Women and Professional Generativity: Voices from the Field

Abstract

Aging brings with it a certain commitment to improving the lives of future generations and to giving back by engaging in productive pursuits that provide psychological well-being (Versey & Newton, 2013). Leaders and adults develop a heightened sense of communion with self and others and derive meaning and satisfaction through serving others (Slater, 2003). We present findings from a focus group comprised of nine college-educated women professionals from three countries, gathered for the purpose of discussing generativity in educational leadership. Purposeful sampling was employed to allow variation and representation of women in educational leadership. Positions held by focus group members ranged from principals, directors, professors to deans. The specific purpose was to obtain an in-depth understanding of experiences of women as they engaged with the concept of generativity in their personal and professional lives. The results suggested that commitments to generativity activities varied by experience, age, and race. Another important finding was the categorization of participant women into distinct identity markers of pathmakers, guardians, searchers and drifters (Josselson, 1996) as reflected by the focus and nature of their generativity activities. Further studies with women from different socioeconomic backgrounds and fields other than educational leadership need to be conducted to establish the universality of our findings.