The leadership and management geographies in the lived experiences of women educational leaders in the public secondary educational system of Mauritius – a narrative inquiry.
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Date
2021
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Abstract
The leadership and management geographies in the lived experiences of women educational
leaders in the public secondary educational system of Mauritius – A narrative inquiry.
The study aims to explore and understand how three women educational leaders made their way
to attain and sustain in leadership and management positions, in the male-dominated leadership
spaces of the public secondary educational system, using narratives of their life experiences. On
the one hand, the challenges lie in feminist emancipation and navigating the gendered socioeconomic
and cultural challenges. On the other hand, policymakers have not been taking enough
action to facilitate and promote the professional access of women into leadership spaces, although
legislations are present.
Locating this study in the qualitative interpretive paradigm, three purposively sampled women
participants, each having different cultural and ethnic backgrounds and living in urban and rural
regions (eastern, central and western) of Mauritius, were interviewed. Through the narrative
inquiry method, they storied their life-history biographical experiences revealing their sadness’s
and traumas, achievements and joys, tensions and emotions, dilemmas, challenges and coping
strategies.
Since this study had women educational leaders as participants, I created and used a Socio-
Feminist and Gender (SFG) conceptual framework derived from leadership, feminism, gender and
socio-constructionism theoretical constructs. The SFG framework allowed for the exploration of
the participants ascending into educational leadership and management positions in male dominated leadership and management spaces. It also provided the analytical framing to
understand any specificity about women’s leadership and their leadership practices and any
changing relationships in home and family settings and organisations due to their positions as
women educational leaders. The SFG conceptual framework also attempts to uncover the
challenges and strategies adopted by women educational leaders to be sustained in leadership
spaces.
In the descriptive analysis phase, the generation of data, guided by the research questions and the
SFG conceptual framework, produced three main themes that became the categories for the
narrative analysis method used in this study.
Through the analysis of the narrative method, the ultimate core findings of the research showed
that the women participants had used a multitude of resources such as Family and patriarchy;
Religion and spirituality; social Adversities; ethnic and political Contexts; and Gender and power
dynamics (FRACEG) to emerge as leaders.
In addition, the findings also revealed that these resources were instrumental in shaping the women
participants’ career-path into leadership and management spaces. They also sculptured the
leadership and management characteristics needed for them to navigate through the male dominated leadership and management spaces of the secondary educational system.
The results demonstrate that the experiences acquired by the women-participants tend to enhance
their leadership and management capabilities significantly. These women developed their
leadership and management skills by practising disciplines, taking on more projects, learning to
follow, developing situational awareness, inspiring others, staying attuned with learning, resolving
conflicts, and by being discerning listeners. In addition, they undertook to use their abilities to deal
resourcefully with unusual problems, together with the persistent efforts and perseverance that has
shaped their personalities.
Hence, the overall findings showed that the participants as women educational leaders rely on
multi-combinations and permutations of leadership and management styles for different challenges
at different times and places, including the use of improvisation, within all the complexities of
leadership and management. This I have termed as “Feminine Quantum Leadership”, a theoretical
construct using the construct and metaphor of Quantum Chemistry. Simultaneously, the women
participants embraced the art of self-creative diplomacy (a feminine characteristic) by struggling
with the challenges faced (feminist emancipation), leading to a new feminist leadership approach
which I have called “Diplo-Poiesis Feminist Leadership”. These findings add valuable insights
into the discourses of socio-constructionism, feminism, genderism and leadership in education and
society.
Last but not least, the benefits of leadership and management are extensively reported as being
highly effective and productive. There is consensus that leadership and management can be
regarded as a mechanism that facilitates women’s transition from a lower to a higher hierarchy
within the gendered social context. The contribution of this research intends to emancipate women
more to attain leadership and management positions in society. The women participants, as role
models, contribute to the emancipation of the feminine gender and social justice in different spaces
and landscapes. Therefore, this study shows the geographies of leadership and management of
women educational leaders in the public secondary educational system.
Keywords: geographies, leaders, women, educational, society, cultural, ethnic, hierarchy, gender,
experiences, narrative inquiry, feminist geography, resources, complexity, quantum, leadership,
diplomacy, feminism.
Description
Doctoral Degrees (Education Studies)