More Than a Ceiling: Implications of the "Glass Cliff" Phenomenon in Public School Leadership

• In Event: 75.041 - MTCC Roundtable Session 33
  In Roundtable Session: 75.041-2 - Exploring the Complexities of Leadership Development and Practices

Abstract

Despite the fact that education has long been seen as a “woman’s” profession (Hoffman, 2003), leaders of school districts are predominantly male, and there are clearly multiple hills to climb to overcome the embedded discrimination women face in entering these positions. In this paper, we consider another phenomenon that may be at play, and borrowed a concept from the private firms known as the “glass cliff” (Ryan and Haslam, 2005), which suggests female leaders are placed in precarious work situations, inherently set up to fail. Using probit and discrete-time survival models, we find evidence this phenomenon exists in school district leadership as well, and discuss the implications for future research and practice.

Authors

• Jennie Weiner, University of Connecticut

• Samuel J. Kamin, University of Connecticut

• Alexandra J. Lamb, University of Connecticut - Storrs