Context: In Kazakhstan, there is an evident gender leadership gap in general and in school leadership in particular (OECD, 2019). Women are qualified in educational terms but are constrained to access leadership positions. The government has introduced a range of policies and strategies as a response to the gender leadership gap in the public sector (Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2019). However, poor implementation of the current gender strategies has failed to create working solutions, and Kazakhstan has seen a decline in its ranking in the Global Gender Gap Index over the last decade. This suggests that the goals of gender equality policies were not met in Kazakhstan. The identification of factors constraining women from accessing school leadership is pivotal to the realization of gender equality targets set by the government of Kazakhstan. It is noticeable that in the Central and Western regions of Kazakhstan, the number of female teachers significantly exceeds the number of men, but women are underrepresented in school leadership.

There are various advantages of a gender-balanced distribution of leadership positions in schools. Women could bring other perspectives and alternatives as their skills, knowledge, and experience are currently under-utilized resources. Involving women in leadership accelerates both development and creativity in decision-making processes and intellectual stimulation (Mayer & Oosthuizen, 2020; Uusi-Kakkuri, 2017). So these benefits of promoting women to leadership positions will help improve the economy. Another positive side of advancing women in leadership is that they could be role models for the younger generation. Potential female candidates for leadership positions will inspire other women to lead. Moreover, increasing qualified female professionals could open doors to top management for other women as they will serve as mentors for the younger generation of girls.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to explore how female principals experience leadership trajectory and (2) to understand the reasons for the gender leadership gap existing in mainstream schools in Kazakhstan.

Research Question: The above aims will be achieved by exploring the following question: How do female principals experience leadership trajectory in mainstream schools in Kazakhstan in Central and Western regions of Kazakhstan?

Theoretical Framework: Exploring female school principals' experiences and understanding the gender leadership gap in Kazakhstan necessitates engaging in a broader discussion of the theoretical framework. This study is guided by two theoretical perspectives: poststructuralism and postcolonial theory. Using poststructural and postcolonial theory together will enable more nuanced interpretations of social issues in their political, economic, and cultural contexts that have created and sustained the gender leadership gap in school contexts. Additionally, there is an essential affinity between the two theories as they are both concerned with unequal power relations and aim to produce contextually relevant knowledge (Gikandi, 2004). Foucault’s understanding of these specific power relations creates a useful lens through which women are constructed by discourse in the social context. Therefore, this lens allows looking closer at how power is enacted in the local context. 

I employed a qualitative research design. Qualitative design is employed when there is little knowledge about a particular population or subject, and there is a need to explore and define the topic (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). According to Mason (2002), the qualitative design helps to explore the range of discourses, understandings, experiences, and perceptions of research participants and the discourses of meanings that they generate. With the qualitative research design, it was possible to explore the experiences of female principals in a particular social context. Since there is no existing guiding theory or similar study and a lack of instruments to use in the school context in Kazakhstan or even in Central Asia, a qualitative research design offered an opportunity to uncover themes. The study employed an individual semi-structured interview as an effective method for data collection. The main instrument of this method is the researcher, who is pivotal to all stages of the study. Another important instrument is an interview protocol which helped to establish a systematic approach to preparing interview questions in advance. The participants of the study were female school principals from mainstream schools in the central and west regions of Kazakhstan. I recruited 16 female school principals from two regions from both rural and urban contexts. I chose school principals who have been in the role for 2 to 6 years. This way I was ensure that they have had leadership experience to share, but the variability in their experience was not too profound to make any comparisons difficult.

The key findings of the study include several important conclusions: female school principals experience barriers on the way and in the process of holding a leadership position. These barriers can be classified by levels, including socio-cultural, organizational and individual. The study contributes to leadership and gender studies by filling the current literature gap in the context of Kazakhstan regarding the experiences of female school principals in mainstream schools. While there have been studies exploring the relationship between gender and leadership in higher education (Kuzhabekova et al., 2018), there are no studies exploring how women experience leadership in mainstream schools in Kazakhstan, what barriers they experience in their ascension to and in enacting their leadership roles, and what their experiences say about the gender leadership gap.

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