Finding Room for Indigenous Women in Educational Leadership: Why Structured Mentorship and Training Are Needed

Abstract

While the educational system attempts to recover from the last few years of teacher attrition and lower enrollments in teacher education programs, there is an opportunity within adult education to both promote and mentor indigenous women in educational leadership roles by providing education, resources, and opportunities during their training. As long as indigenous women educators are still left out of academic leadership spaces, the lack of diverse voices of women in educational leadership is an issue worth exploring. A troubling lack of mentorship, support, and opportunities exacerbates the exclusion of indigenous women educational leaders. The purpose of this paper is to explore ways that adult education programs and human resource development interventions can and should help prepare indigenous women for positions in educational leadership. Educational leadership training in higher education institutions must include structured mentorship and networking programs, efforts to understand how indigenous women learn and lead, and an embracing of alternate, indigenous ways of leading.