A Framework for Studying Schools as Work Settings for Women Leaders.

This paper presents an analysis of research on women in educational administration, identifying the issues which have been treated, examining the methodological perspectives of the research, determining the quality of the research, and formulating a paradigm for future research on women in education. One hundred fourteen doctoral dissertations on women in educational administration completed and abstracted from January 1973 through January 1979 were studied. The author of a typical dissertation is a female feminist working with a male advisor. The typical dissertation investigates the profile of the woman administrator, is approximately 175 pages in length, and tests no hypotheses. The paper and pencil questionnaire survey is the primary method of data collection, with the results analyzed according to descriptive methods. The overall quality of the dissertations is not high. The lowest quality is found in the sampling plans and the highest quality in the reviews of the literature. Only 35.86 percent of the studies make an overall contribution to the literature. The only variables to have consistent relationships to the quality of the dissertations are research issues, data collection methods, and the feminist standing of the researchers. (Author/PGD).