Theses (Ph. D.)--Marshall University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Includes abstract. Document formatted into pages: contains vi, 108 pages Bibliography: p. 100-108.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 159-161). Print copy also available.

The current situation in South-African education warrants a rethink on how we use our leadership expertise and skills. It is a statistical fact that women are under-represented in positions of educational leadership in our schools. Society needs to acknowledge that all our resources must be utilised: women being one of our major resources in the field of education. Experiences from this study show that there are many intrinsic and extrinsic barriers to the progress of women in educational management. These barriers amount to beliefs, assumptions stereotypes, socialisation, organisational constraints and value systems. These beliefs and assumptions have cast women into teaching roles rather than educational leadership roles. The cxpenences of the women principals who were involved in this study suggest that women have the capacity to manage effective schools. Furthermore, these women have the willingness and desire to involve all stakeholders in the process of education. The data indicates that it may be worthwhile to start professional and educational training programmes to empower women to take their place in school leadership. Training sessions need not only to bring women to consciousness but, also to critically analyse these barriers and constraints. An awareness of these imposed limitations will give rise to improved practice and self-driven professional development. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / The problem of this dissertation is to discover factors which motivate a selected group of women candidates for the Master of Religious Education degree to enter upon the program, and to relate motivational factors to perseverance or non-perseverance in the program and in subsequent professional practice. / 2031-01-01

Education remains one of the most gender imbalanced fields, with disproportionately fewer women in higher levels of leadership. Women who reach leadership positions in education experience many triumphs and tribulations during their tenures as principals, assistant superintendents, and superintendents. The experiences of these women in their various administrative levels of leadership can provide important insight into the reasons for their success as women superintendents in Texas. This research has probed the career trajectory of nine women who have successfully attained and retained superintendencies in Texas to determine what career decisions have helped them and the challenges these women have faced in their positions. A qualitative research method, open-ended interviews, yielded several findings of what women considered important in proceeding from teaching through the various levels and ending in becoming superintendents. According to nine successful women superintendents in Texas, there are specific characteristics one can bring to the table that would really make a difference: Communication, collaboration, compassion, preparedness, hard work, and passion. All nine participants overcame challenges when climbing to the higher levels of leadership in education. These women have achieved success in the superintendency, and several factors appear to have played into the success of these women who have achieved in education’s top position.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, School of Education, 2011

Thesis (M.A (Psychology))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, 2016. / The purpose of the research was to explore issues of identity amongst young, English speaking black middle class women focusing on belonging and alienation. Qualitative research using narrative interviews was conducted with 10 middle class women, aged between 20 and 35 years, who were among the first cohort of black children to attend model C schools at the end of the apartheid era and be taught in English. Several themes and findings were identified, starting with the multigenerational influence on the journey into being assimilated into the English language and culture. Grandmothers and parents experienced tensions between loss of indigenous languages and gaining class mobility for their daughters. Participants also unpacked their journeys of being assimilated into the English language and whiteness and the traumatic experiences they went through as their childhoods were racialised and they became positioned as inferior black people. These traumatic experiences of race continued into their adulthood and intersected with gender, class and language, as the women were positioned as ‘cultural clones’ in the workplace. Language also influenced the women’s intimate relationships as they positioned English speaking male partners as providers and therefore potential life partners. Issues of hair and skin colour were also found to be significant identity markers through insertion into western culture through language, and blackness is actively redefined, resisted and reclaimed. This shows how our identities are fragmented and fluid, allowing the women to experience multiple identities and make them work. The women experience tensions between the loss of their mother tongue and culture, and the positive gains of class mobility that they attribute almost solely to their adoption of the English language as their primary (or only) language of communication. They are alienated from their communities because of their immersion into English and western culture but they are actively generating a new sense of belonging and identity within a new imagined community of English speaking black middle class women / GR2017

Ethnic minority female physical education (PE) teachers who work in predominantly white schools may face multiple forms of marginalization and oppression due to the embodiment of a racialized and gendered identity which is positioned as “other” within PE contexts. A significant gap exists between diversifying teacher and student populations, thus warranting an examination of how sociocultural factors impact a teacher’s identity. Purpose: To explore how race and gender intersect in the embodied identities of ethnic minority female PE teachers in predominantly white schools in the United States. Methods: This study used narrative and visual research methods from a constructivist paradigmatic lens and followed guidelines for narrative-based, semi-structured, and conversational interviews coupled with photo elicitation. Results: The pilot study demonstrated how participants often felt isolated and uncomfortable in their schools, actively seeking out other ethnic minorities to make meaningful connections and validate their embodied identities. The full study indicated that participants enacted colorblind discourses in order to assimilate into their school settings yet also experienced internal conflict over their super-visibility as minority members within white majoritarian schools. Finally, the full study illustrated participants’ self-affirming strategies and resilience in working for social justice within their predominantly white school contexts, and how notions of transformational resistance sustained their commitment to furthering the field of PE towards more inclusive and critical pedagogies. Discussion: This research demonstrated how schools are often sites of continued racialized marginalization for ethnic minority community members and served as an important reminder that future research should avoid enacting a “deficit” or “savior” position when examining issues of racial inequality. Instead, it is imperative that scholarship in the field employ an agentic perspective which recognizes the autonomy of its subjects in reframing their experiences towards empowerment. The agency of “othered” school community members should be centered within the notion of schools as sites of marginalizing pedagogies for research that aims to destabilize dominant discourses and disrupt the resulting oppression embedded within the educational system in the United States.

Thesis (M.A (Psychology))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, 2016 / Transformation initiatives in South African higher education institutions are informed by literature which has thus far explicated the high failure and attrition rates amongst Black university students with discourses asserting that the major contributing factors are disadvantage and language of origin. The current study endeavoured to investigate the learning histories of a group of high achieving Black female university students from socio- economically or educationally disadvantaged backgrounds in order to inform current transformation initiatives at South African higher education institutions. Seven female students who had previously participated in an academic development programme in the faculty of humanities at the University of the Witwatersrand, the Reaching for Excellent Achievement Programme (REAP), volunteered to participate in this study. Despite being second language students and coming from less advantaged backgrounds, these students achieved excellent academic marks and acceptance into various post- graduate programmes. Semi- structured interviews with an episodic narrative style were conducted. The method of data analysis found to be most appropriate for this study was thematic content analysis. The results revealed the importance of the influence of high school teachers on students’ perceptions of school and school subjects; the pace of adjusting to university; the significance of effective lecturing styles; the formation of an academic identity; acquiring academic literacy; and the importance of having social support (especially from university lecturers) for the successful academic performance of the participants in this study. This study suggests that perhaps there is more than individual effort that is required for academic success at university level. Further, it suggests that higher education institutions need to improve the lecturing styles of their lecturers, should ensure that all students are able to successfully adjust to the university environment early in their first year of study, should offer compulsory academic literacy courses to all first year students, and should consider providing all students with mentors who are university personnel. / MT2017