Editorial: Ways of Seeing Women’s Leadership in Education—Stories, Images, Metaphors, Methods and Theories

Abstract

Gender and educational leadership remains a focus for scholarly interest precisely because gender inequalities remain. That is the case 30 years on from the publication of seminal works that established gender and women in educational leadership as a focus for research (Shakeshaft 1987; Blackmore 1989; Dillard 1995). Scholars continue to document women’s under-representation in leadership (Alston, 2005). This Research Topic focuses on accounts of doing leadership (e.g. Cook), as well as showing how their inclusion transforms leadership theory e.g. by incorporating gender, feminist, intersectionality and Afrocentric theories (e.g. Gullo and Sperandio, Tripses and Lazaridou, Malachias et al., Williams). Feminist epistemology ensures women’s experiences and ways of seeing are central to the research purpose and process; that women as leaders are not solely the object of the researcher’s gaze. In particular, feminist standpoint theory recognises there is epistemic privilege so that situated knowledge, what is known and the ways it can be known, is shaped by the positionality of knowledge producers. A reflexive approach prompts feminist researchers to reflect deeply on context, as well as their positionality, in relation to the focus of research. The theme of this Research Topic—“Ways of seeing women’s leadership in education: stories, images, metaphors, methods and theories”—reflects collective experiences from diverse perspectives. Earlier versions of these eighteen papers were first presented at the seventh Women Leading Education across Continents conference at the University of Nottingham, UK in the summer of 2019.