Managing Childcare and Work Responsibilities: The Strategies of Married Women Primary and Infant Headteachers

Abstract

The article analyses the strategies that had been developed by women teachers to enable them to meet their family obligations to care for young children and, at the same time, develop their teaching careers. Using career history data from a sample of twenty-five women headteachers, from a midlands county in England, the article considers the expectations these women had set themselves with regard to certain childcare tasks and how they had managed the resources they had, in order to meet these expectations. The interview data revealed that relationships, particularly between other women teachers, were an important resource in enabling these women to fulfil their childcare expectations while pursuing their teaching careers.