Navigating Dual Domains: A Discourse Analysis of Work-Life Barriers Encountered by Women High School Principals

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Navigating K-12 Leadership

Abstract

This feminist critical discourse analysis examines how women high school principals articulate work-life barriers in their professional lives. Through semi-structured interviews with three Illinois women principals and Acker's Ideal Worker Theory, this study reveals how gender ideologies are discursively negotiated. Findings demonstrate four primary themes: time consumption and boundaryless work as structural barriers, embodied gender expectations as professional barriers, gendered assumptions about family responsibilities, and cognitive labor as an invisible barrier. Analysis reveals how the principalship remains structured around masculine norms assuming unlimited time availability and work-life separation. Participants' discourse demonstrates both persistent gendered barriers and agency in navigating and resisting these constraints, offering insights into how educational leadership structures privilege ways of working that disadvantage women.

Authors

• Anne Allegretti, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Liv T. Davila, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign