Women's leadership preparation within the senior leadership team

Fuller, Kay; Cliffe, Joanne; Moorosi, Pontso

Abstract

In England, despite making up 60% of the secondary school teaching workforce, women continue to be underrepresented in secondary school headship. In this paper, we focus on the experiences of women working in the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) as a site for headship preparation. This paper draws on survey findings from a study of women's and men's work in the SLT, and their leadership preparation and development in schools in three pairs of geographically adjacent local authorities (South-West Birmingham and Sandwell; Stockport and Tameside; Wokingham and Reading). Two cases were created each containing one half of the paired authorities. Case 1 consists of local authorities and schools where women have achieved headship (South-West Birmingham, Stockport and Wokingham); Case 2 of local authorities and schools where fewer women were headteachers (Sandwell, Tameside and Reading). Findings suggest there were differences between Cases 1 and 2 with respect to the gendered composition of SLTs, the length of time senior leaders had been in post, their experience of discrimination, opportunities for flexible working practices, and the way they described senior leadership as it was done in the school. There were also differences with respect to sustained aspiration to headship, access to expanded leadership repertoires, availability of mentoring and coaching programmes, and access to networks. The article argues that as an important site for leadership development and preparation for headship, the working practices of the SLT might impact on women's achievement of headship.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 1, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Oct 15, 2015
• Publication Date: Oct 15, 2015
• Deposit Date: Jul 9, 2018
• Print ISSN: 0032-0684
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 46
• Issue: 3/4
• Pages: 388-415
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1116097
• Publisher URL: https://education.illinoisstate.edu/planning/articles/vol46.php