Pedagogical leadership and gender: the obstacles that female school directors face in Southern Chile

ABSTRACTDespite the progressive advance in the equality of rights and opportunities, a significant number of women who lead school organisations continue to encounter a series of obstacles when it comes to exercising school management. In this context, the article presents the experience of six women who lead educational establishments in the Araucanía Region, Chile. From a qualitative approach, the research recognises the participants as active agents in the co-construction of situated knowledge Haraway 1995 [Ciencia, cyborgs y mujeres. La reinvención de la naturaleza. Cátedra] and participatory stages and actions were designed to foster reflection and self-narration on the managerial work of its protagonists. The results show six critical aspects to understand the obstacles that female directors face: (1) The overcoming of ‘glass ceiling’ and ‘sticky floor’ situations, (2) Tacit gender prejudices in educational organisations, (3) The conception of leadership from a male thought pattern, (4) Double work shifts and their impact on the development of personal life, (5) The discrimination between peers for motives based on gender, and (6) The importance of female leadership models in their own formative processes. In conclusion, we see that one of the complications in pedagogical leadership for learning lies in gender relations.KEYWORDS: Female leadersLeadership for learningInternal obstaclesGenderPedagogical leadership Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Law No. 21,040 promulgated in 2017, creates the Public Education System and assumes a technical advisory role in all the municipalities of the country, seeking to guarantee transparency, merit and equal conditions in the recruitment and selection processes for positions. head of education, management of educational establishments and the management of the local education service in Chile.Additional informationFundingThis paper is part of the results of the Fondecyt project N°11200738 ‘Leadership for learning and evaluation practices in Elementary Education Schools in the Araucanía Region’ (2020–2023), funded by the National Research and Development Agency of Chile, ANID.Notes on contributorsMaría Pía Torres ZamoraMaría Pía Torres Zamora. Feminist. Professor of social anthropology and gender studies at the Catholic University of Temuco. Professional and investigative interests focused on processes of socioeconomic transformation, gender equality, feminist methodologies and pedagogies in Latin America and south-austral Chile. Among his recent papers are: “Intangible Cultural Heritage and gender” (Subdirectorate of Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture of Chile, 2021) and “Creativity and resistance from female work in the economy of Bordemar de Calbuco, Chile” (Tekoporá Review, 2021)Carolina Villagra BravoCarolina Villagra Bravo. Doctor in Teacher Training and professor at the Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez, Chile. She writes about educational assessment and leadership for learning. Among her recent articles are: Leading the transformation of the school from the evaluation as learning approach (2023) and Leadership and evaluative democratization of the school (2023).