Editorial

The link between women and educational leadership is a topic which has received extensive attention in academic research for over 30 years (Blackmore 2013; Bush 2021; Coleman 2010; Fuller 2014), and yet the under-representation of women in senior leadership roles in education continues to be a dire reality in most parts of the world (Coleman 2001; Porritt 2021). Moreover, for those women who have successfully attained a leadership role, it hasn’t come without its share of obstacles, misunderstandings and misplacement. Changes in policy, and indeed society, have led to some improvement, but not enough or at pace to offer women an educational leadership pathway that leads to success without inequitable interference.

With this in mind, welcome to our WomenEd Special Issue of School Leadership and Management. This is a first for our community, which was founded back in 2015, connecting aspiring and existing women leaders at all levels of education. Those of us who work with schoolteachers and leaders of all phases in Higher Education were keen to connect a range of themes under our WomenEd umbrella, and have united them here, in the first of two special issues.

For those of you who have not come across the WomenEd movement before, we will explain what we stand for, and what unites us, so that you will see the common threads in the first of these special issues. Firstly, our purpose: WomenEd is a global grassroots movement that connects aspiring and existing women leaders in education and gives women leaders a voice in education. Even though women dominate the workforce across all sectors of education, there are still gender and racial inequalities in terms of the numbers of women in senior leadership, the large gender pay gap and the number of women who want to stay in education yet whose requests for flexible working are not met. Our mission is to empower more women in education to have the choice to progress on their leadership journey. To achieve this, we work to remove systemic and organisational barriers to such progress and to elevate women to achieve their next leadership step.

Secondly, our WomenEd values, as summarised in the 8Cs:

• Clarity When we learned about the disproportionate representation of women leaders across education, the lack of diversity, the shocking gender pay gap and the Motherhood Penalty, that clarity propelled us into action globally. We work to share such clarity.

• Communication – we first created WomenEd because we saw that women educators and leaders were being silenced on Twitter (X). We want to ensure women are able to speak and that their voices are heard on social media. It’s why we have a microphone in our logo.

• Connection – women thrive on being connected yet tend to avoid traditional workplace networking. We built WomenEd around networks of leaders supporting women where they live and work. We now have 30 + global networks and 50,000 followers worldwide, all connected in wanting equity for women educators and leaders in education.

• Collaboration – collaboration at WomenEd events has developed into learning between networks, including global groups and greater working with partners and other organisations. This collaboration brings greater opportunities for women educators and leaders that enable us to reach more women.

• Community – our global community supports women where they live and work through our networks. Together we have a voice that is heard and respected and our community uses our voice to elevate women leaders in education and to disrupt the status quo.

• Confidence – many women in education feel they lack confidence. We encourage them to be 10% Braver and to share their concerns, ambitions. and successes. We want them to know their worth.

• Challenge – the clarity of gender inequity in education led us to challenge all aspects of the under-representation of women leaders. A significant challenge is the recruitment process which results in white men being seen disproportionately in senior leadership roles. We challenge the lack of flexible working and remuneration decisions and disrupt the status quo in education.

• Change – this is the outcome we want from our purpose and combined values. We want women leaders to insist on and agitate for the changes needed to achieve gender equity across education. We want male leaders to be allies in this drive to achieve greater diversity in leadership and for women’s voices to be heard. We want systemic change.

This special issue sets out to put these eight values at the heart of Educational Leadership and Management. We welcome male allies. We have four current campaigns that are central to our work: The Gender Pay Gap; Flexible Working; Diversity of Women Leaders in Education; Representation for Women Leaders in Education:

What is the Gender Pay Gap? Gender pay gaps (GPG) are measured in different ways globally. On all counts, however, most men earn more than a woman doing the same or similar work. Worldwide, women only make 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. As a result, there’s a lifetime of income inequality between men and women and more women are retiring into poverty. Women dominate the workforce in education, yet a pay gap exists in those countries that measure this.

In this special issue, the paper by Guerra, Poblete, Rodriguez and Figueroa presents the findings of a three-year study involving 12 women leaders in Early Childhood Education (ECE) who established a Professional Learning Community. Their findings reveal three tensions. Firstly, leadership is associated with a maternal role, perpetuating gender stereotypes. The second tension addresses the dynamics of personal connections within ECE teams in terms of asymmetry or horizontality. The third tension arises from the significance of caring as a crucial aspect of working in ECE education. These tensions underscore the need for a critical analysis of leadership in ECE, as gender considerations may overlook the complexity of the leaders’ role, and this remains a barrier in the fight for equal recognition and pay.

What is Flexible Working? Flexible working is a way of working that suits an employee’s needs, for example having flexible start and finish times, or working from home.¹ Research in the European Union has shown that ‘being a parent continues to hinder women in the labour market, reflecting the disproportionate weight of care duties on mothers’.² Our goals in flexible working are: Supporting the school sector to increase flexible working practices; Retaining more women educators and leaders through flexible working; and influencing attitudes of school leaders to achieve systemic change.

The paper by Ayyildiz sets out to challenge the overarching influence of patriarchy with its ramifications extending far into female academics’ social and professional lives in higher education institutions. Two research questions are (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? The findings reveal female faculty members possess similar concerns about leadership roles: personal, societal, or structural, and ask us to consider what types of working will really retain and develop female leaders.

What is Diversity in Leadership? Diversity in Leadership means ensuring at least the following forms are represented in any Leadership Team or Position: Cultural diversity; Racial diversity; Religious diversity; Age diversity; Sex / Gender diversity; Sexual orientation; and Disability. As Maya Angelou said: ‘We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color’.³ Our WomenEd goals in Diversity in Leadership are to: Increase the representation of diverse groups at leadership level in education; Support and encourage more women of colour and differing cultures, ethnicities, abilities, genders, ages, sexualities and faiths to believe they can achieve leadership positions; Provide guidance and advice for how these diverse groups of women can achieve success in applications for leadership; and Promote the visibility of such women in our organisation.

Johnson’s paper highlights the need to increase collective consciousness about the impact of leadership cultures on Black women, their experiences, their personal and professional choices, and the ensuing ramifications. The education leadership sector benefits from the advancement of more research and theory development relevant to the progression of Black women educational leaders in the United States, as discussed in this paper.

What is the problem with representation?

Whilst women are well represented in middle leadership roles, they are disproportionately underrepresented in senior roles in educational organisations globally, despite women making up the majority of the education workforce. In a letter written in 1776, Abigal Adams stated ‘If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.’⁴ Our WomenEd goals in the Representation of Women are to offer books, events, videos and advice to support women to move forward in their leadership journey.

Watterston and Ehrich’s paper shares the authors’ experiences and reflections based on research and the leadership development programmes run for women mainly in Australia. These programmes have reinforced their value, place, and contribution to enhancing women’s capacities for leadership and address the following four key questions as they pertain to women leaders within the Australian context: (1) Why a focus on gender and leadership? (2) What are some of the barriers impeding women leaders? (3) Why is it important to have multiple faces of leadership? (4) Why is women’s leadership development everyone’s responsibility?

The final paper in Part I of this special issue, by Thompson and Stokes, is an examination of why women might not make it through from middle leadership roles to the more senior ones, and what is needed to help in this process. Enablers recommended in this paper, include structural and strategic actions by senior leaders to promote women, mentoring and relevant leadership programmes, all of which resonate with the work that WomenEd has been developing.

As guest editors of this special issue, we have endeavoured to showcase both a wide range of nuances of the convergence between women and leadership, and a diversity of voices and experiences within different and global contexts. This special issue exemplifies many of our WomenEd principles of wanting to work differently and collaboratively – motivated by social justice – and we hope that you will enjoy reading the papers and disrupt the status quo for women leaders in education. Thank you, School Leadership and Management, for the opportunity to highlight this.

For more information on our Events, Blogs, Global Networks and Learning Opportunities, please head to www.womened.com or @WomenEd on X, WomenEd on LinkedIn, WomenEd Leaders on Instagram and Facebook and YouTube. Join our movement and conversations to achieve equity for women in education.

Notes

1 Flexible working: Overview – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

2 The Journey to becoming Flex Friendly – #WomenEd Blogs, https://womened.com/blog/the-journey-to-becoming-flex-friendly.

3 Maya Angelou ‘Rainbow in the Cloud: The Wisdom and Spirit of Maya Angelou’, https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/239371/rainbow-in-the-cloud-by-maya-angelou/9780812996456/excerpt.

4 Abigail Adams, Founder of the United States, 1776. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/abigail-adams-urges-husband-to-remember-the-ladies.