This paper employs the feminist educational leadership perspective to analyse the ecological context and its influence on the leadership experiences of school head teachers within a patriarchal ...cultural setting. Methodology: This paper forms part of a mixed methods study that included a quantitative random survey during the first research phase to determine the leadership styles of 350 secondary school head teachers across nine districts in the Punjab province of Pakistan using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. This paper is based on the second research phase that analyses empirical data from semi structured interviews of a purposive-stratified sample of 14 head teachers, selected from among the 264 survey respondents, comprising of seven males and seven females. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological development theory is employed as an analytical framework for thematic analysis. Findings: The study reveals that females must navigate gender stereotypes in a society where they have to fight to establish authority, encounter misogynistic attitudes, rely upon familial support to begin their career, gain spiritual support from a higher power, face work-family conflicts all while practicing educational leadership with high motivation. On the other hand, males assume themselves to be natural leaders and appear to be spared from ecological challenges that impede their leadership journeys. Implications: The findings confirm the prevalence of gender stereotypes that position leadership within the masculine domain in a patriarchal context. The study proposes a complete restructuring of the socio-cultural framework to create a gender neutral society that provides equal educational and professional opportunities to all social members in order to maximize human capital development that is crucial for a country’s economic progress. The findings reflect several subtle and non-subtle socio-cultural challenges faced by female leaders around the world. Originality – This study contributes to enhancing the literature on gender and educational leadership in a patriarchal cultural context.
This paper attempts to map the way that gender inequalities have shaped experiences of contemporary Chinese mothers and their role-negotiation in transnational families. Narrative inquiry is used not ...only as methodology but also as phenomenon experienced by the mothers and the author. The narratives of three mothers both confirm and counter the master cultural narrative of motherhood of contemporary China as well as the stereotypical notion of a Chinese “Tiger Mom” in the United States; their narratives and diasporic experiences shaped by the transnational social field are far more complex than either of these two narratives taken on their own. It is imperative to rethink the complex intersection of education, gender and migration in the contemporary Chinese diaspora in the United States. In so doing, we are able to deconstruct the unitary concept of motherhood and womanhood, and reconceptualize their meanings in a more sociohistorical locale as well as a global and transnational context.
•This paper examines the implementation of the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) Residential Primary School Program in Gujarat to analyze whether a mainstream developmentalist program can be ...reappropriated to go beyond educational provision and support social transformation.•I trace the empowerment discourses embedded in this partnership through curricular and pedagogical engagements within the KGBV program in Gujarat to examine whether multiple and often competing discourses can be appropriated to address girls’ marginalization.•I posit that programs and partnerships must specifically and systematically address the cultural and institutional forces that work to reinforce inequality and marginalization, but that these perspectives also need large scale popular and political buy-in, in order to realize their dual goals of service provision and long-term social transformation.
This article seeks to illustrate how various actors involved in a state-NGO partnership to provide marginalized girls educational opportunities appropriate discourses related to schooling and empowerment in India. It traces the multiple discourses of empowerment underlying the implementation of the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyala (KGBV) program in the Western state of Gujarat to gain a more nuanced understanding of the influences on educational programs’ ability to support social transformation. I show how these multiple, and often competing, discourses might be appropriated to take into account the systems, structures, and practices that act as barriers to implement reform-oriented practices that perpetuate girls’ marginalization. To do so, I also posit that programs and partnerships must specifically and systematically address the cultural and institutional forces that work to reinforce inequality and marginalization, but that these perspectives need large scale popular and political buy-in in order to realize their dual goals of service provision and long-term social transformation.
•GE policies in R&I are not sufficient to explain changes in share of women researchers.•Share of women among holders of higher education is a key driver.•Development of the size of business ...enterprise sector is key to understand variations.•Decrease of share of women among researchs in Hungary is due to rise of manufacturing.•Within the group of compared countries, Austria had the most progressive GE policy for R&I.
Despite decades of efforts to achieve gender equality in research and innovation (R&I), all EU member states still face remarkable difficulties in driving forward the development of their innovation system while at the same time improving gender equality by using all the available research potential. In this paper we focus on the development of the share of women researchers in four national innovation systems, i.e. in Austria, Denmark, Hungary and Spain in the time period 2005-2015. The four selected cases represent countries with significant differences in their innovation capacity, gender regimes and progress of gender equality in R&I. A qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is carried out to conduct a sector program evaluation based on statistical data and qualitative studies to understand the dynamic development of the proportion of women researchers. The study aims to provide insights into the aggregated gender equality interventions and policies implemented in the four countries studied and their contributions to the development of the proportion of women scientists at the structural level. The analysis reveals that the development of the share of women researchers during the studied period has been particularly influenced by contextual factors, namely the relative size of the business enterprise sector and the share of women among holders of tertiary education. While this is the case, it is found that gender equality interventions need to be more widespread and more effectively designed to be a strong contributing factor to an increasing representation of women in R&I.
Much has been written about the growing influence and reach of online learning in higher education, including the opportunities that this can offer for improving student equity and widening ...participation. One area of student equity in which online learning has an influence is that of gender equity, particularly for mature-age students. This article explicitly explores how the dual identities of student and family carer are managed by women studying online. It highlights the largely invisible yet emotional and time-consuming additional load that many women are carrying and discusses the importance of this being recognised and accommodated at an institutional level. Online study has the potential to facilitate a more manageable and achievable study path for students with caring responsibilities, most of whom are women. Institutional understanding and awareness are required for this potential to be truly realised, thereby reducing educational inequity. Author abstract
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are increasingly completing university at rates higher than their male counterparts. However, the reasons for this trend, including factors that support ...Indigenous women's determination to persist with university study, remain undocumented in the literature. We applied a strengths-based approach to determine factors that enabled eight Aboriginal women's success at university. In a project devised, designed and facilitated by Aboriginal women with university degrees, participants were invited to contribute to a yarning circle discussion where they were prompted to discuss strengths they drew upon to persist in their studies. Thematic analysis of the yarning data revealed four superordinate themes related to persistence: affirming educational experiences, peer support, developing a growth mindset, and the Aboriginal Education Unit. Findings suggest that the women's persistence was a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, all of which were contextualised within the intersectional experience of being both Aboriginal and female. This study acts to balance a deficit bias in studies about Indigenous people and higher education by elucidating the strengths of a specific Aboriginal cohort. Additionally, the findings can be translated into deeper understanding and practical guidance for universities to better support Indigenous women.
This open access book presents a systematic investigation into internationally comparable data gathered in ICILS 2013. It identifies differences in female and male students’ use of, perceptions ...about, and proficiency in using computer technologies. Teachers’ use of computers, and their perceptions regarding the benefits of computer use in education, are also analyzed by gender. When computer technology was first introduced in schools, there was a prevailing belief that information and communication technologies were ‘boys’ toys’; boys were assumed to have more positive attitudes toward using computer technologies. As computer technologies have become more established throughout societies, gender gaps in students’ computer and information literacy appear to be closing, although studies into gender differences remain sparse. The IEA’s International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) is designed to discover how well students are prepared for study, work, and life in the digital age. Despite popular beliefs, a critical finding of ICILS 2013 was that internationally girls tended to score more highly than boys, so why are girls still not entering technology-based careers to the same extent as boys? Readers will learn how male and female students differ in their computer literacy (both general and specialized) and use of computer technology, and how the perceptions held about those technologies vary by gender.
Juxtaposed against literature that views mothers' role for their daughters' education as a human capital this paper reimagines their role by foregrounding Pakistani mothers' agency in contexts with ...limited opportunities. This is achieved by theorising negative capability (NC) as an analytical framework drawing on available theorisations of the concept and define it as an agentive passive refusal to be intellectually paralysed by disadvantage. We demonstrate how the concept can be applied for empirical analysis. The paper takes an ethical stance that researchers should acknowledge that regardless of contextual difficulties people's agentive and intellectual faculties remain intact. Structural inequalities need to be challenged but their agentive potential also recognised. With a firm commitment that opportunities need to be made equal this paper builds on the second point to argue that even in the face of extreme disadvantage mothers' intellectual capacities to progress towards goals remain functional. We challenge the objectification of the marginalised and propose an analytical approach to understand difficulties faced as well as agency exercised by mothers facing socio-economic constraints. This work has implications for the capability approach that falls short of addressing issues of power, and policy that fails to understand the context.
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