Research with Women School Superintendents: Implications for Teaching Future School Leaders 225that there are important things to learn from taking seriously the perspectives of all
marginalized groups. Starting from their predicaments, knowledge drawn from these
marginalized groups will be richer than one particular knowledge that draws only on the
insights of privileged groups alone (Harding cited in Anderson, 2007). “Views of the social
world generated from the perspective of dominant interests are not false, but partial. The
marginalized have contact with different aspects of social reality, aspects that are more
revealing of the ways the status quo is unjust” (Hartsock cited in Anderson, 2007, para 20).
Women superintendents reveal different aspects of social reality—aspects we need to
hear, view as important, and rely upon. As professors of education leadership programs, we
must include women’s voices as examples in discussion about leadership. If we do this, we
work to dispel the myth that if women are not in the position as superintendents, they must
not be able to do the job. If women are disinclined to pursue the superintendency, this
reluctance to aspire to the role could result from many issues. Among the issues are: the lack
of role models (Brunner, 1998), external and internal barriers that are gender-related
(Brunner, 1998a, 1998b; Shakeshaft, 1989; Wesson & Grady, 1994), and educational theories
that have developed from an androcentric (male-dominated) framework and are not
representative of the female paradigm (Shakeshaft, 1989). According to Brunner (2000),
women have a real challenge when they take on a role that is so heavily masculinized and to
make it in the role, a woman has to be very good.
STUDYING WOMEN SUPERINTENDENTS
Leadership and Power
Skrla and colleagues (2000) stressed the need for more studies of women superintendents
when they called for “... the conversation among and about women superintendents to
increase in numbers, to widen in scope, and to escalate in volume so that neither the women
themselves nor the education profession in general continue to remain silent” (p. 71). In the
academic year 1999-2000, I conducted mixed method research with women who were
practicing school superintendents in four Midwestern states, n = 210. The purpose of the
research was to generally add to the existing body of literature particularly looking at
women’s work lives as superintendents through an investigation of their leadership practices
and uses of power (Katz, 2004, 2006).
Quantitative research questions asked whether or not there were differences in how
women perceived their leadership practices and uses of power based on age, years of
experience, and the size and structure of their school districts. Surveys sent consisted of
demographic questions and two published inventories: the Leadership Practices Inventory-
Self (Kouzes & Posner, 1995) and Your Sources of Influence (Rosner, 1990) which asked
questions regarding how those in powerful roles perceived their sources of influence (power).
In-depth interviews were conducted with nine women who were practicing in the four states.
Results from both quantitative and qualitative analyses found significant differences in how
women perceived their leadership practices and how they perceived their uses of power.
All 210 women who were practicing superintendents in four Midwestern states (as listed
on state lists) were invited to participate in the study. Fourteen women superintendents had
left their positions, which reduced the population for the study to 196 women superintendents
among the four states. From that population, 76% (n = 148) returned usable surveys. Of the
148 surveys used in the data analysis, 65% of the participants were between the ages of 50
and 56. The mean age of the participants was 52 years with a range in age from 38 to 65