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Female educational leadership in the UK and Greece

Anastasia Mitroussi and Kyriaki Mitroussi
Cardiff School of Social Sciences and Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to concentrate on investigating the role of gender on educational leadership in the context of two differing cultures. The focus will be on exploring whether gender appears to impact on the leadership roles in education by examining the extent of female participation in leadership across educational levels in Greece and the UK, highlighting differences and similarities between them. Design/methodology/approach This paper examines secondary data on a number of issues, like the proportion of women in lower and higher ranking teaching posts across education sectors. Such data are retrieved from ofcial national and international statistics, such as UNESCO, Eurostat, the Ofce of National Statistics UK and the Higher Education Statistics Agency, UK, as well as previous academic studies. Findings The results of the analysis reveal that in both countries, fewer women than men reach top rank positions in education, particularly in secondary and higher education. Research limitations/implications The investigation will rely on the use of secondary data collected from a number of diverse national and international sources as well as from existing literature. The choice of secondary data is judged to bae appropriate on the basis of this paper and its research aim. Examination of womens presence across educational sectors in the two selected countries required obtaining information about actual and not representative, overall numbers or percentages of women in educational posts. Such information can only be positively retrieved by national or international, ofcial statistics, while even these, the investigation revealed, can show variations between them. Practical implications The paper should raise awareness to womens under-representation in leadership positions in education, especially at the secondary and the tertiary education levels. Originality/value Leadership has been acknowledged as a decisive component in education namely due to the improvements it brings in many areas. The complexity and diversity surrounding leadership has turned attention to the effect of a number of factors on the practice of leadership educational context, such as gender and culture. Therefore, the present paper concentrates on an exploration of the effect of gender in leadership in education. Also, the cross-cultural investigation between Greece and the UK, allows for constructive comparisons to take place where appropriate. Keywords Education, Leadership, Gender, United Kingdom, Greece Paper type Research paper

Female educational leadership 505

Received 4 February 2009 Revised 18 May 2009, 16 June 2009 Accepted 19 June 2009

1. Introduction The importance of leadership has been recognized as crucial in the contexts of politics, public and private sector, military, arts and others. Leadership in education has also acquired particular importance, as, according to the results of several relevant studies, it supports, develops and improves quality of relationships and teaching within the school as well as the academic performance of students (Silns and Mulford, 2003, cited in Harris, 2004; Lieberman et al., 2000).

Gender in Management: An International Journal Vol. 24 No. 7, 2009 pp. 505-522 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1754-2413 DOI 10.1108/17542410910991791

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Research shows that school leaders , i.e. heads/deputy heads of schools, school advisors, heads of education ofces make the difference in schooling outcomes. Skilful school leaders inuence school and classroom processes that have a direct impact on student learning. In school improvement great emphasis is given on how school leaders facilitate staff planning, goal setting and self-evaluation (Hallinger and Heck, 2003). Furthermore, the importance of effective management in educational institutions has been more and more recognized. Schools and colleges provide a better education to their students if they are well managed. Strategic leadership is a decisive component in the effective development of schools (Davies and Davies, 2006). Reynolds and Teddlie (2000 cited in Gunter, 2001 p. 33) argue: we do not know of a study that has not shown that leadership is important within effective schools, with that leadership nearly always provided by the head teacher. For example, research done by Silns and Mulford (2003 cited in Harris, 2004) has shown that student outcomes are improved where leadership engages many people and where teachers are empowered in areas of importance to them. Evidence also suggests that where teachers share good practice and learn together the possibility of securing better quality teaching is increased (Lieberman et al., 2000; Little, 1990, cited in Harris, 2004). As a result, educational leadership constitutes a topical subject in the contemporary research agenda. The aim of the present paper is to examine educational leadership with a view to exploring if gender can be seen to constitute a discerning factor in the attainment of leadership roles in education. The study undertakes to investigate the standing and proportion of female educational leadership in the context of two different counties. The focus is on comparing the status of women in education in Greece and the UK at primary and secondary education level as well as at the tertiary education level. The rst section of the paper will set the background of the present study by briey discussing the role of women as leaders in education. The main part of this paper, Section 3, concentrates on a critical comparison between data retrieved for Greece and the UK about the presence and status of women in leadership at diverse levels of the education systems in the two countries. Section 4 provides an insight into the why women tend to be slow to climb the educational leadership ladder, by examining personal, social and political dimensions of the matter. Finally, relevant conclusions are drawn in the last section. With regard to methodological choices, the investigation will rely on the use of secondary data collected from a number of diverse national and international sources as well as from existing literature on the different subject matters considered. The choice of secondary data was judged to be appropriate on the basis of this study and its research aim. Examination of womens presence across educational sectors in the two selected countries required obtaining information about actual and not representative, overall numbers or percentages of women in educational posts. Such information can only be positively retrieved by national or international, ofcial statistics and even these, the investigation revealed, can show variations between them. For the case of Greece, for example, we resolved to the use of the ofcial statistics of UNESCO, the International Labour Organisation, European Commission and Eurostat and previous academic research done in the eld. For the case of the UK, we used statistics from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the Ofce of National Statistics, UK and the Department for Education and Employment National Statistics and of course, drew on previous academic research, as well.

2. Women as leaders in education Managing diversity has raised concerns about how men and women manage, with female leadership, in particular, remaining an area of considerable debate and controversy (Fulop and Linstead, 1999). Gender, therefore, has played a signicant role in the construction of leadership and research agendas (Blackmore, 2002). Diversities in education systems, on the other hand, shaped by different cultural contexts and other parameters, such as gender, are also quite evident in a number of educational aspects and not least in educational leadership. Tanya Fitzgerald after a three-year research programme conducted in Australia, New Zealand and Canada with indigenous women underlined that gender and ethnicity do matter in educational leadership and walking between two worlds is complicated, contested and difcult terrain (Fitzgerald 2006, p. 210). The general perception existent in modern societies is that there is a high proportion of men in higher managerial position and a rather under-representation of women in such posts across professional sectors, including the education sector. Bloisi et al. (2003, p. 593), for example, claim that white males have an advantage for rising to prominent leadership positions and that few women and people of differing ethnic origin have been able to break the barriers for entry into the ranks of senior management and leadership. Brewis and Linstead (1999, p. 52) talk of the existence of a glass ceiling, an invisible, implicit but impenetrable barrier which prevents women from reaching senior managing positions within organisations. With regard to education, the international experience appears to be quite similar. Worldwide data on comparable leadership posts in primary and secondary education sectors is unavailable in a collective and concise manner, but the case of academia provides an interesting example. What has been argued is that in the twenty-rst century, it is still quite normal to assume that the success of an academic is likely to be affected by their gender. Reports show, for example, that, while in the past 20 years females have rapidly increased their share of positions within higher education that were previously male dominated such as medicine women after graduation are more often unemployed and earn considerably lower wages than men (Nuthall, 2008). According to data available from UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS, 2006) for year 2005 women worldwide represent 39 per cent of all teachers at the tertiary level of education. 3. UK and Greece: a comparative analysis 3.1 Female leadership in primary and secondary education The male is by nature superior and the female inferior [. . .] the one rules and the other is ruled according to Aristotle. This appears to still be the perception in many modern societies, like Greece and the UK. Table I provides a concise depiction of a number of sectors and the proportion of female managers in them as well as the percentage of female professionals in the various levels of the education sector. As shown, the percentages of directors for women in both countries are similar, with Greece scoring marginally higher with 9 per cent, in comparison to the UK with 8 per cent, while in all types of managers we can see that in the UK the percentage of women is higher in each case than this in Greece. It is also evident that certain disciplines, such as the elds of physicists, mathematicians and computing

Female educational leadership 507

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Occupational title Directors and chief executives Production and operations managers Other specialist managers Managers of small enterprises Physicists, chemists and related professionals Mathematicians, statisticians and related professionals Computing professionals College, university and higher education teaching professionals Secondary education teaching professionals Primary and pre-primary education teaching professionals Special education teaching professionals Other teaching professionals Source: ILO (2000)

Greece Men(%) Women(%) 91 84 75 74 60.5 63 77 70 43.5 30 0 32.6 9 16 25 26 39.5 37 23 30 56.5 70 100 67.3

Men(%) 92 72.5 60 67 75 66 84 54 47 14 22 45

UK Women(%) 8 27.5 40 33 25 34 16 46 53 86 78 55

508

Table I. Employment by occupation sector and sex in Greece and UK

professionals, are male dominated in both countries in contrast with the secondary, primary and special education sectors. The increased percentages of women participation in the aforementioned education elds refer to the total teaching posts and not to the higher-ranking ones, which, as we will see, display a different picture in respect of gender distribution. Coleman (2003) argues that leadership is a very gendered concept, a view that is specically considered and explored in the education sector in the following lines. One of the main reasons that teaching in schools (especially primary) has been considered a female occupation and closely connected to the female identity is that, in both Greece and the UK, school has been considered to be an extension of the family (Kyriakoussis and Saiti, 2006). Since the middle of the nineteenth century, occupational segregation has led to a build-up of females in dominance in teaching in public schools. This is indeed the case in both Greece and the UK as Table II below shows. Table II demonstrates the overwhelming presence of women in the teaching profession in both countries. It also shows that recent years have seen the further rise in the number of female teachers and the fall in the number of male teachers. Between the two countries

Female teachers (%) UK 1997/1998 2004/2005 Greece 1997/1998 2004/2005 68 69.8 58 72.6

Male teachers (%) 32 30.2 42 27.4

Table II. Percentage of teachers in primary, secondary, and pre-primary education in the UK and Greece

Sources: Compiled by author from: Koutouzis and Reppa (2002); UNESCO_UIS Database (2007); Ofce for National Statistics UK (2007)

there are no striking differences, as they appear to follow the same aforementioned trend. Further, insight into available information exhibits that the lower the educational level, the more overwhelming the presence of female teachers is. In Greece, for example, it is characteristic that in 1999 the percentage of female teachers in pre-primary education reached the 100 per cent. The following six years saw only a marginal change of 1 per cent in favour of male teachers in this sector. In the primary education sector 63 per cent were female teachers, which represented a 6 per cent increase since 1999, while in the secondary education the proportion of the female teachers remained 56 per cent as in 1999 (UNESCO_UIS Database, 2007). Clearly, the greatest change has taken place in the primary sector, where a signicant increase in the participation of women teachers is observed. The Educational Reform of 1929-1930 (Law 4397/1929) was the rst to bring integration to Greek education, and contributed signicantly to the increase of women teachers. More importantly in the years to follow, a deep-rooted attitude towards the teaching profession was established in the Greek society regarding its suitability especially for women, as it was seen to provide many opportunities for women to be employed without it adversely affecting their family situation. For the UK, in 1999 the percentage of female teachers in the nursery and primary education was 83.5 per cent, while in secondary education female teachers comprised 53.4 per cent (DFEE, 2000). In 2004/2005 both gures increased in favour of the presence of women as in both nursery and primary schools, 85 per cent of full-time teachers were female and in secondary schools 56 per cent of full-time teachers were female (Ofce for National Statistics UK, 2007). The gures, especially for the secondary education sector are very close and demonstrate perhaps a similar pattern in the gender distribution of teachers across the levels of primary and secondary education in both Greece and the UK. In respect of the leadership positions women possess in the primary and secondary education, research has indicated an under-representation of women in the roles of Heads in both countries (Wilson, 1997). In England and Wales only 49 per cent of Heads were found to be women in the primary education and 26 per cent in the secondary education, despite the fact that women represented the 81 and 49 per cent of all teachers in primary and secondary schools, respectively. Remarkably, in Greece the percentages of female teachers and heads in primary schools were found to be far more balanced 56 and 41 per cent, respectively, and again not as disproportionate in secondary education as in the case of the UK equivalent gures. Overall, comparisons are difcult to make not just due to unavailability of appropriate data but also due to the variation that exists in the relevant categorisations used in the two countries, for example, in relation to the managerial positions of the education sector. Therefore, the examination will take into account these differences. In the Greek Educational system there are four kinds of managerial positions: heads of schools, heads of regional educational ofce (Local Educational Authorities), school advisors, and nally heads of Greek educational ofces abroad (HGEOA). Traditionally, within the highly centralized and bureaucratised Greek educational system, heads of schools have been administrators expected to follow and implement decisions made at the central level, i.e. the ministry of education. The same could be argued for the heads of regional education ofces (HREOs). They are the link

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between central government and local schools, and they coordinate the schools in their area of responsibility, for example, they administer the allocation of staff to the region, as decided centrally by the ministry. school advisors (SA) have a slightly different role. They are experienced subject specialists, often holding post-graduate degrees, and they assist teachers by offering advice and disseminating good practices. The most prestigious, but denitely the most attractive and well-paid positions, are the HGEOA and their role is advisory, managerial, and controlling (Koutouzis and Reppa, 2002). The following Tables, III-V provides useful information about the abovementioned managerial positions in Greece. The data given are signicant as it relates to the actual participation of women in leadership posts and to the actual selection process for these positions, where the proportion of female candidates is also noticeably low. What is evident, therefore, is that, in comparison with the percentage of women teachers in Greece, female participation in managerial or other crucial positions in the Greek educational system is not as high as expected and does not reect the composition of the teaching profession in the country. Kyriakoussis and Saiti (2006) in their study found that 36.8 per cent of the female teachers believed that promotions into school administration are discriminatory, that is, that male teachers are more likely to enter into educational administration. As already mentioned before, it is difcult to match exactly the various categories of leadership positions in the education systems of Greece and the UK. As can be seen

Table III. Heads of regional education ofces (primary and secondary education) in Greece

Greece Candidates Selected

Total 433 199

Primary education Women Women (%) 11 6 2.48 3.01

Total 466 191

Secondary education Women Women (%) 13 13 2.78 6.81

Source: Koutouzis and Reppa (2002)

Total Pre-primary education Primary education Special education Secondary education Total 104 512 57 625 1,298

Candidates Women 104 72 8 148 332

% 100 14.1 14 23.7 25.6

Total 49 301 16 254 620

Selected Women 49 32 0 47 128

% 100 10.6 0 18.5 20.6

Table IV. School advisors in Greece

Source: Koutouzis and Reppa (2002)

Total Table V. Heads of Greek educational ofces abroad Candidates Selected 199 26

Women 59 5

Women (%) 29.6 19.2

Source: Koutouzis and Reppa (2002)

from Table VI the presence of women in leadership positions in secondary education is signicantly lower than that of men. The remarks about the under-representation of women in senior management posts in UK independent schools, especially in the secondary sector, have been accompanied by observations about small but steady increases in the number of women achieving headship in state secondary school. From 22 per cent in 1994 the increase of female secondary heads rose to almost 27 per cent in 1998 (Mclay and Brown, 2000). However, and this could be seen as a main difference with Greece, the percentage of female heads and deputy heads in the nursery and primary education in particular, but also to an extent in the special education, too, is much more signicant and corresponds better to the overall teachers gender composition. In fact, it would have been even more helpful if there were available data for separately the nursery and primary education like in the case of Greece as it would provide us with more direct comparisons with equivalent Greek gures. Combining information from other sources provides further insight. In 1999 while men comprised only 11.8 per cent of primary teachers, 41 per cent of primary head teachers were male, while within the primary sector other considerable variations were evident: heads of nursery, infant and rst schools are more likely to be female; in junior, primary and middle schools the head teacher is more likely to be male; men tend to gain promotion earlier in their careers than women; of primary teachers with over 20 years experience, one in every two males is a head teacher, compared with one in every ve females. Within the secondary sector women are less likely to be appointed to the largest schools. In 2001, 85 per cent of head teachers in the largest schools were male; on the other hand, whilst women are only slightly slower in gaining promotion, fewer take the step to headship or deputy headship (Hedgecoe, 2005). In England in 1997, 26 per cent of secondary principals were women in a teaching force that was 52 per cent women, while in 2004 approximately one-third of secondary principals in England were women, although women then made up 56 per cent of the secondary teaching force (DFES, 2006). Half the women principals in 2004 felt that gender impacted on their access to leadership, and about half of the women heads in 2004 had an awareness of gender as a negative factor when they are in role, as they felt resentment and/or surprise from peers, colleagues and others in nding a woman in the position of head teacher (Coleman, 2007). 3.2 Female leadership in tertiary education It has been argued that academia tends to be more resistant than business and politics to pressures for elimination of obstacles to advancement of women in all countries,
Heads female (%) 57.2 26.9 42.3 Heads male Deputy heads female Deputy heads male (%) (%) (%) 42.8 73.1 57.7 72.6 35.1 54.6 27.4 64.9 45.4

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Education sectors Nursery and primary education Secondary education Special education

Source: Compiled by author from DFEE (2000)

Table VI. Percentages of female and male heads and deputy heads in education sectors in the UK in 1998

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except at the level of recruiting students and participation in the lower ranks of the academic hierarchy, as men are more likely than women to move up successive stages of the academic career ladder (Etzkowitz, 2007). With regard to the British academia, it appears that there is evidence that teaching and researching is characterised by sexual division. Women are not only under-represented in positions of authority and mainly conned to certain discipline areas but they also tend to be disadvantaged at all grades in terms of salary and are also more likely than their male colleagues to have insecure short-term contracts (Vazquez-Cupeiro, 2003). Table VII shows the gender distribution in academia (all ranks) in Greece and the UK. As shown, both countries display very similar percentages in the presence of men and women in academia roughly just over 1/3 of all academics are women. Relevant percentages from other countries are provided as well, which also show a remarkable consistency in the gures of other industrialised countries in different parts of the world. Minor differences exist between the different UK areas England, Wales, Scotland and Northern. Ireland which all exhibit an around 35 per cent proportion of women in the academia (HESA, 2003). Data from the Association of University Teachers (Robinson, 2006) reveals a noteworthy 31 per cent increase in the number of female academics in the UK academia between 1996 and 2003. In Greece, in an analogous although not the exact same time frame that is, between 1999 and 2003 the equivalent increase was 5 per cent (UNESCO_UIS Database, 2007). In 2004 the UK exhibited a considerable higher proportion of women in the rst top ranking academic posts, 31 per cent, in relation to Greece with only 22 per cent (European Commission, 2006). Figure 1 shows further information on the UK case. The rst observation that can be made is that the proportion of female staff has increased signicantly since 1994/1995. Hill (2004) claims that women appear to be winning their struggle for promotion in UK universities as men turn their backs on a lecturing career; that more women than men were promoted to professorships in 2002/2003; and that almost twice as many women as men won promotion to senior lecturer grade. Much of this change in recent years should be attributed to the heightened awareness of the need not to waste any more talent and expertise of female academics and also to the strengthening of relevant equality legislation and the fear of litigation against any sex discrimination legislation. However, despite the obvious narrowing of the gap, men continued to form the majority at all staff grades in higher education. Women constituted only 15 per cent of the total number of professors, and 29 per cent of senior lecturers, while for lecturers, researchers and other grades of academic staff, over 40 per cent were female in 2003/2004 (European Commission, 2006). Although, attitudes have changed within British academia, in practice women are rarely selected for authority positions, as for example, only about 12 per cent of
UK (%) Men Women 64.9 35.1 Greece (%) 64 36 Australia (%) 64 36 Canada (%) 68.3 31.7 USA (%) 60.6 39.4

Table VII. Percentage distribution of Full time academic faculty by gender and country 2003

Sources: Compiled by author from Robinson (2006); UNESCO_UIS Database (2007)

Academic staff by employment function, 1994/95 and 2003/04 60,000 Men (1994/95) 50,000 Academic staff [head count] 42% 40,000 33% Women (1994/95) Men (2003/04) Women (2003/04)

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30,000 40% 37% 20,000 15% 10,000 7% 93% 0 85% Senior lecturers & researchers Lecturers employment function Researchers 83% 71% 29% 17% 67% 58% 63% 60% 37% 63% Other grades 48%

52%

Professors

Source: Clark (2006)

Figure 1.

Vice-Chancellors were female in 2004/2004 (Clark, 2006). Newman (2008) reports that perceptions of women being poor at delegating tasks are among the gender stereotypes that hamper the progression of women into senior management roles in universities. Newman (2008) also observes that several female vice-chancellors said they had experienced more gender discrimination once they had moved to very senior roles, as even when having obtained a post, women are excluded from male circles. In Greece the same period statistics also reveal some interesting facts. Although women comprise over half on the student body in Greece, and the share of women graduates is higher in all elds of education with some exceptions in maths, engineering, computing and manufacturing and construction only about one third of the teaching staff in universities in 2003 were women. More importantly, the data reveals in particular the considerable underrepresentation of women in posts at the higher end of the academic ladder, as the higher the position in the academic hierarchy, the lower the percentage of women is. According to a study conducted by Vosniadou (2004) covering all Greek universities for the academic year 2003/2004, the percentage of women decreases every step up the academic ladder. This decrease is particularly sharp between the middle and the high ranks of the academic hierarchy, i.e. professors: 14 per cent female, 86 per cent male; associate professors: 26.5 per cent female, 73.5 per cent male; assistant professors: 32 per cent female, 68 per cent male; lecturers: 61 per cent female, 39 per cent male. In addition, the percentage of women drops sharply in the administrative positions and power structures of the university. For instance, faculty presidents in the sciences were 100 per cent men and in the humanities 69 per cent were men and only 31 per cent women. Vice-presidents in science faculties were men to the 93 per cent and only 7 per cent were women and in the humanities 65 per cent were men and 35 per cent

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women. directors of laboratories in the sciences were 88 per cent men and 12 per cent women and in the humanities 76 per cent men 24 per cent women. Moreover, women constituted an invisible minority in decision-making committees, as, for example, presidents/chairs of university research committees were 100 per cent men, while research committee members were 90 per cent men and 10 per cent women (Vosniadou, 2004). Quite vividly, in Greece there appears to be an even gloomier picture in relation to womens representation when moving up the academic ladder. In Greece, fewer women than men even fewer women than in the UK higher education institutions reach the top rank positions. This makes the glass ceiling phenomenon even more apparent as a signicant factor inuenced by sex discrimination. So, has there not been any substantial change in recent years? Table VIII shows that indeed the years since 1982 there has been a signicant increase in the number of women in the Greek academia in all categories. The number of full women professors has more than tripled, while associate and assistant women professors have doubled. The most up-to-date information available for the UK is shown in Table IX. The statistics for the period 2006/2007 reveal that there has been yet another increase in recent years of the number of women professors with a reported percentage of 17.5 per cent. In terms of senior lecturers, women today account for the 36.8 per cent of all senior lecturers in UK higher education institutions, representing a considerable increase of around 8 per cent within just a couple of years. However, it seems that women in British universities still hit the well-known glass ceiling at the senior level. While the academic pyramid is based on an administrative and clerical workforce of whom 83 per cent are women, and managers 45 per cent of whom are women, this rapidly tapers off at the top, as only 16 per cent of UK
Female staff Full professors Associate professors Assistant professors Lecturers Temporary personnel Auxiliary personnel Source: Karamessini (2004) 1982/1983 (%) 4.44 12.32 13.47 25.60 28.16 39.59 2001/2002 (%) 13.22 24.00 32.38 39.09 34.71 44.89

Table VIII. Female share of University teaching staff by rank and category in Greece

Female Professors Senior lecturers and researchers Lecturers Researchers Other grades Total academic staff 2,885 12,375 24,590 16,815 15,255 71,920

Male 13,600 21,275 27,340 19,925 15,935 98,075

Total 16,485 33,650 51,930 36,740 31,190 1,69,995

Female (%) 17.5 36.8 47.4 45.8 48.9 42.3

Table IX. Distribution of all higher education staff in the UK by academic grade and gender 2006/2007

Source: Compiled by author from HESA (2007)

universities are led by women as vice chancellors or rectors (Spencer, 2007). There are no female vice-chancellors in Wales or Northern Ireland and, although the majority of women head the newer universities, Cambridge broke new ground when in 2003 Professor Alison Richard became its 344th Vice-Chancellor the rst full-time woman in the post. As far as the case of Greece is concerned, the latest relevant gures available are the ones reported by the research of Vosniadou (2004) presented earlier in this section. Marseilles (2007) reconrms the degree of gender inequality in Greeces education industry by referring to the same study by the aforementioned researcher from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, a study that was part of a research programme called Pythagoras. Therefore, we believe that it would be safe to assume that no major changes in the trends observed and analysed before about the case of Greece have taken place in the last three years since this project was publicized. The gender gap is more pronounced in some disciplines than others, as Table I earlier in the section also exhibited. Hill (2004) characteristically reports for the case of the UK that in electrical, electronic and computer engineering, 1.2 per cent of professors were female; while in nursing and paramedical studies the gure was 64 per cent. Figures from the European Commission for the same year also reveal that in the UK the percentage of senior female academic staff (grade A full professors) in agriculture sciences was 14.7 per cent, in engineering 4.9 per cent, in humanities 17 per cent, in medical sciences 22 per cent, in natural sciences it was 8 per cent and in Social Sciences it was 21 per cent (European Commission, 2006). During the same period in Greece the distribution of academic staff of all grades by scientic eld of study, revealed equivalent trends. Certain elds were traditionally male dominated with a small womens presence, such as engineering with 20 per cent womens participation, agricultural sciences with 23,4 per cent, natural sciences with 32 per cent and medical sciences with 23,4 per cent, and other elds, such as the humanities, where the proportion of women increases substantially and reaches the 52.5 per cent (Figure 2). The gures between the two countries are not of course, exactly comparable, as the UK statistics refer to the professorial level only, while the data from Greece to all academic ranks, they are, however, reasonably indicative of the unequal sex distribution in different scientic elds in both the countries examined here. 4. Factors affecting the presence of women in educational leadership Studies conducted to explain womens under-representation in leadership positions in education point to a number of factors that are in force. The main barriers that have been recognised relate to preconceptions and stereotypes about women and men as leaders, to organisational factors, i.e. promotion procedures, re-entry difculties and management development, as well as to womens own restraints. These broad categories can also be recognised in Cubillo and Browns (2003) study with women from nine countries Indonesia, China, Cyprus, Greece, Kuwait, Iraq, Commonwealth of Dominica, Gambia and Zambia. What has largely been argued is that the historical development of complex schooling systems funded and controlled by the state has stimulated the separation of teaching and administration, which has in turn created the presumption that women were situated to teaching and men to manage and lead (Theobald, 1996). Kyriakoussis and Saiti (2006) argue that the under-representation of women in educational

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80 70 60

Men Women

516

50 40 30 20 10

Figure 2. Participation of men and women per scientic elds in Greece

0 Natural sciences Engineeringtechnologycomputing Medical sciences Agricultural sciences Humanities

Source: Maratou and Kalliroi (2004)

managerial positions can be attributed to a complex set of reasons related to a number of social inuences. For example, 79.9 per cent of respondents in their study stated that the Greek education system is unreliable as it failed to be objective and favouring promotion of men, while the researchers point as other plausible reasons: . the avoidance of managerial responsibilities on behalf of women due to their excessive levels of work, work pressure and stress; . school administration is stereotypically androgynous; and . competition between spouses (men do not yet fully accept an equal share of responsibility in raising children and doing the housework). Studies carried out about academic positions in the European Union resulted in similar propositions pointing to the idea that apparently in academia the image of research and the image of power are both male (European Commission, 2008). Acker and Feuverger (1996, p. 40) have presented an analysis of the university as a patriarchal institution inevitably favouring men stating that apart from the traditional male hegemony present in most cases at the wider level of societies and cultures, there is a patriarchal culture and climate at the level of the education level, as well. Career encouragement and sponsorship, critical in career advancement; have been found to not always be available to women (Evetts, 1991). An age-related career structure and limited childcare arrangements pose also problems connected with re-entry of women in their career path after maternity leave. Such re-entry problems are thought by women to constitute a considerable barrier in advancement (Grant, 1989). There are additional reasons for womens low participation in educational leadership. Many of them concern their own conceptions and perceptions. Women are also inevitably subject to essentialist societal assumptions, so the traditional identication of leadership with males has also a negative, discouraging impact on

them (Marshall, 1984). With the working environment being a male-dominated on, women have to prove themselves over and over again before they are recognised and so great psychological strength, condence and commitment is required to cope with that pressure. Lack of interest on behalf of women in managerial positions can also be noted, which can be explained by the stress caused by role-conict, as family responsibilities and womens worries about balancing increased work demands at the expense of family impact on their leadership aspirations (Al Khalifa, 1992). In connection, to that it has also been argued that women feel more satised in the teaching profession than men do, as they feel that there is no incompatibility between their personal and working life (Dimitropoulos, 1997). Lastly, women need to feel well-prepared before they apply for a leadership position, and they choose to become heads when they feel adequate, that is they have become competent teachers, and have their own agenda for headship (Hall, 1996). Over the years and in particular since the mid-1990s there have been serious efforts at national and international levels to reduce inequalities between men and women in the world of work by establishing relevant public policies and ofcial strategies. In the UK context, although gender equality policy in Great Britain can be dated back to the 1970s, a number of organisations have been more recently formed in support of the womens advancement in the education sector (Beals, 2008). The Science and Society Unit of the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills has an aim of increasing involvement of women in science and its governance, by developing policy-based research and funded pilot projects as well as supporting women in the science community infrastructure. The ATHENA project, launched in 1999, has as an aim the advancement and promotion of the careers of women in science, engineering and technology (SET) in higher education and research to achieve a signicant increase in the number of women recruited to top posts. A Gender Equality Duty, introduced in 2007, requires public authorities, including higher education institutions, to promote gender equality and eliminate sex discrimination and so all UK higher education institutions produce a human resources strategy and implementation plan and use self-assessment tools to monitor progress. The research councils in collaboration with the UKRC for women in SET are working together to analyse diversity data on research funding and raise issues and increase the number of women in research decision making to support the government target of 40 per cent on SET-related committees. In respect of Greece, legislative improvements to enhance the standing of women in general appeared particularly prominent in the 1980s and have continued in more recent years. Intervention programmes in order to promote quality in secondary education have been carried out in recent years and as part of the countrys integrated strategy for 2004-2008, which was linked to the national policies of development, employment, education and social cohesion (Tsoumani, 2007). With the help of the Community Support Framework II, Greece implemented a number of programmes for promoting equality of opportunity and equal access to the labour market. These included: programmes on the education and vocational training of women, such as programmes for the sensitisation of schoolteachers on equality issues, programmes concerning the professional orientation of the female student population, development of special teaching programmes for women, creation of institutional structures for the

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evaluation of equality policies, and development of post-doctoral studies and research programmes for women, such as funding research by female researchers in science and technology (Papadiamantaki and Riga, 2003). In 2003 the Ministry of Education in Greece and the European Social Fund co-funded gender research and a total of e4.5 million was spent on 37 research projects by Greek universities with the amount allocated per gender research project being double the amount allocated to all other research areas. This allocation of targeted funding for gender research has had the indirect effect of upgrading women researchers in the university hierarchy, at a time when new evaluation schemes for university staff were to have been introduced under the recent legal reform of higher education (European Commission, 2008, p. 29). 5. Conclusion The aim of this paper was to address the issue whether womens participation in education leadership is conditioned by their gender. The study focused particularly on a cross-cultural comparison between Greece and the UK, across a range of education sectors, that is, at a primary, secondary and tertiary education level. This examination revealed a number of interesting observations. In terms of proportion of women teachers, in primary and secondary education both countries exhibited overall a high presence of women in the total teaching posts but a low representation of women in the higher ranking ones. Recent years have also seen the further rise in the number of female teachers and the fall in the number of male teachers. Indeed, the lower the educational level, the more overwhelming the presence of female teachers is. Both countries demonstrated a similar pattern in the gender distribution of teachers across the levels of primary and secondary education. The gender distribution in academia (all ranks) in Greece and the UK displays very similar percentages in the presence of men and women in academia, as roughly just over 1/3 of all academics are women, a gure which is remarkable consistent with gures of other industrialised countries in different parts of the world. In respect of womens leadership positions in the primary and secondary education, an under-representation of women in the roles of heads in both countries was indicated but the situation in Greece appeared to be slightly better than in the UK. The proportion of Greek female teachers and heads in primary schools was found to be far more balanced and not as disproportionate in secondary education as in the case of the UK equivalent percentages. In the UK the percentage of female heads and deputy heads in the nursery and primary education in particular, but also to an extent in the special education, too, were found to be quite signicant and to correspond better to the overall teachers gender composition. With regard to academia, an under-representation of women within academias higher ranks has been depicted. Women are still in a minority amongst academic staff, they are underrepresented in almost all grades but especially in senior levels and decision-making bodies. In other words, our examination indicated that the higher the position in the academic hierarchy, the lower the percentage of women. What is more, the percentage of women drops sharply in the administrative positions and power structures of the university as women appear to be rarely selected for authority positions. For example, only 18 of the 131 vice-chancellor members of UK universities are female, while the situation in Greece follows the same trend with,

for instance, faculty presidents in the sciences being 100 per cent men and in the humanities 69 per cent men. It is evident, therefore, that women in the education sector appear to be facing in their career advancement a glass ceiling this is true in different national/cultural contexts and for both Greece and the UK. Gender differences in terms of opportunities for promotion in the education workplace have been observed to be prevalent for both the case of Greece and the UK. Gender was shown to be a determinant factor for the ascendance in the hierarchical ladder in the education sector of all levels, as it, also, is in the corporate UK and Greece. The paper also attempted a composite examination of factors which act as inuences for the women in their pursuit of education and career progression. These can largely be categorised in societal and general stereotypes, favourable or unfavourable organizational factors and the signicance of womens own perceptions. Future research can concentrate on acquiring primary data for a number of issues addressed here. The perceptions of women teachers or lower rank academics can be sought, for instance, about the factors which they see prevent them, delay them or encourage them for that matter to advance to leadership posts in their career. Women leaders viewpoint can also be included in that. In addition, the effectiveness of female leadership can become the subject of inquiry by developing and investigating a number of measurements of such effectiveness and comparing and contrasting these with equivalent male education leaders achievements. Future research can also focus on a single education sector, like the primary, secondary or tertiary education level, and provide a more detailed and in-depth analysis. Alternatively, it can concentrate on cross-national comparisons between other countries than the ones chosen here or even more detailed cross-sectional comparisons within the same country. Overall, the subject area of education leadership and the role of gender is a very interesting and noteworthy issue that not only encourages but also is in need of further research.
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Tsoumani, E. (2007), As womens anti-discrimination committee takes up report of Greece, secretary-general for gender equality presents gender equality issues now part of national strategic planning, Gender Equality Legislation, Anti-Trafcking Efforts Among Issues Raised, General Assembly, United Nations, available at: http://un.org/News/Press/docs/ 2007/wom1600.doc.htm. (accessed 26 June 2008). UNESCO UIS (2006), Women in science: under-represented and under-measured, UIS Bulletin on Science and Technology Statistics, No. 3, available at: http://.unesco.org/science/psd/ news/news06/bulletinno3_v12en.pdf. (accessed 23 July 2008). UNESCO_UIS Database (2007), available at: http://.data.un.org. (accessed 23 July 2008). Vazquez-Cupeiro, S. (2003), System of higher education in the UK, available at: http://csn.unimuenster.de/women-eu/download/PortetTP01_03.pdf. (accessed 25 July). Vosniadou, S. (2004), The position of women in Greek universities, paper presented at the Conference on The Position of Women in the Academic Community and University Gender Policies, University of Athens Interdisciplinary Gender Studies Programme, available at: http:isotita.gr. Wilson, M. (Ed.) (1997), Women in Educational Management: A European Perspective, Paul Chapman, London. Further reading Davidson, M.J. and Cooper, C.L. (1992), Shattering the Glass Ceiling: the Woman Manager, Paul Chapman Publications, London. Fitzerald, T. (2006), Walking between two worlds: indigenous women and educational leadership, Educational Management Administration and Leadership, Vol. 34 No. 2, pp. 201-13. About the authors Anastasia Mitroussi has more than 15 years experience in working as a Teacher of Mathematics in primary and secondary schools. She holds a Masters degree in Education from Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University and her elds of interest include leadership and policy in education and managing in educational institutions. She has recently become further involved in education for students with special needs as a separate specialization. Kyriaki Mitroussi is Lecturer at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University Prior to her current post she served as a lecturer at the University of Piraeus, Department of Maritime Studies in undergraduate and postgraduate schemes. He has worked with shipping companies and has also been involved in consultancy services. Her research work has been published in international academic journals while articles of hers have also appeared in the international commercial and economic press. Her broad research interests include: shipping management, leadership and motivation, safety and quality management, shipping economics and policy. Kyriaki Mitroussi is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: mitroussik@cardiff.ac.uk

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