Women of Influence in Education: Practising Dilemmas and Contesting Spaces

196 Pages·2017·13.981 MB·English

by  Nita Cherry, Joy Higgs (eds.)

WomenofInfluenceinEducation
HIGHER EDUCATION HORIZONS
Volume 2
Series Editor
Joy Higgs
The Education For Practice Institute
Charles Sturt University, Australia
Advisory Editorial Board
Franziska Trede
The Education For Practice Institute
Charles Sturt University, Australia
Janice Orrell
Flinders University, Australia
Adjunct Professor, The Education For Practice Institute
Charles Sturt University, Australia
Narelle Patton
The Education For Practice Institute
Charles Sturt University, Australia
Other books in this series:
1. Orrell, J., & Curtis, D. D. (Eds.). (2016). Publishing higher degree research:
Making the transition from student to researcher. Rotterdam, The Netherlands:
Sense Publishers.
Women of Influence in Education
PractisingDilemmasandContestingSpaces
Editedby
NitaCherry
FacultyofBusinessandLaw,
SwinburneUniversityofTechnology,Australia
and
JoyHiggs
TheEducationForPracticeInstitute,
CharlesSturtUniversity,Australia
SENSEPUBLISHERS
ROTTERDAM/BOSTON/TAIPEI
AC.I.P.recordforthisbookisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress.
ISBN978-94-6300-813-6(paperback)
ISBN978-94-6300-814-3(hardback)
ISBN978-94-6300-815-0(e-book)
Publishedby:SensePublishers,
P.O.Box21858,
3001AWRotterdam,
TheNetherlands
https://www.sensepublishers.com/
Allchaptersinthisbookhaveundergonepeerreview.
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Allrightsreserved©2017SensePublishers
Nopartofthisworkmaybereproduced,storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Series introduction: Higher Education Horizons............................................... vii
Joy Higgs
Preface ................................................................................................................... ix
Nita Cherry and Joy Higgs
Section 1: The conversation space
1. Starting the conversation: The scope of this book and research approach ....... 3
Nita Cherry and Joy Higgs
2. The voices of the women in universities ........................................................ 13
Nita Cherry
3. Women principals: Voices in non-government schools ................................. 29
Deborah Towns
Section 2: Conversation highlights
4. Dimensions of leadership ............................................................................... 47
Joy Higgs
5. Creating frames .............................................................................................. 61
Nita Cherry
6. All the hats I wear .......................................................................................... 73
Joy Higgs
7. Taking up authority ........................................................................................ 91
Nita Cherry
8. Leadership engagement in real time ............................................................. 105
Nita Cherry
9. Inspiring girls through leadership and teaching ............................................ 117
Deborah Towns
10. Gender in leadership and workplaces ........................................................... 131
Deborah Towns
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Section 3: Costs and survival strategies
11. Survival and resilience ................................................................................. 145
Joy Higgs
12. Leadership as emotional labour .................................................................... 161
Nita Cherry
13. Pursuing practice wisdom in leadership............................................................. 175
Joy Higgs
vi
JOY HIGGS
SERIES INTRODUCTION
Higher Education Horizons
This series explores the current volatile context of higher education and examines
ways that the higher education sector is responding to and driving these changes.
The books in this series tackle challenges facing the sector and question the goals
and strategies that researchers, educators and theorists are creating to address these
challenges. They explore trends in stakeholder expectations, and evolving
pedagogies and different horizons existing and emerging in higher education. The
authors in this series bring a wealth of academic practice wisdom and experience to
examine these issues. They share their practice knowledge, report research into
strategies that address these challenges, and raise yet more questions. Through the
conversations in this book readers can enter into the debates, visions and
experiences of the agents of higher education.
Joy Higgs
Charles Sturt University, Australia 
vii

PREFACE
Frequently books about women and leadership deal with the politics of this
discussion space and the statistics of women succeeding to and through the glass
ceiling, or not!
In this book our focus is on a different space. We wanted to learn from the
experiences of women doing leadership work. The questions we explored in the
research underpinning this book were:
– How do women in education, such as university academics and school
principals, describe their experiences of exercising leadership in their
workplace?
– How do they say they take up formal mandates to lead and/or mandate
themselves to lead?
– How do their accounts resonate with accounts of practice as messy and
complex?
– What do their stories suggest about gendered social practices, and the
relationships and networks in which they were working?
Our strategy was to listen to the voices and stories of 28 women occupying senior
roles in education. Half of these women were principals of independent Victorian
secondary schools and the other half were in professorial and senior leadership
roles in Victorian universities. Through this listening and pondering on their
experiences in relating to the research questions we came to recognise that these
women of influence were working in contested spaces and facing multiple practice
dilemmas.
The two sections of the book reflect firstly these spaces as we set out to richly
present their voices of the women in the school and university settings. Second, we
reveal the key themes identified across their stories:
– The dimensions of leadership that comprise their lived experiences
– The pursuit of understanding of their roles such as being a CEO and school
principal
– Considering the multiplicity of roles these women take on and the various hats
they wear
– What it means to take up authority and influence with and without a mandate
– Recognising what leadership engagement in real time entails
– Reflecting on gender issues such as:
inspiring girls through leadership and teaching
dealing with gender barriers by “doing it my way”
– Looking at the costs of leadership in these settings and how to deal with the
work and environment challenges:
by surviving and being resilient
by dealing with the emotional labour of this leadership
by pursuing practice wisdom in leadership.
ix