Women principals in South Africa: gender, mothering and leadership

Abstract

This paper draws on qualitative data from a mixed-method study that analysed women’s experience as principals in South Africa. The study explored how gender and other related factors such as language, culture, religion and ethnicity positively or negatively influenced women’s access to the principal role and their leadership experiences. The paper draws on interviews with 54 female headteachers in the Gauteng and North West provinces of South Africa. Since a mothering style of leadership was self-reported by over half of the participants in our study, this paper aims to explore the diverse ways in which motherhood was constructed and the outcomes of these constructions on women’s approach to leadership. Drawing on concepts such as gender, mothering and reference groups, the paper focuses on how women position themselves as mothers at the workplace and how this shapes their relationship with other members of staff, students and parents. It concludes by suggesting that, in the ongoing struggle to achieve greater equality for women school leaders, homogenising western interpretations of doing and undoing gender are inappropriate

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ORCID for Marta Cristina Azaola: orcid.org/0000-0002-6671-4095

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