Women in Educational Leadership: Negotiating Postures of Resistance

• In Event: 61.068 - MTCC Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: 61.068-6 - Critical Feminism in Education: Discourses and Dialogue

Abstract

This paper explores the persistence of stereotyping and discrimination that women in positions of educational leadership have faced for decades. Herein, we describe and explore the professional involvements and perspectives of twelve women who hold various positions of leadership as educators and administrators, and we examine overt and covert forms of discrimination that affect decision-making and authority. Moving beyond evidence of stereotyping, pigeon-holing, and discrimination, this paper takes up Barad’s (2007) theory of intra-action to understand these positionalities and subjectivities in a different light. In so doing, we explore how our participants adopted postures of resistance as they accepted, rejected, and wrestled with discrimination and stereotyping while negotiating positions of leadership.

Authors

• Liz Chase, St. John's University

• Jennifer L. Martin, University of Illinois at Springfield