Developing a Feminist Quantitative Approach for Researching School Organizations

Author(s):

Emily Winchip(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES H 10, Gender and Education

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-23

11:00-12:30

Room:

OB-H1.51

Chair:

Contribution

This is a conceptual framing of how research on school organizations requires a feminist approach and that, to be able to meet the goal of creating research that can “talk back” (DeVault, 1999, p. 27), we must integrate quantitative methods into feminist analyses. The purpose of this paper is to consider the facet of gender on research about school organizations and to begin to think through the implications for methodology.

Gender plays an important part in the working conditions of any organization. Gender colours social interactions, power relations, managerial styles, and the types of collective behaviours that are encouraged. The organizational structures within a workplace are “always affected by symbols of gender, processes of gender identity, and material inequalities between women and men” (Acker, 1990, pp. 145-146). Schools are not immune from issues of gender. From the beginnings of teaching as a profession, education has developed as a gendered field with women as teaching staff and men as supervisors (Lortie, 1975). Teaching is a prime example of “occupational segregation” where gender divides are perpetuated within professions based on reward structures, social understanding of what deserves merit, and how different types of work should be compensated (Dunford & Perrons, 2014, p. 474). Although gender differences are frequently analysed when comparing student achievement, leadership styles, and the identity of teachers, “not all research on gender issues is feminist” (Marshall & Young, 2006, p. 64). Studies that analyse the workings of an organization cannot simply look at the difference between men and women but must investigate the how the construction of gender is embedded within the framework of an organization and how an analysis of the organization can be done with a feminist approach. “Feminist scholars rethink traditional approaches to research topics, how they pose research questions, and how they frame their research” (Marshall & Young, 2006, p. 64). Within schools, this doesn’t mean simply comparing the lives of male and female teachers, but instead, analysing the issues affecting schools through the lens of gender and with a gender-sensitive approach.

Even when an organization considers itself “gender neutral”, political and organizational change may occur according to gendered scripts that are played out constantly, perhaps subconsciously, as gender-related norms are produced within particular spaces. Feminist philosophers such as Luce Irigaray have theorized about the ways that men have been granted the right to speak universally, as if men’s experiences can be “disembodied, universal, or true” (Gross, 1986, pp. 135-136). Sandra Acker (1990) found that “since men in organizations take their behaviour and perspectives to represent the human, organizational structures and processes are theorized as gender neutral” (p. 142). This perception of being neutral does not mean that women are actually able to access the same resources or have their voices heard in the same ways as men, just that men do not perceive any differences based on gender. The reality of is that, to seem gender neutral, organizations “separate structures from the people in them” (p. 142) by ignoring the gendered nature of work and the interplay between jobs and gender. But when issues of gendered attitudes or behaviours are introduced into the discourse, they are seen to “contaminate” (p. 142) what was assumed to be neutral. Only by identifying the gendered nature of school as an organization can the overall influence of gender on political and organizational changes be uncovered.

Method

Although significant research has been conducted identifying patterns of subordination of women and of the role of gender within workplaces, the qualitative or flexible nature of the many analyses reduces the ability of the research to “talk back” (DeVault, 1999, p. 27) to research that does not identify gender as a critical factor. When men’s voices are perceived as universal and true and the types of methodologies used are purely quantitative or fixed in nature, the arguments fail to clash, with women’s voices unable to compete. Relying on qualitative approaches, “many feminists came to realise that the project of women’s inclusion as men’s equals could not succeed. This was because it was not simply the range and the scope of objects that required transformation: more profoundly, and threateningly, the very questions posed and the methods used to answer them, basic assumptions about methodology, criteria of validity and merit, all needed to be seriously questioned” (Gross, 1986, p. 192). Quantitative approaches cannot be ignored by feminist researchers, as numeric ‘proof’ is often perceived as objective and true. Oakley (2000) makes the connection that “there is also a conceptual link with the idea of validity: the most valid knowledge becomes that produced, or described, using numbers. The Latin root of ‘validity’ means ‘power’; the circle is thus complete, as the power of some people to know more, or better, than others both inheres in and derives from knowledge expressed numerically” (Oakley, 2005, p. 113). Gross identifies a failing of research on gender, that patriarchal practices are too often just adapted to feminist topics. She also finds fault with research that is purely deconstructive or reactive but fails to be proactive. To truly have a feminist research approach means that feminists must criticize current research practices and create viable alternatives (Gross, 1986). The intent of my research is to analyse the lives of teachers within international, for-profit schools. The challenge is to develop a feminist approach that is able to meet the expectations of the feminist research community. This will likely include significant quantitative elements of instrument development, the analysis of questionnaire data, and latent trait modelling. The aim is to occupy the territory explained by Gross (1986); a critical, anti-sexist project in the “impossible ‘middle ground’”, allowing many meanings with evocative description rather than “oppositional dichotomous categories” (Gross, 1986, p. 138) and significant language rather than referential data.

Expected Outcomes

Within the context of global education organizations, gender must be a focus of the analysis, “feminist researchers need to focus on the social relations of gender and how these are reproduced/produced and constituted within globalized school systems” (Blackmore, 2013, p. 149). International schools and for-profit international schools are increasing in numbers around the world and noticeably in Europe, with around 1500 international schools currently operating with more in development ("New data on international schools suggests continued strong growth," 2014). The research being done on and about for-profit schools seems to be situated at the far ends of the qualitative/quantitative divide and, because the authors have different perspectives on what constitutes proof, there is no clash in the arguments for or against for-profit schools. The discussions about the benefits and drawbacks don’t lead to further discussion because each side sees the other as ignoring the most important aspects, often statistical proof on one side and credible voices on the other. As an American studying in Europe, I am acutely aware of the methodological divide. American educational research journals are tending to publish a majority of quantitative, especially multi-variate analyses while European journals publish literature based on a wider variety of methods (Tight, 2016). Being able to speak to a broad range of audiences is very important. I am researching schools in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia and speaking to researchers from Europe and around the world. A research approach tailored to the gendered organizational nature of schools, the gender implications of globalization, open to the voices of teachers, but with the ability to prove with quantitative data can only be done based on feminist principles.

References

Acker, J. (1990). Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations. Gender and Society, 4(2), 139-158. Blackmore, J. (2013). A feminist critical perspective on educational leadership. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 16(6), 139-154. doi: 10.1080/13603124.2012.754057 DeVault, M. J. (1999). Liberating Method: Feminism and Social Research. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Dunford, R., & Perrons, D. (2014). Power, Privilege and Precarity: The Gendered Dynamics of Contemporary Inequality. In M. Evans, C. Hemmings, M. Henry, H. Johnstone, S. Madhok, A. Plomien, & S. Wearing (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Feminist Theory (pp. 465-482): SAGE Publications. Gross, E. (1986). Philosophy, Subjectivity and the Body: Kristeva and Irigaray. In C. Pateman & E. Gross (Eds.), Feminist Challenges: Social and Political Theory (pp. 125-143). Boston: Northeastern University Press. Lortie, D. C. (1975). Schoolteacher. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Marshall, C., & Young, M. D. (2006). Gender and Methodology. In C. Skelton, B. Francis, & L. Smulyan (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Gender and Education. London: SAGE Publications. New data on international schools suggests continued strong growth. (2014, 2014-03-18). Retrieved 13 January, 2016, from http://monitor.icef.com/2014/03/new-data-on-international-schools-suggests-continued-strong-growth-2/ Oakley, A. (2005). Experiments in Knowing: Gender and method in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, UK and Massachusetts, USA: Polity Press. Tight, M. (2016). Bridging the Divide: A comparative analysis of articles in higher education journals published inside and outside North America. Higher Education, 53(2), 235-253. doi: 10.1007/s10734-005-2429-9

Author Information

Emily Winchip (presenting / submitting)

University of Nottingham

Nottingham

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