African American Women in Educational Administration: The Importance of Mentors and Sponsors

Abstract

Kim Allen, New Beginnings Alternative Education Program (Newark, DE); Steve Jacobson, State University of New York-Buffalo; and Kofi Lomotey, Louisiana State University* Thirty-eight questionnaires and eight in-depth interviews were obtained from a convenience sample of aspiring African American women school administrators in western New York State. Expectancy theory was used to analyze their responses. Two key findings emerged: (a) although the subjects perceived race as a major obstacle to promotion, they did not view gender as a serious barrier; and (b) though these women had little trouble forming supportive relationships, mentors and sponsors-people who provide moral support and genuine opportunities for advancement-- were hard to find. The article concludes by recommending that university-based educational preparation programs play a more active role in the sponsorship of their African American women students and graduates and providing suggestions for accomplishing this. INTRODUCTION About the only thing researchers know with any certainty about African American women in positions of authority in America's public schools is that there are not many of them (Jacobson,1990; Richards,1988). During the 1972-73 academic year, women of underrepresented groups comprised only one-tenth of a percent of the nation's superintendents, a figure that rose to just under 3% by 1984-85 (Jones & Montenegro,1985). Of 421 superintendents who responded to Executive Educator's 1989 nationwide survey of school administrators, only 4 (less than 1%) were Black women (Heller, Woodworth, Jacobson, & Conway, 1991). Because they have been so few in number, there is precious little research about African American women in educational administration, their professional aspirations, the obstacles they confront as they pursue their goals, and the roles of mentors and sponsors in advancing their careers. Indeed, Coursen, Mazzarella, Jeffress, and Hadderman (1989) note that since the late seventies, it has been more and more difficult to find even the most basic data or information on blacks in educational administration (p. 99). The literature, they contend, is strangely silent on this population (p. 99). What literature does exist typically includes only a small sample of African American women within the larger context of women in and implicitly treats their concerns in much the same manner as those of other women, most often Hispanics (Adkison, 1981; Edson, 1980). Specifically, this research suggests that a lack of involvement and support by such critical figures has blocked women and members of underrepresented groups from achieving their administrative aspirations (e.g., Coursen et al., 1989; Doughty, 1980; Jacobson, 1990; Ortiz & Marshall, 1988; Shakeshaft, 1987; Valverde, 1974; Valverde & Brown, 1988). In this exploratory study, the conceptual model of expectancy theory will be used to explain the relationships between the career aspirations of African American women, their behaviors, and their ability to attain the rewards they desire. More specifically, it serves as a conceptual framework for understanding the roles and importance of mentors and sponsors to African American women in educational administration. We seek to explain the aspirations (expectancies) of African American women regarding the functions of administrative roles and the attractiveness (valence) of the rewards these positions elicit, as well as explain how mentors and sponsors instrumentally affect these women's efforts to attain these goals. Expectancy theory focuses on the process of motivation and the mechanisms that link rewards, both intrinsic and extrinsic, to behavior (Herzberg, 1966; Vroom, 1964). It uses three concepts to describe the process of motivation: (a) expectancy, or subjective estimates of one's ability to engage successfully in a particular activity; (b) instrumentality, or subjective perceptions of connections between behavior and work outcomes; and (c) valence, or the subjective attractiveness of the rewards (Jacobson, 1987). …