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Abstract
This paper builds on recent scholarship on the gendered nature of educational work to argue that while conceptualisations of the principalship are underpinned by scholarship and policy assumptions that construct the work of the principal as a male domain, women have responded to opportunities presented by changing historical, political and social contexts, creating professional spaces for themselves as principals in primary and secondary schools within both state and Catholic school systems. It details how in the years prior to 1975, a time when the majority of state primary and secondary schools were led by men, the principalship of New Zealand Catholic schools was a largely female endeavour. The experience of Catholic Sister Principals was framed by the fact that they were women leading schools in a world dominated by men. Implicit in this arrangement were the ecclesiastical authority structures and their subjection to the convent hierarchy. Nevertheless, Sister Principals learned a range of strategies that enabled them to negotiate with Church and religious authorities and to undertake the diverse tasks associated with the leadership of Catholic schools.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback.
Notes
1. The description ‘women religious’ as used in this paper is a general term referring to both Sisters and Nuns. Although they have quite different canonical meanings, in common parlance the terms are often used interchangeably. The term Sister Principal is used here to specifically refer to women religious who are principals or head teachers of schools.
2. The selected literature draws on research in Australia, Canada, the USA and New Zealand.
3. One of these, the Australian-based Jesuits, founded St Aloysius College in Dunedin in early 1879, which lasted only until 1883. The other, the Marist Fathers (Society of Mary), founded St Patrick's College Wellington in 1885, St Bede's College Christchurch in 1911, St Patrick's College Silverstream in 1931 as well as colleges in Timaru, Hastings, Whanganui, Feilding and Whangarei.
4. Australasian Catholic Directory, 1960.
5. According to Census data, Catholics as a percentage of the population ranged from 12.9% to 15.9% in the years from 1871 to 1966. In 1945, total Catholic school enrolments stood at approximately 30,000 pupils compared to approximately 300,000 pupils in the state school system.
6. While parish primary schools predominated, some orders such as the Dominican Sisters also ran ‘private’ primary schools such as St Theresa's convent school in Invercargill. These were designed to feed pupils directly into the secondary colleges run by these orders.
7. In 1920, 45% of primary principals appointments in New Zealand were women; by 1974 the percentage had fallen to 2%. A similar decline can be seen in New Zealand secondary schools with women appointed to 40% of principalships in 1940 but by 1974 they constituted only 10%. The pattern of decline is similar to that in Canada, the USA and Australia.
8. Published data varied by the year and by the diocese as is evident in Figure 1. In 1960, the Wellington diocese provided only a total of primary schools while the other dioceses analyse the information by orders.
9. The majority of Catholic primary schools run by male orders were run by the Marist Brothers and Christian Brothers.
10. The author interviewed eight Dominican Sisters who had led schools in Otago, Southland and Auckland. The letters are sourced from the Auckland Catholic Diocesan Archive (hereafter ACDA).
11. The Dominican Sisters ran their own primary schools in Dunedin, Oamaru and Invercargill. In addition, the Sisters were invited by bishops to run a number of parish schools in the dioceses of Auckland, Otago and Southland.
12. S.M. stands for Sister Mary. James Liston (1881–1976) was the seventh bishop, later archbishop, of Auckland (1929–1970).
13. There is a fascinating collection of letters in the Auckland Catholic Diocesan Archives written to and by Liston between the years 1930 and 1970. The letters deal with issues such as building projects, disputes between convents and parish within convents, etc.
14. In order to protect the identity of Sister Principals who are still living, names are not used.
15. Constitutions of the Congregation of New Zealand Dominican Sisters, 1933, pp. 24–25.
16. Dominican friars and sisters use the letters O.P. which stands for order of preachers.
17. A Holy Day of Obligation occurred on certain feast days of the Church's calendar and meant that a Catholic was obligated to go to Mass. Until the 1960s Catholic schools usually closed for holy days. The author remembers calling them ‘holidays of obligation’ when she was at primary school. There was an expectation too that the Bishop would give a half-holiday when he came to visit the school.
18. Catholic schools were ‘integrated’ into the New Zealand state education system from 1975.
19. Mother David (Prioress General from the late 1950s to the early 1960s) features in a number of the Sister's recollections. The author remembers her as a formidable figure whose occasional formal visits to assembly or the classroom at St Dominic's Dunedin were seen as very important events.
20. Constitutions were the formal rules of convent life. The New Zealand Dominican Sisters achieved their own independent constitutions in 1933.
21. Although some women in New Zealand continued to teach after marriage they constituted a minority. At times of teacher oversupply in New Zealand (and elsewhere) a marriage bar was effective in taking the majority of married women out of the workforce.
Jenny Collins is an associate professor at the Department of Education, Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand, where she teaches in post-graduate education programmes. Her research interests include the academic and professional lives of women, international education and the history of Catholic education. She has published widely in international journals in these areas. She has also co-authored a book, Historic portraits of women home scientists: the University of New Zealand, 1911–1947 (2011), with Professor Tanya Fitzgerald. She is currently researching the educational contribution of Catholic sisters in New Zealand.