Storying the Route to the Principalship: Contrasting Attitudes of Irish Women Teachers

• In Event: For the Public Good: Women in Educational Leadership Across the Continents

Abstract

The aim was to develop an understanding of the perspectives of three cohorts of Irish post-primary teachers on becoming principal. The study included twelve women who had attained the position of principal, ten aspiring to principalship, and ten for whom the position held no interest.

The analytical framework highlighted the obstacles and enablers informing the career pathways of female teachers as they opt to pursue or reject principalship application among three culturally-defined platforms: macro or ‘socio-political’ level, meso or ‘ societal-organisational’ level, and micro or ‘individual-personal’ level.

To depict the many informing agents which characterise the careers of female teachers, the research paradigm is interpretivism, a concept concerned with perspectives and the meanings social actors attribute to the world around them as they interact with it. The key components considered are a person’s intentions and the reasons for holding it; a person’s strategies for realising one’s intentions and one’s reason for holding them; the significance of one’s strategies and intentions; and one’s intended outcome.

Thirty-two women from across a variety of backgrounds in both urban and rural communities in the Republic of Ireland, representing all three education sectors at post-primary level took part in the study. Many of those who had acceded to principalship in addition to those who had no desire to take up the mantle were very keen to tell their stories; they enthusiastically portrayed and explained the key informants of their career trajectories. Those who aspired to principalship, on the other hand, were a more reticent group. While equally willing to tell their stories, they were much more concerned with anonymity. A fear of failure prompted this; if no one knew they were applying for principal positions, then they did not have to explain lack of attainment should they be unsuccessful.

Findings suggest the role of post-primary principal is onerous. It demands much from the incumbent while rewarding little. Women who had attained the principalship or were seeking the role noted the necessary dominance of the professional life over the personal to execute the role. They did however observe that this was their choice, as they wished to initiate change and alter practices to better fulfill the dreams and ambitions of their students. Those women who shunned principalship as a career goal did so as they perceived principalship to be an isolated role that would remove them from everyday student contact, necessitated working long, uncompensated hours that would cost their family life dearly.

The Republic of Ireland, in keeping with international trends, is experiencing increasing antipathy towards the position of school leader. The fall-off in application numbers is a growing cause of concern. The results of this study suggests that the all-encompassing nature of school leadership is a significant deterrent to those who are well-qualified to take up the position. In addition to professional responsibilities it is the lack of attention to gender and cultural contexts, in addition to the taken-for-granted assumption that women can execute all roles demanded of them by society without any deficit to themselves, that needs intervention and reassessment.

Author

• Mary Elizabeth Cunneen, University College Dublin, Dublin,Ireland