Exploring Indigenous Women's Leadership Conceptualizations: Prompting Talking Circle Discussions using the Career Aspiration Survey Revised

• In Event: Who Leads, Who Labors, Who Lasts? Institutional Climate, Labor, and Leadership in Higher Education

Abstract

Fitzgerald (2002) has proclaimed that the "silences surrounding indigenous women and educational leadership are deafening" (p. 10). To that end, more research on Indigenous women and leadership is needed. Furthermore, while there is an abundance of research on gender and racial disparities in higher education leadership, what remains underexplored is the salience of culture in shaping Indigenous women’s leadership aspirations and conceptualizations. To gain insight into Indigenous women's culturally influenced conceptualizations of leadership, talking circles were conducted using the Career Aspiration Survey-Revised as a discussion prompt.
Qualitative analysis provided outcomes that revealed Indigenous women push back against traditional hierarchies, arguing that their cultural groundings can reform leadership to be more collective, cooperative, and compassionate.

Author

• Christie G. Meninick