Female Leadership in a Rural Educational Landscape in South Africa

• In Event: 30.069 - Women and Educational Leadership

Abstract

This presentation attends to ethnographic research of female leadership in a rural school in South Africa through the lens of relational leadership and emotional labor. The research draws on five years of in-depth conversations and observations that speak to female leadership experiences of hope and anticipation, and to despair and disillusionment. This paper draws on qualitative data of a female school principal from a rural school whose narrative changed from hope to hopelessness and resignation. Her commitment was overcome by the educational challenges, which involved hunger and poverty, and orphaned learners, and pedagogical problems. Theoretically, this inquiry draws on relational leadership (Hosking 2011) and emotional labor (Hochschild 1983; Iszatt-White 2013) in rural education (Mafora 2013) and empirically on ethnographic research.

Authors

• Brigitte Smit, University of South Africa

• Rebotile Machaisa, University of South Africa