Personal and professional characteristics, perceptions of barriers, and strategies of women in different levels of the superintendency

This study investigated executive women school administrators perceptions of barriers and strategies employed to successfully attain their superintendency level positions. Also whether or not these perceptions differed between women superintendents and those in assistant/associate/deputy superintendency positions. This study contributes to previous research by comparing these two groups of women as to: (a) personal characteristics such as age, household and personal income and number of children, and (b) professional characteristics such as position held, number of students in school district, and highest degree earned, (c) perceptions of barriers to the superintendency and (d) judgments of successful strategies for acquiring superintendency positions. The 173 respondents were women in superintendency level positions in the Tidewater region of the United States. The survey instrument Questionnaire on Personal and Professional Characteristics Perceptions of Barriers and Strategies of Women in the Different Levels of the Superintendency was mail-administered with a response rate of 68. 2%. Data analysis included Chi-Square tests for independence, means and standard deviations for effect size and analyses of variance used to identify areas where statistically significant differences existed between women superintendents and assistant/associate/deputy superintendents. Findings included the identification of six barriers and five successful strategies that were reported to be of importance. Barriers included exclusion from informal socialization process of "good old boy network," existence of "buddy system" in which men refer men for jobs, lack of a strong women's network similar to the "good old boy network", predominance of male candidates for administrative positions, lack of ability to relocate and conflict demands of career and family. Barriers found to be statistically significant between aspirants and non-aspirants to the superintendency included limited experience in the area of finance and lack of self-confidence in public sphere activities. Strategies identified for success in job attainment included the need for women aspirants to establish an insider network, enhance public speaking competence, select graduate programs that include coursework/internships in the areas of business, finance and facilities management, effective media relationships, participate with political and public interest groups and ability to relocate.