Career Paths in Educational Leadership: Comparing Female and Male Narratives

• In Event: Roundtable Session 18.
  In Roundtable Session: The Roles, Career Paths, and Behaviors of Educational Leaders

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was to (1) examine the career path narratives of sitting school leaders and (2) compare and contrast female and male leaders’ stories of becoming a principal. Structural narrative analysis (Riessman, 2008) was supplemented with sociolinguistics theory (Holmes, 1993) to examine the similarities and differences between male and female leaders’ career path narratives and to analyze the differences in the language used by male and female principals to tell their career stories. The findings revealed differences between male and female leaders’ narratives in terms of structure, content, and style of the stories they told as well as certain similar characteristics across narratives such as acknowledged difficulties associated with the principalship.

Authors

• Oksana Parylo, University of Georgia - Athens

• Sally J. Zepeda, University of Georgia

• Ed Bengtson, University of Arkansas