the ways in which personal life roles such as mother, daughter, and/or spouse/partner influence the leadership aspirations of women holding senior university administrative positions (e.g., academic dean, vice president, provost). The chapter is informed by a postmodern feminist perspective and reviews literature related to pathways to the presidency, family considerations, gender roles, and geographic mobility. Findings from the literature are integrated with those of the dissertation of the second author. In keeping with a postmodern feminist perspective, the chapter concludes with recommendations for change in recruiting diverse women for higher education leadership.
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This chapter presents stories of one academic leader’s lifelong lessons in learning how to lead. Her experiences span 40 years through multiple stations in life from a young female soldier, to a teacher, and then as an academic. Lessons learned include crafting her leadership values of recognizing others’ talents, ensuring inclusivity of all, applying fairness, and offering opportunities for optimizing others’ potential.
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The purpose of this chapter is to provide insight into the ways in which personal life roles such as mother, daughter, and/or spouse/partner influence the leadership aspirations of women holding senior university administrative positions (e.g., academic dean, vice president, provost). The chapter is informed by a postmodern feminist perspective and reviews literature related to pathways to the presidency, family considerations, gender roles, and geographic mobility. Findings from the literature are integrated with those of the dissertation of the second author. In keeping with a postmodern feminist perspective, the chapter concludes with recommendations for change in recruiting diverse women for higher education leadership.
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ABSTRACT The recent economic and political climate, which has reshaped all sectors of education in the last few years, has brought dramatic changes to the management and finance of further education (FE). FE institutions have become 'incorporated' as autonomous and self-regulating organisations. The central concern of this article is the effect that the interpretation of incorporation has had on gender relations within these organisations. Many colleges have taken the opportunity to 'restructure', redefining the management hierarchy to consist of new posts to do with finance, selling and premises. The association of these tasks with aspects of masculinity has meant that incorporation has both utilised gender and had gendered consequences. Masculinity is perceived as an integral quality in the achievement of efficient management, a fact which has favoured the promotion of men and the marginalisation of women. How women have responded to these changes is explored in this article.
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Is the idea of the liberal university dead, has the postmodern university any chance of being emancipatory, has the theory-practice divide merely collapsed in an era of ‘new knowledge work’, or has the university just become one aspect of market states and global capitalism? Knowledge-based economies locate universities as central to the commodification and management of knowledge, while at the same time the legitimacy of the university and the academic as knowledge producers is challenged by postmodernist, feminist, post-colonial and indigenous claims within a wider trend towards the ‘democratisation of knowledge’ and a new educational instrumentalism and opportunism. What becomes of the educational researcher, and indeed their professional organisations, in this changing socio-political and economic scenario? Is our role one of policy service, policy critique, technical expert or public intellectual? In particular what place is there for feminist public intellectuals in a so-called era of postfeminism and public-private convergence? The paper draws on feminist and critical perspectives to mount a case for the importance of the public intellectual in the performative postmodern university.
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This article provides a policy trajectory study of the Queensland Department of Education's Social Justice Strategy (1992-93) developed following the election of a State Labor government in late 1989. The paper considers the 'traditions' of social justice and their rearticulation under recent Labor governments. It then utilises research data to analyse the production of the Strategy within the Department and its reception within Brookridge, a the competing tensions within and upon both the production and reception of the Strategy, including the new managerialism within the Department and the concomitant reconstitution of Department/school relationships. Reasons for the 'refraction' of this state generated policy are also considered. In conclusion, the paper draws upon this policy trajectory study to reflect upon the politics of 'progressive' educational change and debates within the educational policy literature.
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The analysis describes the broad consensus which is currently emerging about the nature of the educational changes which are necessary for the creation of a 'learning society' and contrasts this vision with the contemporary reality of an education system which is every day more constrained by formal assessment. The implications of these tightening bonds for the development of universities in the third millennium are explored in terms of research evidence which documents the impact of conventional forms of assessment on student learning. The argument is made that this emphasis on 'categoric' assessment if fundamentally incompatible with aspirations towards the creation of a 'learning society'. This is partly because institutions must necessarily give their attention to obtaining high scores and cannot risk the substantial changes in the reorganisation of teaching and learning that an 'empowering' educational environment would arguably require and partly because of the power of the prevailing assessment discourse to define priorities. The article uses Lyotard's concept of 'performativity' to examine these contemporary tensions in higher education, their origins and potential significance for the creation of a 'learning society'.
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This article reports on the emotional impact of Threshold Assessment on teachers and schools. Using data from an ESRC funded project, ‘The impact of Performance Threshold Assessment on teachers’ work' (ESRC R000239286), we seek to contribute to a growing literature on teachers' emotions by sharing some of the insights gained from 76 interviews undertaken in nine case study primary and secondary schools between 2001–2003. The research has revealed a number of (apparently) unintended consequences of Threshold Assessment as well as considerable variability of experience. We underline the significance of contextual factors in the way that the policy was handled in schools and in the degrees of vulnerability and exposure experienced by teachers as they struggled to come to terms with the demands of ‘performativity’. …social policy needs a subject in which mind and body, reason and passion, self and other, agent and object are held simultaneously in mind without splitting one from the other. (Hoggett, 2000a, p. 143)
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This paper analyses policies pertaining to school dress codes which have been formulated recently by all state education bureaucracies in Australia. It examines these policies and their implementation in the context of devolution, the marketisation of schools, and cognate social legislation. In doing so it seeks to understand the textual hiatus between government policy and schooling practices.
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Here the author examines continuities and tensions between the discourses of Business Process Re-engineering and Human Resource Management. Addressing their respective assumptions and claims, especially with regard to the organization of ‘human resources', critical attention is focused upon their shared advocacy of employee empowerment and strong leadership from senior managers.
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Policy‐makers in the 1980s sought to restructure education on the basis of market principles, and in particular to effect site‐based or devolved school management. The reform of ‘management’, therefore, has become of central importance for policy makers. This paper explores two influences on the contemporary management of education: first, intellectual ideas drawn from postmodernist theory and chaos theory; and second, the culture of postmodernism. It argues that they disrupt and undermine traditional assumptions in educational administration and management. In response, modernist management theorists and policy makers may attempt to refine their legitimatory rhetorics by appealing in a superficial way to these cultural and intellectual changes, thereby seeking to neutralize their disruptive potential. In sum, a modernist makeover may be in the making.
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Recent policy changes have encouraged the development of a contractualist environment in Australian education, where social relations are organised around the promise of each party to fulfil particular obligations. Contractualism is evident not only in moves to expand contract employment and to organise service delivery around a contractual relationship between service providers and service consumer agencies, but also in government efforts to privatise public services so that individual consumers make choices about the kinds of services they will receive. The focus of this paper is particularly on the impact of the contractualist environment of teachers' professional practice. The paper draws on interview data to document what teachers perceive to be changing in education and in their professional practice, and to identify opportunities and constraints in this shifting policy context. On the basis of these data, some of the challenges and dilemmas of professional practice in an age of contractualism will be discussed.
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In studying market‐orientated reforms in education, there is a need to explain and account for their impact. In this paper, we aim to provide a conceptual framework (the public‐market) applicable to educational policies that incorporate parental choice and school autonomy as important components of the provision of schooling. This offers, we suggest, a sociologically informed framework within which theorising about market‐orientated reforms can be located. The purpose underlying its construction is analytical: that is, its purpose is not to advocate or provide a rationale for market‐orientated reforms, but to assist in understanding and accounting for their consequences.
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This paper draws on the experiences of a principal and teachers in one secondary school which formed part of a four-site case study undertaken during a period when a new State government set in train the most radical change to an education system in Australia's history. The study investigated trust between principals and teachers and showed that imposed school-based management affected this trust resulting in a negative impact within schools. This paper briefly considers the background and context attached to the radical change together with one of its elements, the implementation of a statewide curriculum.
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This paper is concerned with the relationship between management theory, education and social change. I argue that the important changes taking place in culture and in the economy cannot be accommodated within that form of traditional schooling which has well served the age of modernity since the last century. The changes afoot are of great moment and are not just expressions of some end‐of‐millennium angst. The failure to recognise the importance of these shifts will lead to quick‐fix solutions which may exacerbate the very problems which they purport to solve. The new managerialism in education is such a solution. The argument here locates the new managerialism intellectually, culturally and in relation to post‐Fordist work processes. In sum, I argue that the new managerialism is a mission statement, an act of faith, which freeze‐frames culture and education in its own dated bureaucratic image.
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A measure of the success of our first ten years is that we have restored management to its proper place in society. (Kenneth Clarke, Secretary of State for Education, interviewed on the Today programme, BBC Radio 4, 12.3.92)
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Policy and research frameworks concerned with both analysing and advancing women's position in the labour market are still oriented to the assumption that the jurisdictional unit of production relations is the nation‐state. Historically all citizenship claims have been predicated on the jurisdictional integrity and sovereignty of the nation‐state. However, contemporary patterns of globalisation (flows of capital, labour and policy making networks) indicate these assumptions may be anachronistic. This paper tables the problems and suggests some of their implications for bow we approach policy‐related analysis of women's labour market position.
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This paper offers acritical perspectiveon Schon, and on reflective practice as apedagogy, by engaging with themes in feminism. A comparison between consciousness raising and reflective practice gives insights into the pleasures experienced by practitioners. However, it also suggests that reflection-in-action is not the prerogative of professionals. Consciousness raising and feminist reflexivity in research provide positive examples of political engagement and reflexive self-awareness. The scope of reflective practice is limited by the contexts in which it has been adopted. In the UK reflective practice has been implemented in professions with large female workforces: nursing, teaching and social work. The scope for autonomy in these professions is increasingly limited. Reflective practice, therefore, may be becoming avehicle for self-surveillance and orthodoxy. These socio-political considerations provide the basis for more searching epistemological questions about the nature of professional knowledge and the characteristics of all human labour. Both Marxist and feminist traditions suggest that the capacity to reflect is a characteristic of all humans, while some social scientists have suggested that reflexivity is a particular characteristic of modernity. These views challenge the status of reflective practice as the episteme of professional knowledge. Moreover, Schon's methodology is based on a partial and gender-blind view of professionals. The paper concludes that a reinvigorated research agenda, which engages with these broader themes, is necessary.
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The use of narrative, which has informed the study of teaching, has only been applied in a limited manner to studies focusing on school administrators. This study of the journal‐keeping practices of school principals provides a glimpse into the use of narrative as a possible methodological strategy for understanding the stories of administrators. It begins to define how personal values, political pressures, and organizational concerns are translated into actions that are intended to solve day‐to‐day school problems. It illuminates tacit knowledge of how administrators sort through their often chaotic lives. Implications of the study for future research are examined.
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This article analyses the problems of school failure - failure at school and of schools - in terms of the emotional politics of distinction and disgust. The article notes that differential strategies of school improvement where levels of intervention are inversely related to school success risk creating an apartheid of improvement that deals only with the effects of low capacity and low investment in poor communities and perpetuates dependency in low capacity systems over time. Behind the technical differences that separate success from failure are emotionally laden differences between the passionless distinction of elite success and the viscerally threatening emotionality of lower classes that evokes disgust. Distinction and disgust, it is suggested, are the alter egos of school improvement. School failure is defined, evaluated and dealt with in ways that function to evoke the disgust of the affluent, which simultaneously reminds them of their own fortunate distinction. The article closes with recommendations for redefining the divisive responses to school failure that currently have ascendancy.
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Both feminism and quality assurance movements have attempted to deconstruct and reconstruct the academy. Both have called for more transparency in procedures, accountability from elite professional groups and the privileging of the student experience. Both are globalized systems calling for transformation. However, it is questionable as to whether these two forces for change can form strategic alliances, or whether indeed they are in oppositional relationship. As a dominant regime of power in the UK academy today, quality assurance both exposes the micropolitics of gendered power in organizations and creates its own structures and systems of power. Quality assurance is part of the modernization process of the public services. However, gender equity is not a performance indicator in UK quality audits. In this paper, I interrogate the gendered implications of quality assurance, with particular reference to the assessment of teaching and learning in the UK (the Quality Assurance Agency's Subject Review). Drawing on empirical data and conceptual critiques, I will argue that quality assurance, as a regime of power, is gendered in its conception and practice.
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This article suggests that alongside the seeming remasculinisation of UK further education management reported recently in Gender and Education, there is also a little-reported but prevalent feminisation of lower level managerial positions across this sector. To support this assertion the article draws on empirical work done by the Further Education Development Agency, and two interview-based studies of woman and men college 'managers'. Conceptually, the article draws on both labour process and post-structuralist understandings of feminisation. In general the article suggests that, as with public sector restructuring more generally, some limited recruitment of women to management posts is involved. In further education, such recruitment cannot be simply seen either as celebrating the proof of increasing equity between men and women in educational work, or of demonstrating the desire by women to secure career advancement. The article suggests that, as with the feminisation of other forms of work, this recruitment of women to middle level management posts is a key aspect of restructuring itself. In part it is suggested that women's previous 'outsider' positioning provides a basis for recruitment to such positions in the context of new job descriptions and tasks. Yet as well as taking on much of the new managerial work of the sector, often alongside heavy teaching loads, these postings also demand what is, for some women, a highly problematic loyalty to the commercial ethos of the corporate colleges.
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The actions of school leaders have direct and profound ethical implications on their organizations and corresponding stakeholders. Each action impacts the ethical notion of mutuality and either adds to or detracts from the existing social capital in the school leader’s organization and surrounding school community. Whether or not the school leader chooses to act out of self-interest and contribute to the growth of fragmentation in the organization or chooses to act with integrity based on sound ethical principles is determined in large extent by the school leader’s character.
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Examines the information processes that support organisational sense-making, knowledge creation and decision making. Sense-making involves interpreting the raw data of the environment by enactment, selection and retention. New knowledge is created by knowledge conversion, knowledge building, and knowledge linking. Completely rational decision making would involve identifying alternatives, projecting the outcomes of each alternative and evaluating the alternatives and their outcomes according to known preferences and objectives. In the organisational knowing cycle, a continuous flow of information is maintained between sensemaking, knowledge creating, and decision making, and the outcome of information use in one mode provides the elaborated context and the expanded resources for information use in other modes. An illustration is given of a knowledge cycle in the World Health Organisation Smallpox Eradication Programme in which continuous cycles of interpretation, innovation and adaptive action underpinned the success of the project.
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This paper explores the implications of the processes of globalization/localization for state feminism, with a focus on Australia. Superficially, localization appears to be one response to globalization, exemplified by devolution to self managing schools and in the public sector. But globalization and localization are merely different aspects of the same phenomenon, and the processes articulating local/global relations have particular gendered effects which, while locally specific in their articulation, resonate in highly patterned ways cross nationally. There has been in many Western liberal democracies a fundamental change in the role of the welfare state with a shift from a more protectionist position to one where the ‘midwife’ state mediates, rather than regulates, global markets. But the shift to the smaller or more selectively interventionist state, although a common global policy ‘response’ to the ‘logic’ of globalization, is not an inevitable consequence of economic globalization. Rather, it is an ideologically informed position which has gained legitimacy by calling upon dominant (if not deterministic) orthodoxies about economic globalization. Furthermore, the shift in the role of the state, as with educational restructuring generally, is as much about cultural reconstruction as it is about economic reconstruction. Feminists are wary of such moves as they provide discursive spaces to undermine past successes and future claims for gender equity. I briefly point to the significance of state feminism in select Western nation states, and then elaborate upon some of the strategic dilemmas arising out of the dynamics of globalization/localization for the delivery of gender equity reform.
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The focus of this paper is upon the way in which feminist educators as administrative 'leaders' conceptualised policy within what could be described as the 'masculinist' bureaucratic culture of an Australian state bureaucracy. The paper arises out of a larger research project focusing upon the ways in which change was viewed by women who have moved from voluntary and reform oriented work in teacher, curriculum and parent organisations into senior administrative positions in the late 1980s. This paper considers how they strategically addressed issues about the production of policy within a culture which was informed by particularly technicist views of bureaucratic rationality whilst negotiating the personal contradictions and tensions of being administrators and feminist educators working for more equitable forms of education.
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Considers the changing role of parents and the community within the framework of devolution and accountability in educational decision making in Australia. Calls on international literature to provide a global perspective for the changes currently under way. Considers the changing relationship between schools and their local communities since the Karmel report of 1973 and gives examples of some of the recent innovations at both state and federal level. Questions the processes being used for many of the restructuring activities and suggests that the current acceptance of the role of the community in educational decision making is not new, but is based on community education principles and practices. Concludes that the devolution of education may still have some way to go and that consideration of the needs of the whole community, rather than just the students of that community, might be one avenue for schools to consider.
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In this paper I take issue with the claim of Ozga (1992) that because of the poor quality of many recent texts on education management, and their lack of a sociological perspective, they are not proper material for analysis in the British journal of Sociology of Education. I argue that sociological analysis of such texts is an urgent priority because they have gained credibility among education practitioners and provide a spurious legitimacy to new right policy directions. This general argument is illustrated by focussing on four specific limitations of one of the most popular current texts on education management.
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The impact of the marketization of education on choice and school intakes in ‘Greencity’, New Zealand is examined. We report a study of a ‘lived’ market, drawing on both qualitative analyses of the enrolment patterns of almost 9000 secondary school students as well as interviews with school principals. The removal of zoning in Greencity provided more choice only to a small group of families. By enlarging the already sizeable group of higher socio‐economic students bypassing their local schools, choice intensified socio‐economic segregation between schools. Market reforms were thus found to have a differential impact on schools with some working‐class schools entering a spiral of decline while higher socio‐economic status schools were relatively unaffected. The responses of schools to the market varied considerably in ways that were related to their initial market position, their ability to change the formal rules of the market and the actions of neighbouring schools. The authors suggest that some state intervention is necessary to moderate the effects of the market.
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Recent texts on globalisation and education policy refer to the rapid flow of education policy texts producing or responding to common trends across nation states with the emergence of new knowledge economies. These educational policies are shaping what counts as research and the dynamics between research, policy, and practice in schools, creating new types of relationships between universities, the public, the professions, government, and industry. The trend to evidence-based policy and practice in Australian schools is used to identify key issues within wider debates about the ‘usefulness’ of educational research and the role of universities and university-based research in education in new knowledge economies.
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This paper has two distinct foci. The first is an introductory focus on the current position and problems of academic women working in UK universities (despite the valorization of Equal Opportunities (EO), and within the context and constraints of the ‘New Managerialism’). The second and main focus is on the personal impact of university work on the lives of academic women, towards exploring and uncovering how higher education’s institutional structures and processes impact upon academic women’s identity structures and processes. Idiographic analyses of a small number of case studies suggest that despite considerable recent gains, some academic women’s identities are compromised, challenged and made ‘vulnerable’ through feelings of being undervalued, overburdened and often the subjects of unequal treatment – more than 30 years after the Equal Pay Act and almost 30 years after the Sex Discrimination Act. The paper’s conclusions therefore warn that continued valorization of EO policy without its assimilation into the underlying core institutional culture will sanction the valediction of any tangible or effective progress in HE’s ability to produce more robust academic identities and more satisfying daily working lives for academic women. Insofar as such assimilation is not achieved, the policy, practice and rhetoric of equal opportunities and equal treatment in UK higher education will remain little more than ‘lipstick on the gorilla’.
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While the practice of university entrepreneurship has become an increasingly popular field of study across the globe (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997; Clark, 1998; Marginson & Considine, 2000), few substantive studies have considered international education from this perspective. Alongside other institutions of higher education in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, Australian universities have increasingly pursued ambitious strategies to participate in the booming international education sector. Undertaking a mixture of strategies from the traditional to the highly innovative, Australia’s universities have aggressively and often creatively marketed their offerings in the international education market, and the sector now represents Australia’s eighth largest export and third largest services export. In order to assist in the development of an understanding of how Australia’s universities have moved from government dependence to entrepreneurialism, this study focuses in particular on the management of international education as a key dimension of this trend. While a general overview of the study’s findings is presented elsewhere (Poole, forthcoming), this article seeks to contrast the management strategies, structures and systems of two universities in the study. A highly international metropolitan university recognized around the world as a leader in international education is compared with a smaller, regional institution in terms of the relative sophistication and professionalism of strategic management practices and processes. The implications of the differences arising between the institutions are discussed.
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This paper posits that performance indicators (PIs)are conceptual technologies that shape what issuesacademics think about and how academics think aboutthose issues by embedding normative assumptions intothe selection and structure of those indicators.Exploring the assumptions embedded in Alberta's(Canada) PIs yields an initial typology of assumptionsthat academics can apply to performance indicators inhigher education to understand, refine or criticallychallenge their introduction.
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Incl. abstract, bib. This paper reports multiperspective research on 10 successful, experienced headteachers working in a range of urban and suburban schools of different sizes (with different school populations and free school meals indices of between 20 percent and 62 percent). All had raised the levels of measurable pupil attainments in their schools and all were highly regarded by their peers. A key characteristic among the heads was that, regardless of styles and strategies, all revealed a passion for education, for pupils and for the communities in which they worked. The research revealed that the 10 headteachers sustained their success by the application of the a combination of 10 essential leadership qualities, skills and principles and that these enabled them to manage a number of tensions and dilemmas associated with the management of change. Fundamental to the achievement of success, however, was their passion for students, school and community. This paper explores the nature of this passion in relation in particular to six factors which are fundamental to success;achievement, care, collaboration, commitment, trust and inclusivity.
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Incl. abstract, bibl. This paper examines the impact and effects of site-based management on schools using a framework developed by Canadian researchers, Sackney and Dibski. It draws on research literature from the UK, New Zealand and Australia and includes results from three studies in which the author has been engaged. The Sackney and Dibski framework is used to lay seven "charges" against site-based management - that site-based management leads to greater decision-making flexibility, changes the work role and increases the workload of principals, improves student learning outcomes, increases innovation, increases competition, results in reduced funding and affects the standing of the public education system. The analysis of the literature selected suggests that site-based management is guilty of some and not of others.
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Incl. abstract, bibl. This paper reports upon the perceptions of 23 senior women in Education Queensland on the impact of School-Based Management (SBM) on their ways of leading and their career opportunities. The women interviewed were all graduates of a Women in Management course run by the Queensland University of Technology. Those women working in primary schools and in secondary schools trialling SBM felt that SBM would legitimize the way they led their schools and provide them with further opportunities to challenge the accepted discourse of educational administration. The women working in secondary schools were sceptical about its introduction. However, almost all the women felt that it would not enhance their future career prospects as the culture and make-up of the central bureaucracy remains masculinized. [BEMAS]
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This paper seeks to argue, on the basis of data from research in a primary school, that the self-surveillance systems of self-management are closely interconnected with the school inspection process. Further, self-surveillance managerial systems, such as School Development Planning, are reinforced by the constant gaze of the inspectorate. Five modes of teacher response to the impact of the controls are explored: anticipation of surveillance, self-surveillance, impression management, secondary adjustment and fragmentation. It is argued that the nature of the relationship between inspection and self-management makes for a more rigorous and pervasive form of control than could be achieved by the use of one form alone. Inspectors are the absent presence in the school, influencing and constraining the decision-making involved in the formulation of the School Development Plan and activities arising from it. The result of this process is reduced rather than enhanced autonomy for the self-managing primary school. Furthermore, initiatives in the school which promised school improvement were marginalised in the development planning process.