The study sought to explore four female school principals’ management experiences and
challenges that these females encounter in their management duties. It adopted a qualitative
approach inquiry, and used semi-structured interviews and observations as its methods of
data collection. The objective was to examine and unveil the challenges that these principals
encountered when applying for promotion into school management; some gender-based
dynamics related to executing their duties and responsibilities as female school managers; the
management strategies that the female principals used to cope with their management
responsibilities, as well as the support they required in order to enhance their effective
management in the schools.
The findings reveal that female principals have, indeed encountered challenges at schools
owing to their gender as females. These range from the very long period of time it took for
them to be promoted into management positions to the dynamics related to managing staff
meetings, which included female principals being regarded as tokens by some teachers and
not being taken seriously, thereby undermining the female principals’ authority as school
managers. Mainly based on the societal expectations on females to perform domestic chores,
female principals in these schools have to struggle with a heavy workload of their school
work which runs concurrently with their familial responsibilities (domestic chores) at home.
The negative attitudes of staff and the community, which cast doubt on females’ capacity to
become managers, are shown to have far-reaching adverse consequences, which affect the
female principals’ ability to effectively manage the schools.
However, the female principals in this study innovatively employ various management
strategies to mitigate the effects of these challenges on their ability to manage the schools.
These include adopting collegial (and democratic) management strategies that enable them to
raise above the tide, thus challenging the stereotypic conceptions that females do not have the
capacity to become effective school managers. Based on the female principals’ views and
experiences, the study suggested some strategies that could be employed to support and
enhance female principals’ abilities for effective school management. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2012.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ukzn/oai:http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za:10413/6106 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Makhaye, Lindiwe. |
| Contributors | Morojele, Pholoho Justice. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en_ZA |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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