An inquiry into one feminist education leader's experience in an Alberta urban school district

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Nay, Norma Diane

• Through(out) this narrative inquiry, I argue that leadership in public education in Alberta needs to change. I argue that it needs to better reflect the changes in the world. Our school divisions and schools are filled with a wonderful diversity of knowing and being that could
  easily fill our students and education staff with more educative knowledge and connection. This study highlights how hierarchical, patriarchal, and colonial traditions that undergird current education systems are increasingly being challenged because these systems have been and continue to be designed for the benefit of one group in society: White, male, able-bodied, and cisgendered people. These systems create barriers to equity and equal access to education.
  Female, feminist education leaders have the knowledge and perspectives that are necessary to lead our education systems into its next, more sustainable and sustaining form. Their leadership is grounded in skills and knowledge that women with feminist perspectives as presented by Oxfam Canada (2018) bring to education: how to build community, how to see the group but acknowledge the individual, how to collaborate, how to include, how to hear the needs of others and respond to them. Through my narrative inquiry with one such female, feminist leader, I have learned that this is possible. Our research conversations underscore her ability to label the inherent violence in current education systems, her ideas of what education could (and sometimes does) look like, and her commitment to community. These ideas and skills are what make her a vital member of the school division she works in, yet her knowing and skills are not often recognized as being a vital form of leadership.
  This research highlights my learning and belief that women leaders with feminist commitments need to be in positions of leadership throughout the education system. This is one way more people will feel empowered to embrace who they are and feel free to live lives of
  dignity and value within education systems and beyond.

• Date created

  2021-04-01

• Subjects / Keywords

  • educational leadership
  • feminism
  • feminist
  • Alberta
  • transformative

• Type of Item

  Research Material

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-68kz-pd51

• License

  Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International