<p>RATHBONE, RITA J., Ed.D. Teacher Leadership, Power, and the Gendered Space of Teaching: Intersections and Discourses. (2015)
Directed by Dr. Carl Lashley. 172 pp.
Relying on critical feminist understandings of power, this study explores how the
gendered expectations and intersectional identity of women teachers impacts their
negotiation of power in the practice of teacher leadership and social justice advocacy.
This study takes a critical stance towards the existing body of literature and challenges
the current feminized and patriarchal understanding of teacher leadership. Using a
collaborative autoethnographic approach, a group of practicing teacher leaders examined
their lived experiences as teacher leaders. The participants reported experiencing
gendered expectations in their teaching contexts of support/nurturing, passivity,
collaboration, normative gender expression, and all-encompassing teacher identity.
Practicing teacher leadership in this gendered environment was a balancing act that
required the ability to be a ?chameleon.? The complexity of teaching and intricate nature
of connections and networks allowed teachers to pick and choose a variety of strategies
and resources with which to negotiate power.
The study finds that much of the work of teacher leadership involved negotiating
the interpersonal and cultural domains of power in order to develop coalitions of diverse
stakeholders to resist the oppressive forces found in the structural and disciplinary
domains. The teachers reported often having to ?play against? negative assumptions of
their ability to be leaders based on race and gender. The study concludes that the
scholarly understanding of the practice of teacher leadership must be redefined to include
the social justice focus of much of its practice, the intricacy of teachers? networks, an
understanding of power as multidirectional and multidimensional, the nuance of gendered
norms found in teaching, and the unresolved paradoxes that teacher leaders face every
day.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:3745533 |
| Date | 07 January 2016 |
| Creators | Rathbone, Rita J. |
| Publisher | The University of North Carolina at Greensboro |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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