Data relating to 2008 in England show women are still disproportionately represented in Senior Leadership posts in schools: in the secondary phase women constituted 58% of classroom teachers but only 38% of heads; in the elementary phase the figures were 85% and 69%, respectively (DCSF, 2009). A literature review concluded that most of the recent work was taking place in Australia (e.g. Blackmore and Sachs 2007, Collard and Reynolds 2005) with only a few articles focused directly on gender and leadership in UK (e.g. Fuller 2009, Moreau et al. 2008). Knowledge of gender in senior leadership teams (SLTs) was both limited and dated, most having been undertaken in the 1990s (Wallace and Hall 1994, Wallace and Huckman 1999) where gender was examined but not the prime focus. The literatures about leadership fell into two main approaches: first, functional, where the rationale was about technical operations with narratives around effectiveness and efficiency with a language of planning, standards, and delivery; and second, socially critical where the rationale was about both challenging and replacing functionalism with narratives around equity, fairness, recognition and opportunities (Raffo and Gunter, 2008). The former have come to dominate the field (see Leithwood et al. 2006).

The aims of the study were to investigate:

§         gendered patterns in leadership and leadership aspirations and identify what, if any, different patterns emerge in relation to phase and ethnicity;

§         gendered patterns in career progression and, in particular, how having a career break/part-time contract/family interplay with career trajectories and impact differentially across phases and different ethnic groups;

§         the barriers and enablers to career progression and identify what, if any, different       patterns emerge in relation to phase, gender and ethnicity;

§         gendered perceptions about equal opportunities in the appointment process and career management and progression;

§         the structure of senior leadership teams and, in particular, what gendered patterns can be identified in the ways they operate.

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