TITLE:
Head Teachers, Women and Hesitation to Discuss Gender Issues
AUTHORS:
Maria Hedlin
KEYWORDS:
Women Educational Administrators, Educational Leadership, Head Teachers, Gender Issues, Gender Equality Policy
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.5 No.6,
June
28,
2017
ABSTRACT: The purpose of this paper
is to explore how a group of Swedish head teachers approaches the importance of gender issues in terms of their
work. The empirical material is from
so-called “research circles”, which were part of a gender equality project conducted in southern
Sweden. A research circle is similar to a focus group interview. The group,
which consists of eight women who were head teachers within compulsory
education, met on six occasions. The results show that the women initially
expressed strong hesitation about whether discussing gender issues in relation
to the role of head teacher was beneficial at all. The entire gender equality
project was called into question by the suggestion that the connection between
head teacher and gender implied a weakening of women. However, examples of
gender playing a role within educational settings were increasingly noted. By
highlighting female head teachers’ ambivalence towards discussing issues related to gender and gender equality,
this paper contributes to the discussion about why these issues do not occupy a
stronger position within schools. Also, the female head teachers’ hesitation and ambivalence are connected to the decline in status of the head
teacher profession due to the restructuring of education, for which women in educational leadership in Sweden
have been blamed.