The leaky pipeline: where ‘exactly’ are these leakages for women leaders in higher education?

ABSTRACT

Almost a quarter-century has passed in the new millennium; howoever, the phrase ‘Nihil Novum Sub Sole' is still valid for females struggling to move forward amid a male-dominant world. Structural, cultural, and organisational barriers continue to prevent women from achieving academic leadership positions within educational contexts, the so-called ‘leaky pipeline' phenomenon. This study set out to challenge the overarching influence of patriarchy with its ramifications extending far into female academics’ social and professional lives in higher education institutions. Therefore, two research questions are specified: (1) What prevents women within the faculty from engaging in leadership roles? (2) How can barriers to leadership roles be categorised for women in higher education? This study employed a qualitative paradigm and was conducted with 15 female colleagues working within various faculties of universities situated in the capital of Türkiye. The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Peer debriefing is referred to. This enhances the likelihood of preserving rigour and trustworthiness. The transcriptions of the recordings are sent to the participants asking for any changes. The findings reveal female faculty possess dissimilar concerns about leadership roles: personal, societal, or structural. Our study is uniquely positioned as it provides novel insights into barriers to progress into leadership.

KEYWORDS:

• Female leaders
• women leading in higher education
• barriers to women leading in higher education
• gender issues
• higher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pinar Ayyildiz

Associate Professor Pınar Ayyıldız is a translator, sociologist, and an educational researcher. She completed her secondary education in institutions including Tarsus American College and finished high school as the second runner-up and successfully graduated from the Department of Translation and Interpretation at Hacettepe University, to which she ranked 194th in Türkiye in the university exam when entering. She obtained her graduate degrees from Bilkent University and Hacettepe University with a high honor degree in Educational Administration. After graduating from the university, she immediately started working as a lecturer at Bilkent University School of English Language, where she continued to work as the head of the unit, “trainer” in the Cambridge Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (DELTA) diploma program, and as the academic and administrative coordinator for a total of ten years. She completed the internationally recognized Cambridge In-service Certificate in English Language Teaching (ICELT) as well as Cambridge Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (DELTA) at the same institution. She has held various academic and administrative positions such as Director of the Preparatory School and Dean of Students in various universities for twenty years. Her research interests involve Educational Leadership, Epistemology of Educational Administration and Management of Higher Education. Currently, she holds editorial responsibilities in numerous scientific and academic publications such as Participatory Educational Research (PER) and Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education (PTHE) and is the director of Ankara Medipol University School of Foreign Languages. She is also a faculty member and the Deputy Head of the Department of Management Information Systems and continues to work toward the effectiveness of education and training activities within the University as the Director of the Learning, Development and Improvement.

Koksal Banoglu

Dr. Koksal Banoglu earned his double Ph.D degree from Ghent University and Marmara University with distinction. Dr. Banoglu is the awardee of the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation named after Prof. Dr. Kadir Beycioğlu by Educational Administration Research and Development Association-EERA. So far he has hold solid research experience in programming with a broad range of applied statistics software: RSiena (in the analysis of dynamic networks and behavioral evolution), PNET & XPNET (p* and multiplex network analysis), StOCNET (p2 models), MPLUS (for multilevel models), AMOS (for structural validity analysis of measurement instruments & equation modeling), STATA (post-stratification in PISA research), SPSS (for linear and clustering modelings, as well as the conjoint/preference analysis by scripts), and UCINET/NetDraw (descriptive SNA). Beyond quantitative research paradigm, Doctor Banoglu is interested in the critical lens of sociological theories including Foucauldian discourse analysis, semantic network analysis, and Bourdieusian sociology. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on Leadership Theories, Research Methods, Statistics, Applied Statistics, Project Management, and Education Philosophy in several universities. Recently, he has supervised a master's thesis (2023) in educational leadership.