Book Description

Historically, women hold the majority of teaching positions in education and comprise 70 percent of all teachers in the United States. Administrators come from the teaching ranks, and men hold most of the positions (Feldman, Jorgensen, and Poling, 1998). Men continue to dominate educational administration, particularly the superintendency (Holloway, 1998, Ryder, 1994). The number of women represented in school superintendency throughout the United States has been minimal. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine North Carolina superintendents' perceptions of women in the role of the superintendency, to determine whether there were differences in superintendents' perceptions of leadership characteristics based on gender, and to determine whether there were differences in superintendents' perceptions of obstacles and barriers to obtaining the position of superintendent. The study employed a quantitative approach to conduct the research. Research (Bjork, 2000; Flora, 2001; Guptil, 2003; Hickey-Gramke, 2007) suggests that the rare female who has made it to the superintendency differ from her male counterpart, in intelligence, education, teaching, experience, work attitudes, and drive. Documentation obtained from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction revealed that as of October 2007, only 25 of the 115 public school superintendents are women. The data in the study also indicates that only seven had ten or more years of experience as a superintendent and that 18 have been in the position for nine years or less. An Examination of the Disparity of Women Leadership in the Superintendency Survey Instrument was administered to each of the superintendents in North Carolina. Based on the findings, the researcher recommends that further research be conducted to: (1) include women superintendents in other states and compared to the findings from this study to determine if the views are similar or different and (2) determine local school board members' perceptions with regards to hiring practices for women.