Feminist Educational Leadership: Locating the concepts in practice

Abstract

This article describes a qualitative study of the feminist educational leadership of three co-educational secondary school principals in New Zealand. The findings showed that while each of the women was committed to many of the same ideals, such as leading for social justice, how each went about and achieved that was unique and dependent upon their individual value systems and the cultural and socio-economic mix of the student body they were working with. The women were not passive reactors to the demands of political and school community forces. Rather, they were active and creative in constructing their own feminist leadership practice to effectively meet the needs of their students.