Diverse experiences of women leading in higher education: locating networks and agency for leadership within a university context in Papua New Guinea

The ways in which women deliberately press back against practices of oppression and demonstrate agency in higher education institutions are highly contextual and culturally bound. The formal and informal networks that women develop and maintain are important elements of generating agency and enhancing women's access to and opportunities for leadership. This article presents a case study from research that explored women's leadership experiences in a higher education context in the Pacific Islands – Papua New Guinea. Situated within a feminist poststructural methodology, the research examined women's experiences of leadership and considered aspects that influenced women's access to formal leadership roles. The findings illustrated that the women faced numerous barriers to formal leadership opportunities. A range of culturally and contextually located approaches supported women to demonstrate agency with regard to their own leadership development and practice. This research highlighted the importance of considering the relationship between networks and agency and the impact of associated cultural and contextual practices within organisations, providing insights into the culturally located complexities of women's leadership in higher education contexts.     

Re‐presenting women and leadership: a methodological journey

Research on women's leadership has tended to focus upon detailed micro studies of individual women's identity formation or, alternatively, to conduct macro studies of its broader discursive constructions within society. Both approaches, although providing helpful understandings of the issues surrounding constructions of women's leadership, are inadequate. They fail to deal with the ongoing dilemma raised in both Cultural Studies and studies of discourse and identity, in relation to the negotiation of subjectivity and representation, that is, how broader societal discourses and media representations of women's leadership both inform, and are informed by, the lived experiences of individual women. In this article, a range of methodological approaches are outlined that were drawn upon in a study of a small group of senior women academics from ethnically and socioeconomically diverse origins. The authors examine how the women negotiated the frequent mismatch that arose between, on the one hand, societal discourses and media representations which often reproduced narrow and highly stereotypical accounts of women's leadership, and on the other hand, the individual women's subjective experiences of leadership which challenged such representations. It is contended that it is necessary to draw on a number of methodological perspectives in ways which trouble and unsettle homogenized versions of women's leadership in order to fully explicate more nuanced and complex ways of understanding how women's leadership identity is formed.     

Women in the Academy: the politics of speech and silence

This paper examines women's voice and silence in the academy. It begins with a discussion of the theoretical underpinnings of feminine voice and silence, and then analyses the gendered production of girls'/women's voices throughout their schooling careers from the primary to university classroom. This is followed by a discussion of the contradictory politics of voice when differences clash among women (students) of colour. I argue here that ‘granting’ spaces for women's speech may be pedagogically desirable but has potentially silencing effects. In closing, I consider some pedagogical strategies that can potentially enable women to better partake in the management of their own academic, social, and political interests.     

Exploring women faculty's experiences and perceptions in higher education: the effects of feminism?

This study analyses women faculty's discourse about feminism, themselves, and their professional experiences as scholars in the North American university context. This case study pushes at the boundaries of what we believe we know about ‘the gender question' in the academy, opening a discursive space for scholars to examine university policies and practices. Poststructuralist emphasis on the complexity and changing nature of power relations offer a framework that makes sense of the ways in which women are simultaneously affected by power relations and engage in power relations. I use feminist poststructuralist discourse analysis to analyse women's talk about their experiences in order to carve a path for moving beyond the deconstruction of discourse in order to unpack how it marginalises and silences women, even within and to themselves.     

“Our Leaders Are Just We Ourself”: Black Women College Student Leaders’ Experiences With Oppression and Sources of Nourishment on a Predominantly White College Campus

This article offers a theoretical analysis and phenomenological study of the leadership experiences of black women college students at a predominantly white higher education institution. Existing literature argues that leadership development is vital to the college experience as an opportunity to empower and engage students in social change. However, the implementation of these leadership development models fail to consider how the racial and gender identities of students influence leadership development or student peer interactions (Byrd, 2009; Kezar & Moriarty, 2000). Through black feminist standpoint theory, I present a theoretical framework that highlights the historical traditions of black women's leadership. These historical traditions grounded my qualitative study, which explores the experiences of contemporary black women's student leadership. Participants reported interpersonal interactions with oppression, more specifically: stereotypes, microaggressions, racialized and gendered self-presentation expectations, along with negotiating voice and silencing. A number of social factors were cited as sources of nourishment where women drew from historical traditions of black women's leadership to persist through oppressive challenges. Additional sources of nourishment included mothering, mentorship, allyship from white peers, and the formation of social networks.     

Women's Rights,Writing and Education in Iran

In pursuit of my rights, I joined the revolution that imposed the veil upon me and then joined a political party, where I found that I was making decisions against myself. Following this, I researched the only women's magazine published in Iran at that time and found that it was against women. The questions that came to mind were about whether women writers voice their own experiences. Were my experiences unique? Could I learn from others, particularly through what they wrote? Since literature cannot exist without education, this may be the main reason why Iranian women started so late. In the l960s, mass education created a mass readership and with it the first novel by a woman. The issues of women's rights, education and writing are intertwined.     

Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: the use of personal experience in theoretical and analytical approaches

Abstract

This article is drawn from my research work, where I have interviewed students on a combined women's studies course through the 3 years of their degrees. I worked with 14 students in total, mainly non‐traditional entrants. The women combined their women's studies programmes with a range of other subjects (including literature, law, sociology, health studies, psychology and more), so giving me good comparisons between a range of academic subjects. My research has indicated that although it is not always recognised as academic study, the women have found the use of personal experience both challenging and exciting in developing the tools needed for theoretical and critical analytical approaches. I will conclude by suggesting that to take account of gender issues, as well as considering other marginalised groups, subject areas need to develop approaches to learning and teaching which encourage the use of personal experience in enabling students to engage in theoretical and analytical approaches in their study.     

Understanding the emergence of females as leaders in academia: The intersections of gender stereotypes,status and emotion

Drawing on the expectation state theory, this paper seeks to analyse the social cognitive process of the impacts of gender stereotypes along with their culturally derived schemas of status belief, status characteristics and emotion at the early stage of women's endeavour to emerge as leaders in academia. Employing a convenience sampling and interviews held with five women academic participants from three public and private universities in the western region of Indonesia, this research reveals that two social cognitive practices affect women's endeavour to emerge as leaders; (1) the incongruities of cultural and cognitive expected status belief and status characteristics about females with the expected performance of leadership. The pervasive effect of these can be mitigated when women adopt a strategy of neglection, coupled with a strategy of networking both via their own networks and their husband's networks; (2) the incongruities of cultural and cognitive expected ways of emotional expression on women with the expected performance of leadership. This impacts the status conferral that shapes the worthiness of females to emerge as leaders, leading female leaders in our study to build a protective shield of emotion display to keep them perceived as worthy individuals for leadership roles.     

Understanding Asian American women's pathways to school leadership

Little is known about Asian American women administrators in the public schools. The study sought to understand the pathways of Asian American women to school leadership. In-depth interviews and researcher reflective memos were the primary data sources. The participants included 15 Asian American female school administrators in two states. We found that the women's career trajectories were similar yet unique; they were manifestation of the women's intersected experiences of gender, race–ethnicity, and age, situated in particular time and place. Often than not, the women had to negotiate their leadership aspiration and advancement through raced and gendered expectations. Others' encouragement and mentoring were instrumental for the women's development of self-knowledge and demystification of the leadership process. Most women taught at least 10–15 years before entering leadership. The women of earlier generations had far less career mobility and slim, if not absent, mentoring opportunities.     

Beyond the Degree: Men and women at the decision-making levels in British higher education

The study is an analysis of gender and power in British universities. It draws from a lifetime of experience of the difficulties encountered by those women who do reach senior decision-making positions in academic institutions, in the UK and overseas. It spans a period of forty years which begins with women as an unassimilated minority among student populations and moves to an analysis of their opportunities for shared control beneath the glass ceilings of the levels they attain as established academics. A survey of the incumbents of senior management roles in universities reveals few women. Fewer attain honorific positions. Suggesting that the observations made represent an improvement on the past, the paper presents two case studies of the implications of senior administrative work for academic women's professional lives. The first is of a small university weighted in favour of a narrow band of technological disciplines and the second a large mainstream university with many women staff. From here, commenting on external influences in Britain and elsewhere, the paper concludes by suggesting: ways in which women's leadership in academic institutions might be encouraged; the role of the professional bodies in monitoring and promoting this; and the learning required by women themselves to become effective as leaders for change once in position.     

Learning how to be a woman in the Canadian Forces/unlearning it through feminism: an autoethnography of my learning journey A preliminary version of this paper was presented as part of a panel discussion at the Atlantic Regional Canadian Association for Studies in Adult Education (CASAE) 2002 conference.

Gender plays a significant role in the experiences of workers within organizations. This is particularly true for women in non-traditional roles as they constantly struggle with gender barriers that are so ensconced in certain organizations and in society as to be accepted without question. Using an autoethnographical account, I explore the implications of my experience as a woman in the non-traditional role of a military member. First, I will discuss the importance of speaking from a first-hand, subjective position, and will briefly explore how we learn to be men and women through socialization processes in current western society. Then I will focus on how I learned to be a military member in a male organization and will examine how women's bodies and emotions separate women from men. I conclude with a discussion of how learning about feminist theories provoked me to begin to make connections between my experience and larger societal issues that had previously been invisible to me.     

Differently Academic? Constructions of ‘academic’ in higher education

This article draws on my research, in which I have interviewed a group of students over the course of their degrees. The women are all taking women's studies combined with a range of other subjects in a ‘new’ university with campuses in inner London and on its outskirts. This article considers the women's perceptions of both women's studies and their second subjects as "academic", as well as how they think both the university and the wider world value the academic nature of their various subjects. It asks whether subjects are only valued as "academic" if they focus on the writings of men, and are considered "objective", abstract and theoretical. Do students need to be seen to be "thinking like a man" in order to value their subjects and have them valued by others, or are there ways to be "differently academic"? It concludes by suggesting some alternative ways for institutions of higher education to consider the meaning of "academic" in higher education.     

The Gallant Ghost of Handball

Amy Morris Homans was a great champion for women’s pursuit of leadership in physical education and sport. In honor of her legacy, the purpose of this article is to: (a) discuss some defining leadership characteristics of Amy Morris Homans; (b) examine leadership issues related to gender; (c) examine leadership issues related to kinesiology; and (d) delineate ways to overcome leadership obstacles related to both gender and kinesiology. In true Amy Morris Homans fashion, I draw from multiple perspectives to discuss these topics. I hope that this discussion at the congress challenges scholars to increase their awareness of the glass obstacles that confront our field, and design research studies on gender- and kinesiology-specific leadership challenges that will shatter those obstacles once and for all. If a new generation of women and men who champion women’s pursuit of and longevity in leadership roles is inspired, this lecture has been a success.     

The participation of women faculty in Chinese universities: paradoxes of globalization

This paper contributes to a discussion of how globalization is affecting women faculty in different countries around the world. It reports on a collaborative, international research project designed to understand the participation of women faculty members in Chinese universities, sketching the historical context necessary for understanding women's place in universities in China, describing the process of surveying university faculty on gender issues and reporting the findings of the survey for universities that prepare secondary school teachers. The paper concludes that in China, ‘gender consciousness’ is a major barrier preventing women's full participation as faculty. As a result, women are likely to increase their disadvantage in the next few years as Chinese universities expand, diversify, emphasize research and broaden their links with the rest of the world.     

Lifting Stress from the Day: A Women's Well-Being Online Community Art Project

This article tells the story of a university community engagement project that began in the late spring of 2020 when the world went into lockdown. Increased concern over women's welfare and well-being was brought into question in relation to those who are vulnerable with complex needs and had suffered societal-induced hardships. In conjunction with an innovative women's community project, this study considered the value of art-based online support as a platform from which to offer a non-judgemental and mindful space with a focus on identity and empowerment. The study is based on weekly art drop-in online workshops for vulnerable women and considers the value of hybrid ‘spaces’ as a pedagogical and practical model of communicative support and collective care. Findings from this community-engaged project highlight the responses and shifts within subjectivities through situated art experiences. As art educators, it offers us an understanding of the potential for cumulative and affective artmaking to build communities of care as an inclusive and emancipatory learning tool.     

Feminism and Constructivism

In this article, I explore the tensions between constructivism and feminism in teaching a course on social work practice with women. Drawing on modernist feminist theory, I examine the conflict between validating the stories that women construct for themselves, while raising women's awareness of the difficulties in constructing liberated stories in an oppressive society. I discuss strategies I have used in the classroom to address, albeit not resolve, these tensions.     

Women's leadership of ‘much needed national work’ in wartime education

While there is a wealth of feminist research on women's educational leadership and policy-making in the interwar years, this article extends the discussion into the Second World War. My focus is the educational leadership of Dorothy Walker, head teacher of St Peter's Infant School and the youngest head teacher in Birmingham, and Lillian de Lissa, longstanding principal of Gipsy Hill Training College (where Walker trained) and national advocate for early childhood education. I highlight Walker and de Lissa's ongoing challenges to patriarchal authority and their continuing commitments to progressive education, as well as many war-related issues they encountered in their lives and work. Working at different levels of policy-making and contrasting in age, Walker and de Lissa invested their leadership with a national significance during the war.     

Being and Becoming a Woman Teacher: Journey through Nepal; the path taken [1]

ABSTRACT Using the life history method, I explore elements in Nepalese women teachers' stories that transcend culture, society, time and space. Contrary to the popular belief that people from one culture cannot possibly shift their ground to understand the concepts and experiences of people from another culture, in my doctoral study I explored-universal and particular-received gendered archetypes on the sentient journey taken to school. The legend of the Sleeping Beauty I was told as a female child in Canada might have kept me half-asleep on such a journey. To provide an alternative to such stories, I am beginning to draw on women's and girls' physical and conceptual space(s) in transitions to higher education. Stories to structure activism, in terms of increasing the participation of females in the educational activities of Nepal, must come from women teachers' life histories, which reveal the path(s) to follow.     

Hijab and principalship: the interplay between belief systems,educational management and gender among Arab Muslim women in Israel

This paper discusses the decision of Muslim female principals in Israel to don the hijab following their appointment to school principalship. This research employed narrative life-story interviews to understand the women's decision to alter their appearance and how this transition is connected to their role as female school principals in the indigenous Muslim community in Israel and the reaction they faced both in personal and professional spheres. The principals' narratives elucidate that transition to wearing the hijab was a matter of choice and collective belonging; it empowers them and affected their leadership style, although it also provokes others' resistance and reactions. Findings clarify the social and personal identity of Arab Muslim women school principals in Israel, and point to the need for consideration of traditional cultural contexts, to enrich managerial theory. This understanding also supports the argument that governmental and organizational policies and initiatives should recognize the diversity in Muslim women's backgrounds and the dangers of privileging mainstream women's perspectives.