Does the gender of school personnel influence perceptions of leadership?

Precious Guramatunhu-Mudiwa* and Les L. Bolt

Department of Leadership and Educational Studies, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC,USA

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the gender of school buildingleaders (principals and assistant principals), teachers (including interventionspecialist, vocational, literacy specialist, special education teacher, etc.) and otherschool-based roles (school counsellor, school psychologist, social worker, librarymedia, etc.) influences the perceptions of leadership as measured by the TeacherWorking Conditions (2008) Survey conducted in North Carolina Public Schools.The study used analysis of variance techniques on a sample that had been selectedthrough data-mining and propensity score-matching techniques to minimise theeffects of disparate cell sizes and multicollinearity of confounding variables withgender. The study revealed that the gender of the respondent did not have asignificant difference on teacher perceptions of leadership among public schoolsin North Carolina although the role of the respondent was significant across alldimensions. The interaction effects between gender and role of the respondentswere significant on the major dimensions of leadership (School Leadership andEducator Leadership). An examination of the marginal means for the interactioneffects indicated that females in instructional and administrative roles had higherscores on leadership variables than males, but females had lower scores thanmales in the other roles.

Keywords: leadership; educational change; school improvement; schooleffectiveness

Environmental surveys generally seek to solicit feedback about the levels of

satisfaction on organisational core functions. Satisfaction surveys provide critical

information about organisational strengths and weaknesses, which, when implemen-

ted, are intended to drive change and improvement. In North Carolina, teacher

working conditions (TWC) are considered pivotal to improving education in the

public school system. To demonstrate that commitment, Governor Michael Easley, a

two-term democratic governor, from 2001 through 2008, enacted the Teacher

Working Conditions Survey (TWCS) initiative in 2001, making North Carolina

the first state in the nation to initiate a survey that asked educators about what they

needed to be successful in their jobs (Maddock 2009). The TWCS is now a bi-annual

practice since its establishment as a line item in the budget by North Carolina Senate

Bill 622 in 2005.

The TWCS is an anonymous online tool that is taken by certified public

educators in K-12 settings. The rationale behind the TWCS according to Governor

Easley is that TWCs are predictors of student achievement. He stated, and many

North Carolina educators today agree that, ‘[. . .] teacher working conditions are

*Corresponding author. Email: mudiwap@appstate.edu

School Leadership & Management

Vol. 32, No. 3, July 2012, 261�277

ISSN 1363-2434 print/ISSN 1364-2626 online

# 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2012.688742

http://www.tandfonline.com

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student learning conditions’ (Hirsh et al. 2006, vii). TWCS’ information from the

trenches ensures that all those who matter most in educating children � teachers and

principals � are taken seriously at the state level, most especially when evaluating

public school policy and practice. The instrument has garnered greater importance in

North Carolina since the North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards incorpo-

rated the TWCS by requiring school leaders to demonstrate how information from

the survey is used to improve the running of schools and school districts. According

to Maddock (2009) of the New Teacher Center, recently the TWCS has been

regarded as an indicator of quality in state report cards. TWCSs have been adopted

and replicated state-wide and by other school districts such as Alabama, Colorado,

Fairfax County in Virginia, Kansas, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts,

Arizona, Ohio, Nevada (Las Vegas) and Vermont (New Teacher Center).The TWCS items have evolved since their inception in 2001. The original

document measured the perceptions of teachers and principals involving 39

statements based on five variables: time management, facilities and resources,

leadership, personal empowerment and opportunities for professional development.

The 2010 survey had three additional variables � community support and

involvement, managing student conduct and instructional practices and support

(Hirsch and McKinney 2010). The surveys of 2006, 2008 and 2010 have consistently

revealed some perception gaps of working conditions between teachers and their

principals.

Results of the TWC provide data that inform schools, local education agencies

and the state about issues pertinent to the delivery of education. For example, the

major findings of the 2006 survey according to Hirsh, Emerick, Church, and Fuller

(2006) were as follows:

1. Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions.2. Teacher working conditions affect teacher retention.3. Teachers and administrators view some working conditions differently.4. Some teacher working conditions in North Carolina have improved and are better

than those in other states.5. Some working conditions were more likely to improve in schools where teachers

had indicated that they had used prior survey results.6. Schools vary in the presence of teacher working conditions. (vii�viii)

The findings established perception gaps between how teachers and administrators

view working conditions in their schools. There could be a host of reasons for the

perception gap.

Literature review

The principal is key to influencing the school culture (Huang 2001). He or she

reinforces the vision, shared assumptions, espoused and shared core values,

expectations and norms through performance modelling (Crowther, Ferguson, and

Hann 2009). The enculturation process can only begin to take effect in a school if a

principal works with, and for, others. Enculturation of the TWCS, relatively new in

North Carolina, is a process that involves shifting the paradigm of leadership from

positional shackles to that of team effort that includes classroom teachers. In fact,

the principal evaluation instrument is tied to the TWCS results. For example, the

262 P. Guramatunhu-Mudiwa and L.L. Bolt

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North Carolina TWCS (2010) provides feedback that is critical for improving many

aspects of a school’s effectiveness. Those aspects include demographics, the efficient

use of time and facilities, levels of community support and engagement, managing

student conduct, teacher and school leadership, effectiveness of professional

development, instructional practices and support and new teacher support. The

information is critical for recalibrating the many functions that may need a little

improvement or radical change. The TWCS data were (are) intended to shape

learning community conversations about improvement, effectiveness and student

benefit. Regarding affecting change, teachers build their perceptions about the

principal’s effectiveness by observing the principal’s behaviour and whether the

principal incorporates ideas of other stakeholders (Tas 2009).

There are many who believe that there are certain characteristics ascribed to

female and male leaders which are essential to gaining an understanding of how

leadership functions. The sections that follow examine gender differences in

organisational leadership as well as in school leadership.

Gender differences in leadership

Ion and Folch (2009) argued that gender is a crucial aspect in organisational analysis,

and that gender differences impact the values held by leaders. Several research

studies show that indeed there are gender differences in leadership styles and

management (Appelbaum, Audet, and Miller 2003; Burke and Collins 2001; Eagly

and Johnson 1990; Miller 1987). The gender differences in leadership style were

highlighted in a meta-analysis of gender and the effectiveness of leaders in a study by

Eagly and Johnson (1990). They concluded: ‘The strongest evidence we obtained for

a sex difference in leadership style occurred on the tendency for women to adopt a

more democratic or participative style and for men to adopt a more autocratic or

directive style’ (247).

Research also has uncovered gender gaps where women are under-represented in

executive and senior levels of management (Appelbaum et al. 2003), and the

principalship (Reed and Evans 2008; Wexler Eckman 2004). Gender ratios in any

industry influence leadership styles. In male-dominated industries, there are no gender

differences observed in the interpersonal orientation of leaders although female

leaders tend to show levels of stress. In female-dominated industries, however, female

leaders are more interpersonally oriented than men (Gardiner and Tiggemann 1999).

A meta-analysis of 45 studies of transformational, transactional and laissez-faire

leadership styles found that female leaders were more transformational than male

leaders (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, and van Engen 2003). Men have been described

as being command-and-control managers, decisive, aggressive, risk takers, assertive,

competent, confident, self-directed and strong while women have been perceived to

be indecisive, unaggressive, incompetent, not risk takers and weak (Eagly et al. 2003).

Cultural stereotypic male qualities of leadership were described as agentic, that is:

‘behavior that is independent, masterful, assertive and instrumentally competent [. . .][and] female behavior as communal, i.e., behavior that is friendly, unselfish, concerned

with others and expressive’ (Eagly et al. 2003, 572). Porat’s (1991) study

described women as, ‘nurturing, sensitive, empathetic, intuitive, compromising, caring,

cooperative, and accommodative’ (412).

School Leadership & Management 263

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Vecchio (2002) warned that despite several studies documenting gender

differences, ‘claims of comparative gender advantage, based on stereotypic reason-

ing, are overstated’ (643), and that the research methodologies are flawed. Eagly and

Carli (2003) responded to this criticism by pointing out that, in fact, it was Vecchio’ smethodologies that were flawed because the: ‘areas of leadership style in which

women exceed men are associated with gains in leader effectiveness, whereas the

areas in which men exceed women have negative or null relations to effectiveness’

(851).

In contrast to these studies, there are several studies that document gender

differences in management styles. A recent study by Ion and Folch (2009) revealed

that organisations led by women are more communicative and team oriented while

men are more results oriented. Another important finding in the same study is thatwomen are more collaborative and focus on transformative aspects in the

organisation. Earlier studies by Burke and Collins (2001) and Eagly and

Johannesen-Schmidt (2001) found that a gender difference in management styles

existed where women generally employed a transformational approach while men

utilised a transactional approach. This seems to corroborate the earlier findings by

Eagly, Karau, and Makhijani (1995) that suggested leaders engage in activities that

are consistent with their culturally defined gender roles. Later research by North-

house (2007) revealed the following:

Women were less effective than men in military positions, but they were somewhat moreeffective than men in education, government, and social service organizations andsubstantially more effective than men in middle management positions, wherecommunal interpersonal skills are highly valued. (268)

Miller (1987), in her book The Psychology of Women, highlighted the gender

difference in leadership styles and the contribution that women bring to the

workplace when she stated:

Women, more easily than men, can believe that any activity is more satisfying when ittakes place in the context of relationships to other human beings � and even more sowhen it leads to the enhancement of others. Women know this experience in a way thatmen do not. (52)

Implied in this assertion is that women are more connected and inclusive as leaders

than men. Burke and Collins (2001) observed a gender difference in leadership stylesof accountants where females were reported to be more transformational, interactive,

and communicative, and coached and developed others more than males. If there are

perceived gender differences in corporate leadership, arguably the gender differences

may also permeate school leadership. Following is a discussion of gender differences

in school leadership.

Gender differences in school leadership

The first thing that is striking about gender in the principalship is the distribution

across the elementary, middle and high school levels. Studies conducted in Texas

revealed that women principals are the majority at the elementary level (73.5%),

decrease at the middle school level (41.3%) and further decrease (29.8%) at the high

264 P. Guramatunhu-Mudiwa and L.L. Bolt

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school level (Roser, Brown, and Kelsey 2009). A recent study by Mcgee (2010) in

Florida revealed a similar pattern of distribution, where females are the majority at

the elementary level and the minority at the secondary level. Earlier studies also

identified the under-representation of women in the principalship at the high school(Wexler Eckman 2004; Rivers-Wrushen and Sherman 2008). Despite females filling

the majority of the teaching positions in K-12 education, National Center for

Education Statistics (2009) reported the distribution of public school principals as

49.7% male and 50.3% female.

Several scholars have also investigated gender differences in the principalship. In

addition, there are gender-based notions about leadership where successful leader-

ship is framed from the traditional male perspective (Gunbayi 2005). Gender

differences in the principalship were also observed in other studies. Eagly, Karau,and Johnson (1992) conducted a meta-analysis study that examined 50 public school

principals and confirmed gender differences in leadership styles in the following

areas: (1) females scored higher on aspects that measured task orientation; (2) there

was less evidence for a sex difference on measures of interpersonally oriented style;

and (3) the tendency to lead democratically or autocratically produced the largest

difference, with female principals adopting a more democratic and less autocratic

style than male principals. These results were consistent with Austin’s (2008) study of

principals in Guyana.Another study of high school principals by Wexler Eckman (2004) revealed that,

‘there are differences between female and male high school principals in their

personal and professional attributes as well as in role conflict’ (366). The study found

similarities in job satisfaction and commitment. Women, however, face the challenge

of being compared to men in the leadership tasks and functions such as decision-

making, empowerment, communication and collaboration. Regarding the relation-

ship among teacher behaviours, principal leadership style and school climate as

measured by student achievement, a study by Shouppe and Pate (2010) involving 370teachers revealed statistically significant differences between teachers’ perceptions of

teacher/principal openness and years of teaching experience and ethnicity. However,

there were no statistically significant differences in perceptions related to gender in

this study. Teacher perceptions about a principal’s cultural leadership effectiveness

vary and seemed to be determined by teacher’s years of experience, gender and the

subject they taught, according to a study by Karakose (2008).

The levelling practice of democratic values is another notion that influences

teacher perceptions. A study conducted in Turkey by Genc (2008) that investigatedperceptions of 300 teachers about how their principals engaged democratic values

reported higher scores of female teachers than male teachers. Another study by

Addi-Racah (2005) conducted in Israel, involving the intersection of gender and

ethnicity among school principals, demonstrated that gender exerted a significantly

greater influence than ethnicity in shaping school culture. These findings suggest that

organisational culture mediates the emerging patterns and shapes that are largely

influenced by gender and to a lesser extent by ethnicity.

Intersection of gender and role in school leadership

The relationship between a principal’s gender and experience as an administrator

determined a school’s academic growth trends. In a recent study by Brooks and Jones

School Leadership & Management 265

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(2010) of middle school principals in North Carolina, they found a significant

relationship between a principal’s gender and experience as an administrator and the

school’s academic growth trends in reading and mathematics. The same study

observed that women principals with 15 years or more experience at their current

school had higher achievement growths than had their male counterparts. Other

studies documented the intersection of gender and role in school leadership, and

stressed the common threads of effective principal leadership competence in core role

responsibilities (Bryk and Schneider 2003). A 2009 Teaching and Learning

International Survey (TALIS) conducted by the Organization for Economic

Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries involving high school principals

concluded the following: (1) instructional leadership is a strong tenet of effective

school management, and teachers who received regular appraisal and detailed

feedback from their principals about teaching and learning reported higher job

satisfaction levels; (2) effective school leadership played a vital role in influencing the

professional lives of teachers; and (3) there was a high correlation between a positive

school climate, teaching beliefs, cooperation among teachers, teacher job satisfaction

and professional development. An assumption can be made that principals who

engage in these behaviours are more effective school leaders regardless of their

gender.

Some studies postulated that female principals focused more on instructional

leadership and were more likely to support experimentation with instructional

approaches (Shakeshaft 2006). Female principals gave more instructional support,

while males focused more on management issues (White 2007). Other scholars noted

that female principals were preoccupied with student achievement (Coleman 2000)

and had an inclination to listen to others (Bynum 2000). Principals who focused on

instructional roles were likely to work collaboratively with teachers and created

professional development to help weak teachers cope with instructional duties

(OECD 2009). Female principals focused more on instructional and nurturing

leadership than males, thus affirming gender role expectations (Jones 2008). For

example, a study investigating teachers’ perceptions of principals as instructional

leaders revealed that female teachers consistently had higher means than males

(Greenwood 2009). To highlight the influence of instructional roles and gender,

Krieg (2005) investigated student and teacher gender differences on high stakes test

scores in reading, mathematics and writing among fourth graders in Washington

State. The study revealed that: (1) regardless of gender, students of male teachers

perform worse than students of female teachers; and (2) there was not a statistically

significant differential impact of male teachers on boys versus girls � both do equally

poorly relative to students of female teachers (Krieg 2005). This suggests that female

teachers placed more importance on instructional leadership than males and

arguably, female teachers would favourably rate principals who were strong

instructional leaders.

Not only were differences noted in instructional leadership and management

styles but in other areas as well. Gender differences in the principalship were noted in

decision-making (Miller, Fagley, and Casella 2009), communication (Gougeon and

Hutton 1993), empowerment (Crowther et al. 2009) and collaboration (Boardman

2001). Following is a brief discussion of each one of these.

266 P. Guramatunhu-Mudiwa and L.L. Bolt

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Decision-making

Principals’ decisions are affected by the framing or wording of alternative options to

solving problems. Regardless of the frame, male principals adopted riskier choices

than female principals as investigated by Miller, Eagley, and Casella (2009) in a study

involving principals in New York. They defined the framing effect in decision-

making as: ‘the tendency to choose the risk averse course of action when options are

framed positively and to choose the risky course of action when the same options are

framed negatively’ (398). They argued that trivial differences in wording of a problem

may result in radically different decisions.

Furthermore, the principal’s framing of a problem and the decision made have an

undue influence on how others perceive and frame options for their own

consideration. For example, a study involving middle school principals in Louisiana

revealed that male principals with 25 or less years of experience tended to suspend

students twice as much as females with more experience. The suspension rate in

schools that had male principals with 26 or more years of experience was also less

than the suspension rate in schools that had female principals with less than 25 years

of experience (White 2007).

Empowerment

This is a concept that involves democratic practices in making key decisions

regarding the profession, execution of duties and the development of skills and

career path. The concept involves harmonising individual and organisational

needs and goals to move forward the strategic direction of the organisation. Many

scholars regard teacher empowerment as a moral and primary function of school

leaders (Sergiovanni 1992). Principals who are invested in their schools as learning

organisations empower their teachers in meaningful ways (Crowther et al. 2009).

The principal is regarded as ‘one of us’ by the teachers because both the

principals and teachers work in teams guided by a shared sense of purpose,

mutual trust and respect, allowance for individual expression and power sharing.

Teachers are given opportunities to experiment with new innovations and teaching

strategies. Leadership does not reside in a titular head but in teams. Learning and

teaching are a collective enterprise with a focus on student improvement and

achievement. A perception gap existed according to a study involving public

schools, where principals perceived that teachers were much more empowered than

teachers thought (Keiser and Shen 2000). This suggests that principals have to

give critical thought to their actions and behaviours to correct the perception gap,

by moving from rhetoric to pragmatism that is marked by inclusiveness in order

to maximise empowerment. In general, female principals adopted a more

democratic and less autocratic style than did male principals (Eagly, Karau,

and Johnson 1992).

Communication

Gender affects communication, as suggested in the findings of a study involving

Canadian and American teachers and principals (Gougeon and Hutton 1993). The

School Leadership & Management 267

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study identified three distinctions: (1) Canadian teachers, more than American

teachers, perceived the principals as using positive motivation in communication;

(2) more male teachers than female teachers perceived principals as using negative

motivation to communicate school expectations; and (3) teachers perceived

male principals more so than female principals to communicate from an egotistical

state. A study that investigated the leadership practices of 56 female high

school principals identified communication skills, good listening, trustworthiness

and honesty as important traits critical for successful leadership (Giese et al.

2009).

Collaboration

Collaboration is a central strategic component utilised by most successful leaders,

with a perception gap based on gender. Teachers perceived female principals as

more collaborative than male principals, according to a study by Boardman (2001).

In the same study, teacher teams were perceived to be an influential source of

leadership in the school. However, collaboration in schools can be understood by

exploring five discourses. Lavie (2006) identified five groups of discourses

embedded in research on teacher collaboration. These are (1) cultural, (2)

effectiveness and improvement, (3) community, (4) restructuring and (5) demo-

cratic discourses. Cultural discourses are buttressed in cultural forms residing in

personal and professional lives, and enhance interdependence and collective

enterprise. Effectiveness and improvement discourses are a product of how the

school principal manages cultural change. Community discourses describe schools

that have visions of inclusiveness and humanising the work place. Restructuring

discourses view teachers as professionals who have the capabilities of adapting to

new collaborative practices within a continuous learning organisation such as the

school. The last group, democratic discourses, view the school’s core functions as

the work of collective enterprise that is driven by democratic practices such as

shared reflection on teaching and learning and community participation. Related

to culture, study findings (Hulpia, Devos, and Rosseel 2009) suggested that

cohesion of the leadership and the support given by the leadership team to teachers

yielded higher organisational commitment and were also indirectly related to job

satisfaction. They defined a cohesive team as that which has clear roles and goals,

and is supportive to the needs of teachers.

In summary, the literature review looked at gender differences in leadership in

general, and in school leadership in particular. In general, in the world of work,

women were perceived to adopt more transformational leadership styles that

embrace democratic values more than men. These democratic values include

collaboration, empowerment, inclusiveness, accommodation, cooperation, con-

cern for the growth of others, sensitivity and other related concepts. Women

tended to be better instructional leaders than men in schools. Whether the

gender differences are perceived or real: ‘Turning the differences to our advantage

is becoming increasingly necessary, because expansions of scale, decentralization

and increasing autonomy of schools are making the business of running schools

more complex and principals are being asked to do the impossible’ (Kruger

2008, 156).

268 P. Guramatunhu-Mudiwa and L.L. Bolt

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The study

Methodology

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the gender of school building

leaders (principals and assistant principals), teachers (including intervention

specialist, vocational, literacy specialist, special education teacher, etc.) and other

school-based roles (school counsellor, school psychologist, social worker, library

media, etc.) influences the perceptions of leadership as measured by the TWCS

(2008) conducted in North Carolina Public Schools (North Carolina Teacher

Working Conditions Initiative 2008). To that end it is important to mediate as

much as possible other influences that may impact the gender variable on those

perceptions. In particular, the imbalance of cell sizes across gender and the

multicollinearity of other predictor variables with gender had to be mediated.

Imbalanced cell sizes may create vastly inflated standard errors that have

increased effects on F-values as the overall N and relative imbalance increases

(Cohen and Cohen 1983). In this data-set, there were four times as many females as

males. When multicollinearity is an issue, that is, predictor variables are related to

each other or suspected to be related, the effects of individual independent variables

may not be isolated or effectively predicted. In this data-set, the variables of ethnicity

(x2�48.39, df �6, pB0.000), nature of initial certification (x2�737.19, df �2,

pB0.000), years in education (x2�103.96, df �5, pB0.000) and years in a

particular building (x2�61.15, df �5, pB0.000) were all highly significantly related

to gender. Propensity score matching allows for the identification of a sample in

which the multicollinear effects are effectively eliminated, allowing for the examina-

tion of the effects of an individual predictor (Rosenbaum and Rubin 1984).

The original data-set, the 2008 North Carolina TWCS (N�103,276), was

subjected to random data-mining techniques that allowed for the protection of the

assumption of equal variances between gender groups while balancing the cell sizes

(N�38,647). The subsequent sample was analysed using logistic regression with the

collinear variables as predictors and gender as the dependent to generate probability/

propensity scores. The subjects were divided into five equal strata based on

propensity scores. Each stratum was inspected to identify the relative proportion

of males and females. Stratum number 4 had a ratio of 50.3% females and 49.7%

males and thus was chosen for final analysis (N�7287). In essence, the equality of

the number of males and females in this stratum meant that the multicollinear

variables projected no bias based on gender in this group so that the gender effect

had been isolated (Rubin 2008). This final sample was then examined by comparing

means and standard deviations of dependent variables of interest from the original

data-set to this sample’s means and standard deviations to verify that this data-

sampling regimen retained the relative characteristics of the original data-set. After

this was verified, the final sample was analysed with an eye to inform the overall

research questions.

Data analysis

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedures including plots of estimated marginal

means were used to identify and explore any significant main or interaction

effects for gender or role of respondents on the two leadership dimensions (School

School Leadership & Management 269

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Leadership and Educator Leadership) identified in the 2008 TWC validation study

(Moir 2008) and a summary leadership item in the survey ‘Overall, the school

leadership in my school is effective’. The 2008 survey data-set was used instead of the

more recent 2010 data because most demographic variables were deleted from the

2010 survey due to privacy concerns.

Results

Results are being presented individually for each of the three leadership dimension

dependent variables in the study. This will be followed by a discussion of the overall

conclusions and implications of this exploratory study.

School leadership

On the School Leadership dimension (Table 1), gender did not indicate a significant

effect (F�3.31, pB0.069), but role (F�382.89, pB0.000) and the interaction effect

between gender and role (F�4.18, pB0.015) were significant. An examination of the

marginal means for the interaction effect (Figure 1) indicated that females in

instructional roles (including intervention specialist, vocational, literacy specialist,

special education teacher, etc.) and administrative roles (principals and assistant

principals) had higher scores than males, but females had lower scores than males

in the other roles (school counsellor, school psychologist, social worker, library

media, etc.).

Educator leadership

On the Educator Leadership dimension (Table 2), gender did not indicate a

significant effect (F�0.120, pB0.729), but role (F�473.12, pB0.000) and the

interaction effect between gender and role (F�3.03, pB0.049) were significant. An

examination of the marginal means (Figure 2) for the interaction effect indicated that

females in instructional and administrative roles had higher scores than males but

females had lower scores than males in the other roles.

Table 1. Gender, role and gender/role interaction (dependent variable: School Leadership).

Source df F Sig. Partial eta squared

Corrected model 5 183.116 0.000 0.112

Intercept 1 84,793.383 0.000 0.921

Gender 1 3.311 0.069 0.000

Role 2 382.889 0.000 0.095

Gender�role 2 4.183 0.015 0.001

Error 7281

Total 7287

Corrected total 7286

R2�0.112 (adjusted R2�0.111).

270 P. Guramatunhu-Mudiwa and L.L. Bolt

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Summary item on school leadership

On the summary item about school leadership (Table 3), gender (F�0.536,

pB0.464) and the interaction effect between gender and role (F�1.79, pB0.167)

did not indicate significant effects, but role (F�94.60, pB0.000) was significant.

Since there was a lack of interaction effect, marginal means were not examined.

Discussion

In this study, we have attempted to examine the impact that gender and role, in the

school, have in influencing teacher perceptions of working conditions related to

school leadership. We have found that the gender of the school principal did not havea statistically significant impact on TWC results related to school leadership, but

there was a significant interaction between role and gender. The insignificant impact

of gender in our study goes against some studies that suggest the omnipresent

relevance of gender in the workplace (Ion and Folch 2009; Kelan 2010) and the many

studies that highlight gender differences in leadership styles (Appelbaum et al. 2003;

Burke and Collins 2001; Eagly and Johnson 1990; Miller 1987). Our results may

Figure 1. Plot of marginal means for perceptions of School Leadership.

Table 2. Gender, role and gender/role interaction (dependent variable: Educator Leadership).

Source df F Sig. Partial eta squared

Corrected model 5 222.232 0.000 0.133

Intercept 1 83,182.119 0.000 0.920

Gender 1 0.120 0.729 0.000

Role 2 473.117 0.000 0.115

Gender�role 2 3.027 0.049 0.001

Error 7264

Total 7270

Corrected total 7269

R2�0.133 (adjusted R2�0.132).

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trigger scepticism and further discourse about the importance of gender in school

leadership or may diminish the value of gender considerations in school adminis-

tration. The insignificant influence of gender may suggest a ubiquitous adoption of

androgynous characteristics associated with effective school leadership by male and

female principals. Gender differences in management styles coupled with the

significant interaction effects in this study suggest that both male and female

principals are effective or ineffective on the job, contrary to the popular myth that

males are better leaders than females.Even though the study did not yield a statistically significant result between

gender and school leadership, the principalship is a performance-based job and the

principal still influences the school working conditions regardless of gender. The

result of the insignificance of gender in school leadership corroborates the work of

Shouppe and Pate (2010). They investigated teachers’ perceptions of teacher/

principal openness and years of teaching experience and ethnicity involving 370

teachers. Their study revealed statistically insignificant differences in perceptions

related to gender in school leadership.

Figure 2. Plot of marginal means for perceptions of Educator Leadership.

Table 3. Gender, role and gender/role interaction (dependent variable: Effective Leadership).

Source df F Sig. Partial eta squared

Corrected model 5 44.517 0.000 0.030

Intercept 1 30,897.956 0.000 0.813

Gender 1 0.536 0.464 0.000

Role 2 94.569 0.000 0.026

Gender�role 2 1.793 0.167 0.001

Error 7113

Total 7119

Corrected total 7118

R2�0.030 (adjusted R2�0.030).

272 P. Guramatunhu-Mudiwa and L.L. Bolt

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Principals who make an effort by recognising teacher contributions, soliciting

ideas from teachers, and nurturing a climate conducive to positive working

environments arguably get buy-in from teachers, as reflected by the TALIS (2009)

study. The findings of the TALIS can be used to make the argument that female

principals engage in behaviours that promote better instructional leadership and

management than males and may explain gender differentials in instructional

leadership in our findings. Furthermore, the findings of Brooks and Jones (2010)revealed a higher academic achievement in female-led schools, and that women are

generally better managers than men in education (Northhouse 2007). Furthermore,

by involving teachers on the factors identified on the TWC such as giving

collaborative time, allowing them to experiment with curricular issues, giving them

voice in the allocation of resources, student discipline, and giving them control over

pedagogy, signals to teachers that their efforts are appreciated.

A major finding in this study was the significant interaction between gender and

role, with females scoring higher in instructional and administrative roles than males,

while males outperformed in other roles. It should not be lost that female

administrators and instructional personnel had more positive perceptions of

leadership than did their male counterparts. This finding corroborates Greenwood’s

(2009) study of teachers’ perceptions of principals as instructional leaders which

revealed that female teachers consistently had higher means than males. Female

principals focused more on instructional and nurturing leadership than males, thus

affirming gender role expectations (Jones 2008). This finding is also well supportedby several studies that claim that female principals perform better at instructional

roles and place more emphasis on student achievement than men (Krieg 2005;

Shakeshaft 2006; White 2007). This may suggest that, in educational settings, male

and female leaders place different emphases on their roles and tasks (White, Martin,

and Johnson 2003). Northhouse (2007) suggested that women are better managers in

education which may explain why females scored higher than males on instructional

roles in our study.

Worthy of note is that there might be characteristics attributed to gender about

how effective principals perform their roles since some studies emphasised that

women are better listeners (Bynum 2000). Female modes or approaches to leadership

seem to be gaining acceptance and changing conceptions about effective school

leadership (Porat 1991). Bearing in mind that the TWCS is based on teacher

perceptions of school leadership, the interactions suggest that female leaders in this

study outperformed males in instructional and administrative roles, or that teachers

are generally satisfied by the way female leaders perform in their instructional and

administrative roles.In order to address the gender gaps in perceptions in instructional and role

functions, professional development may be required to equip principals with

knowledge and skills that enhance their competence. It might be worthwhile for

school districts and university principal preparation programmes to invest in training

principals to cultivate collegiality towards teachers and staff and how to develop

positive climates for schools. Some teacher absences and the cost of hiring substitute

teachers could be mitigated if positive working environments for teachers are

developed and sustained. This is important to correct because perceived deficiencies

in a principal can cause dissatisfaction that can lead to teacher turnover or teachers

leaving the profession altogether because of perceived lack of support.

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The statistically insignificant difference based on gender and school leadership

yielded in this study based on teacher perceptions points to possible insights. The

first is that teachers do not, per se, consider the gender of the principal, but how that

principal meets the expectations of teachers in a school. In other words, the

principalship is performance-based, regardless of the gender of the principal. The

second is that principals have to measure up to the functional literacies as well as

measuring up to the benchmarks of successful leadership as outlined by the North

Carolina Standards for School Executives. The third is the creation of balanced

literacies and competences in instructional and administrative functions in the

principalship regardless of the principal’s gender. Fourth is that this study offers aneed for further research where data can be further disaggregated by experience of

the principal, experience of the teachers, school type, and locality of the school to

establish whether the interaction is maintained or lost by looking at these variables.

Conclusion

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the gender of school building

leaders (principals and assistant principals), teachers (including intervention

specialist, vocational, literacy specialist, special education teacher, etc.) and other

school-based roles (school counsellor, school psychologist, social worker, library

media, etc.) influences the perceptions of leadership as measured by the TWCS

(2008) conducted in North Carolina Public Schools. Using ANOVA techniques on

data that have been controlled for cell size imbalances and confounding variable

influences on gender through data-mining and propensity score-stratification

techniques, the study revealed that the gender of the respondent did not result in a

significant difference on teacher perceptions of leadership among schools in North

Carolina, although the role of the respondent was significant across all dimensions,

as was the interaction between role and gender on two scales. This interaction

demands a closer look so that simplistic attributions to gender can be dispelled and

replaced with more complex and defensible logic about the nature of effective

leadership in schools. This study points the direction for further research that could

investigate the relationships between several variables that impact school leadership.

The North Carolina TWCS is a rich data source that has much potential for

providing some of these answers.

Acknowledgements

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, ornot-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Precious Guramatunhu-Mudiwa is an assistant professor in the Reich College of Education atAppalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, USA. Her research focuses on genderequity issues in education. She teaches courses in leadership in school administration in thedepartment of leadership and educational studies.

Les L. Bolt is an associate professor of research in the Reich College of Education atAppalachian State University, specialising in educational research methodology and

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evaluation. His PhD is in research and evaluation from the University of Virginia with post-doctoral work in advanced statistical analysis at Stanford University. He has 35 years ofexperience in working with educational research and in analysing innovative educationalprograms and ideas at all different levels.

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