Considering Glass Ceiling in Turkey: Ideas of Executives in Education Sector Regarding Women in the Workplace

The purpose of this study is to determine, taking the “glass ceiling” into account, which factors contribute to the ideas of top education executives regarding women in the workplace and to identify whether these ideas vary depending on the executives’ demographic profile. This research included top state high school executives from Istanbul. An important conclusion was that the participants took into consideration only the “executive” qualities of the women in their workplace. In other words, they were already thinking about women in executive positions when participating. The participants had positive opinions regarding female executives and thoughts on the ability of female executives to create a balance between home and work. To a significant extent, these ideas varied depending on the participants’ gender. When considering the participants’ number of children, the ideas also generated differences. Age and marital status did not influence the participants’ ideas about female executives.

Career Patterns of American Superintendents

Stemming from a nationwide survey of superintendents (Glass, Björk, & Brunner, 2000), this article dispels the myth that there is a crisis facing the American school superintendency. Though we note a slight increase in the median age of superintendents, most chief school executives are satisfied in their current positions and tend to stay longer and retire later than they did a decade ago. Further evidence suggests that career patterns and characteristics of women and people of color in the superintendency tend to differ from those of their White, male counterparts and that the underrepresentation of these populations within the field continues to be of concern. Recommendations for policy development, based upon empirically identified challenges in the field, rather than unfounded myths of crisis, are included.

Superintendents’ Multicultural Competencies

This study examined the competencies required by superintendents to lead schools in diverse cultural settings. Based on the perceptions of experts in the field of multicultural education and experienced school executives, an attempt was made to discover the multicultural knowledge (Banks, 1994b; Pearson, 1984), attitudes (Smolicz, 1979; Znaniecki, 1968), and skills (Haugland, 1987; AASA, 1987; Harris and Wan, 1991) needed by superintendents to better respond to the dramatic demographic changes and complexities of today's diverse student population. Data were gathered and analyzed following a combined research design. It included three stages: 1) interviews with twelve experts in the field of multicultural education; 2) participation of fourteen expert superintendents using a modified version of the Delphi technique; and 3) written responses, of four superintendency practitioners, to a case report. Findings revealed agreement between experts and superintendents on what constitutes the multicultural competencies of superintendents to some extent. Specifically, seven categories of multicultural knowledge, four categories of multicultural attitudes, and two categories of multicultural skills emerged from the data. Further, each of these categories were stated in terms of tasks and subtasks to better reflect the specific attributes of each competency (Harris and Wan, 1991). While this study supports the importance of multicultural competencies for superintendents to be able to successfully lead schools in diverse settings, it also implies the need to develop diagnostic assessments and development endeavors so that school leaders enhance their capacity to achieve equity and excellence for all children.

Teaching as a Form of Work: Effects of Teachers' Roles and Role Definitions on Working to Rule

Teachers' ideas about the nature of their work become more explicit during times of industrial action. The present study explored the effects of some characteristics of teachers (gender, length of teaching) and their current roles (K–6 classroom, secondary classroom, school executives) upon their perceptions of what teaching involves, their actions taken during the work-to-rule campaign, and their definitions of and attitudes towards work-to-rule. Most teachers saw their work in interpersonal terms rather than in terms of duties and conditions, and distinguished between ‘essential’ and ‘gift’ activities. Current roles had little effect on attitudes towards work-to-rule, but a strong effect on action: K–6 classroom teachers were significantly less likely to participate or make sizeable changes. These findings were discussed in terms of the differing social and interpersonal contexts of teaching.