Extraordinary Women: Senior Women Managers and Leaders

Abstract

In general, the new senior women who are taking up positions of authority in teacher education are seen by their more junior colleagues to operate within discourses more related to those of the marketplace than did their predecessors. There seems to have been a value shift in the management of initial teacher training away from a ‘hands-on’ practice–informed version of leadership towards an economist-business–driven approach that concentrates on systems and structures rather than on people and processes. A surprising finding is that, whereas senior women may have been expected to be just as, or more, beleaguered than their middle-ranking colleagues, in general, those who hold high-ranking positions are thriving in their roles.