Women and Public School Administration: Invisibility and Discrimination.

The assumptions of organizational and social reality in public school administration and their relationships to gender discrimination are explored in this paper. A critical constructivist theoretical approach is used to examine organizational elements, selection processes, roles, access to information, and visible gender in public school administration. Qualitative methodology involved collection of over one dozen vignettes that reflect the experiences of women in public education administration. The sample included aspiring administrators and practicing elementary and secondary principals, assistant principals, and superintendents. Findings point to the existence of gender discrimination in public school administration but they also point to a new construct, that of women, as well as men, being misled by the gains that have been made into not seeing the need to examine issues associated with gender discrimination. The importance of the study is the introspection it invites, the learning it enhances, and the evolution and awakening of constructions of the inner eye it enables. People, if they can see differently, can believe in a different social reality that has been obfuscated by acceptance of the dominant organizational and social assumptions, and can work for awareness and change. (10 references) (LMI)