Pontso Moorosi

South African Female Principals’ Career Paths: Understanding the Gender Gap in Secondary School Management:

This article reports on data from a larger scale study exploring female principals’ experiences of their career route to the principalship of secondary schools in South Africa. To understand these experiences, the study used an analytical framework that identifies three phases principals go through on their career route, namely: anticipation, acquisition and performance. The framework suggests that women experience more obstacles than men on their career route and their experiences are influenced by personal, organizational and social factors. These factors manifest in social practices within and outside schools and affect women across the three phases of the career route. Central to these experiences, is the underlying male norm of who is more appropriate for secondary school principalship.

Constructing a leader’s identity through a leadership development programme An intersectional analysis

This article explores the notion of leadership identity construction as it happens through a leadership development programme. Influenced by a conception that leadership development is essentially about facilitating an identity transition, it uses an intersectional approach to explore school leaders’ identity construction as it was shaped and influenced by experiences on the leadership development programme. The article draws data from a mixed-methods study that evaluated the impact of the leadership training programme offered to practising school leaders in South Africa. In order to examine the process of leadership identity construction, the article draws from data where identity work was visible. It argues that categories of identity – gender, race and social class – interacted simultaneously with the contexts and backgrounds of participants to shape and influence the outcome of the leadership development programme. This complex intersection enabled unexpected outcomes where women appeared to benefit more from the programme despite their less privileged entry status. The article calls for more work that asks direct questions on leaders’ construction of identity in order to inform leadership development programmes more meaningfully.

Mentoring for school leadership in South Africa: diversity, dissimilarity and disadvantage

In South Africa, until recently, mentoring has not been formalized as part of school leadership induction programmes or of leadership professional development. However, the South African government identified mentoring as a distinctive aspect of its pilot leadership development programme for school principals. This programme signalled a shift from ad hoc and informal mentoring to building mentorship into school leadership development programmes. However, there is still no clear understanding about what constitutes effective mentoring models and the significance of similarity and diversity in a mentoring relationship. In this paper I draw from two dissimilar datasets to explore mentoring from an identity (gender and race) perspective. Using similarity-attraction theory, the paper highlights the complexity of mentoring models and suggests that higher levels of dissimilarity in a mentoring relationship may lead to disadvantage.

Networking for school leadership in South Africa: perceptions and realities

This article presents the findings from the evaluation of the pilot of a new entry qualification for school principals in South Africa. The programme, Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) School Leadership, had networking as a distinctive feature, and this article examines candidates’ perceptions and experiences of networking as a leadership development process. The methodology combined the survey, interviews and observations. The findings revealed that the practice, development and sustainability of networks were complex; networking advanced shared learning and facilitated candidates’ programme completion while addressing school-based problems through site-based assessment. However, networks were noted to be patchy, with a few operating successfully, but most still requiring development.

A comparative analysis of intersections of gender and race among black female school leaders in South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States

In this chapter we use intersectionality theory to do a cross-cultural analysis of three black women leaders’ experiences of leadership in relation to their gender and race in the leadership of schools from three different contexts: England, South Africa and the United States. Through a life-history methodology, black women leaders were interviewed using a set of topics that focused on the interviews and allowed some flexibility to follow up interesting unexpected contextual patterns. The findings suggest that women’s constructions of success are strongly shaped by their gender and race and are deeply rooted in their cultural and familial histories as sources of courage, inspiration and values. These deep-rooted values compel them to practise leadership that is inclusive, fair and socially just. We conclude that the intersectional role of race and gender is significant and needs to be understood alongside the intersection with other aspects of identity such as culture, ethnicity and family background in order to bring stories of black women’s successful leadership to the fore.

Career development of English female head-teachers : influences, decisions and perceptions

ABSTRACT This paper presents findings from a study examining the career development experiences of female head-teachers in the south of England. Adapting a three-stage career model, the study examined different stages of the women’s lives and careers in order to understand what encouraged and influenced them to become educational leaders and how their experiences shaped their perceptions of headship. The study used semi-structured life story interviews to generate rich accounts of women’s lives from childhood. Findings suggest that parents exerted significant influence on the participants’ values and ambitions, while teachers influenced their career choices. Their perceptions of headship developed and changed over time, transforming from feelings of shock at the reality and the complexity of headship to control and confidence that increased over first, second and third headships.

Leadership and intersectionality: Constructions of successful leadership among Black women school principals in three different contexts

Using intersectionality theory, the article presents constructions of successful leadership by three Black women school principals in three different contexts: England, South Africa and the United States. The article is premised on the overall shortage of literature on Black women in educational leadership, which leaves Black women’s experiences on the periphery even in contexts where they are in the majority. Through a life-history approach, we interviewed three Black women leaders on their experiences of gender and race in constructing success in leadership, and used intersectionality theory to analyse their accounts. Our analysis suggests that Black women leaders’ constructions of success are shaped by overcoming barriers of their own racialized and gendered histories to being in a position where they can lead in providing an education for their Black communities, where they are able to inspire a younger generation of women and to practice leadership that is inclusive, fair and socially just. We conclude with a range of implications for the scholarship of intersectionality and educational leadership practice.

Secondary School Leadership Preparation and Development: Experiences and Aspirations of Members of Senior Leadership Teams.

In England, school leadership preparation has shifted from the National College and local authorities to teaching schools, their alliances and multi-academy trusts. Against this changing educational landscape, we investigate opportunities presented to men and women in secondary school leadership teams (SLTs). Drawing on interview data from a British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society funded investigation, we report on leadership preparation and development opportunities, aspiration to headship, headteachers’ support of ‘in house’, regional and national preparation programmes, coaching and mentoring involvement as well as access to formal and informal networks. Our analysis of SLTs as sites of potential for headship demonstrated some variability in women’s and men’s reported experiences. Accredited courses, higher degrees and workplace-based preparation provided access to leadership preparation and development opportunities; access was not transferrable from school to school. We identified a fragmented system and suggest policy and cultural changes to allow SLTs to offer inclusive and sustainable opportunities for succession planning.

The socialisation and leader identity development of school leaders in Southern African countries

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the socialisation and leader identity development of school leaders in Southern African countries. Design/methodology/approach The study utilised a survey of qualitative data where data collection primarily involved in-depth interviews with school principals and deputy principals of both primary and secondary schools. Findings Findings revealed that early socialisation to leadership transpired during childhood and early schooling at which points in time the characteristics and values of leadership integral to the participants’ leadership practice were acquired. Initial teacher training was found to be significant in introducing principalship role conception. Leader identity was also found to develop outside the context of school through pre-socialising agents long before the teaching and leading roles are assumed. Originality/value The study presents an overview of the findings from four countries in Southern Africa, providing a complex process with overlapping stages of career socialisation. Existing research puts emphasis on formal leadership preparation as a significant part of socialisation – this study suggests alternatives for poorly resourced countries. Significantly, the paper improves our understanding that school leader identity is both internal and external to the school environment.

Do we see through their eyes? Testing a bilingual questionnaire in education research using cognitive interviews

ABSTRACT The paper aims to demonstrate the value of cognitive interviewing (CI) as a survey pretesting method in comparative education research. Although rarely used by education researchers, CI has been successfully applied in different disciplines to evaluate and improve question performance. The method assumes that observing people’s thought processes when they answer survey questions can detect response problems and point to possible solutions. To illustrate the merits of CI, we present the findings from eight cognitive interviews, which informed the development of a bilingual English/Georgian online questionnaire. The main objectives of our CI study were to (a) examine cognitive validity of survey questions, (b) determine semantic equivalence of the source (English) and translated (Georgian) versions of the questionnaire and (c) establish conceptual equivalence of survey measures across two cultures. We conducted two rounds of cognitive interviews, one in each language, using a combination of think-aloud and verbal probing techniques. Our analysis suggests that CI can help to identify causes of response difficulties and develop more accurate and comparable survey measures for cross-cultural education research.