Complicating Agency: Narrated Experiences of Aspiring Latina Educational Leaders

• In Event: Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: Female Narratives and Identities as Educationalists and Leaders for Agency

Abstract

I draw on literature and empirical findings to analyze the concept of agency, examining discursive, performative, and material practices in the narrated experiences of six Latina aspiring educational leaders. There are certainly more than three types of agency that could be used to explain how the participants in my study made change in their worlds; however, this study presents scenarios collected via semi-structured interviews that demonstrate different narratives and experiences that are linked to certain conceptions of agency defined in this paper. The Latinas in this study are acting upon the world in a way that requires a certain amount of agency that can be levied against heteropatriarchal structural constraints that lead to gender and racial inequities in leadership positions.

Author

• Erin Matyjasik, The University of Arizona