Where are the part-time women teachers in senior school leadership: Inequalities, tensions and timescapes?

Abstract

The chances of a woman teacher who works part-time in a secondary school becoming part of the senior leadership tier are slim; yet, little research exists around this inequality. In this study, a life history approach was used to gather the messy and subjective truths of women's lives as part-time teachers and their relationships with time and career progression. New evidence of tensions emerged resulting from women navigating the demands of both their professional and home-life roles with insufficient time. Crucially, their various roles demanded different relationships with temporal features or timescapes. Frequent and bumpy traversing of these different timescapes was necessary in navigating their paid roles alongside their home-life responsibilities, and this came with a cost to emotional wellbeing as well as deterring them from progressing their careers. Importantly, these insights help explain why part-time working can impact negatively on women teachers’ motivation for career progression and how this can lead to inequality in senior leadership.