Australian women managers in the educational sector Report (Assessment)

Introduction

According to Starr and White (2008) the Australian educational system has changed significantly in the last two decades through both at the state and federal levels. In response to globalization, for instance, the education system has undergone restructuring which is intended to increase global competitiveness in trade, workforce capacity and innovations. These changes in the education system no doubt brought with them management challenges to school administrators.

Schools are unique and are managed by different managers; thus, they experience different challenges. In the past few decades women have taken leadership roles in all spheres of life thanks to several strategies and pressures on governments through affirmative Action, women have gained acceptance worldwide in management positions particularly in schools.

Consequently, women managers like their male counterparts in schools are faced with challenges which require them to be very innovative, skilled, and highly knowledgeable (Sandra & Gloria 1996).

Effective conflict management at the workplace ensures the smooth function of the workplace. Most often the introduction of new technology in the workplace sparks the beginning of conflicts between the management and the employees. In reaction to such developments some employees do display what is referred to as “Challenging behavior” –behavior exhibited by an employee that can interfere with the implementation of such developments at the workplace (Mayer 1995).

Challenging behaviors can also be exhibited outside the workplace, thus affecting the image of the organization as well as the community. As a result, the research intends to address the conflict management issues among women school managers that result from the introduction of new technologies in the workplace. The research endeavors to unearth such challenges and suggest recommendations that are necessary to improve and address such challenges.

There is no right way to manage; however, there are some fundamental principles and practices that can be employed by managers to ensure the efficiency of management techniques. Australia is among the countries that have been referred to as having feminized their education system denoting that female teachers represent a larger number of the teaching workforce. Despite these developments in the Australian educational system, most schools still employ male managers to head the schools (Reynolds 2002).

Similarly, women elsewhere still remain under represented within the educational leadership as well as other areas of key executive management. Furthermore, research into women’s leadership style indicate that women managers are caring, communicative, collaborative and consensus oriented and transformational as opposed to men who are authoritarian (Reynolds 2002).

This leadership style of women drew the focus of the researcher to women managers in order to understand how their accommodative leadership style is applied in the conflict resolution. Accommodative leaders engage others in decision making process before the implementation of new ideas thus involving parties that are involved in the conflict (Sandra & Gloria 1996).

Moreover, since the research intends to address the specifically the introduction of new technology-e-Learning- women managers becomes the perfect objects of study as they are considered to more oriented towards innovation than their male counterparts (Kruger 1996).

In addition, women managers have had to face deterrents that the male counterparts do not face in the implementation of management decision in the organization. They are further considered as managers who make decisions based on ethical considerations thus making them a perfect case study in understanding conflict management in relation to introduction and adoption of new technologies.

Literature Review

The information society represents the new phase in human civilization, thus educators must embrace the new technologies that come along with it. However, in incorporating these new trends in the education system educators are bound to face several challenges that emanate from resistance in part from the education stakeholders.

In the contemporary complex and ever changing society, conflict is a fact of life and it can result in a great deal of injury or good depending on the management style of the leaders in the organization (Whitefield 1994). Still conflict between management and employees in today’s workplace is inevitable.

Thus conflict management strategies employed by managers might differ depending on the intended purpose; for instance, some managers employ strategies that seek to reduce conflict, others employ strategies that seek to eliminate conflict, while others might employ strategies that seek to increase conflict.

New information and communication technology has greatly changed the perspective of educational practice. The implementation of these new information and communication technologies in the education system is considered one of the most challenging and important issue in the 21st Century.

The International Colloquium at Stanford in 1996 distinguished the urgent reforms to be incorporated in to the education system by educators. The first suggestion was the introduction of computers into the education system, the emphasis being that the citizen coming out of schools must be well equipped to fit in the information society. With these changes in the education system, educators particularly managers are placed in conflict situations in attempting to implement these changes.

Concept of Conflict Management

Conflict management is absolutely necessary for organizations that endeavor to achieve efficiency and competitive advantage over others.. According to D’OoSteerlinck and Broeckaert (2003), challenges posed by conflict in the organization impede the efficiency and effectiveness-the two variables commonly used to measure competency of managers.

Conflict management (Mayer 1995) is a process through which the management encourages the interaction of different skills, knowledge and attitudes towards achieving effective running of the organization. It can involve negotiation that might compel the manager to bring together the different diverse individuals or groups into deliberating on to the problems of the organization. Mayer (1995) further notes that “lack of proficient conflict management has pervasive detrimental impact on productivity and career fulfillment” (p.80).

Management of conflicts that arise from the wholesome or partial rejection of management decisions often focuses on the armed aspects of the conflict towards bringing the misunderstanding to an end, by limiting the spread of the conflict within the organization thus containing it. Thus from this perspective conflict management is aimed at bringing consensus between the two parties that are in conflict.

Conflict management helps improving interpersonal relationships at the workplace. The interpersonal development of employees is necessary for the improvement of employee’s feelings of self worth and competence (Kuye, Thornhill & Fourie 2002). Interpersonal development guides employee’s actions as it provides the employees with clear guidelines with regards to their job requirements and expectations. Consequently, it fosters the positive working relationships between managers and employees.

According to D’OoSteerlinck and Broeckaert (2003), conflict management is a communicative process that attempts to understand the causes, types and impacts of conflicts in the work environment. Thus conflict also viewed as a problem that results when competing parties strive to acquire at the same time a set of scarce resources. From this competitive perspective, the parties involved in the conflict are competitors.

The factor the influences conflict from this perspective is scarcity of the resource in question. However, these competitors should not be viewed as enemies’ per-se but should be viewed rational beings that struggle over something that important them (Barash & Webel 2002). According to Kuye et al (2002), conflict often results when ideas differ dramatically amongst people. The disharmony can occur between individuals or groups that belong to the same organization, for example, employers and workers.

Conflict can also result when different parties peruse mutually exclusive goals, values or events. In this scenario, the conflicting parties share different objectives (Achinstein 2002). Where individuals or parties experience that the views of the others are different, conflict occurs.

Major Challenges

The challenges that female managers may face in the implementation of management decision such as introduction of new technology in teaching include:

Leading the change process

Occasionally new technologies may appear that promises to change the lives of through improvement of workforce performance or creation of possibilities previously unavailable. Computers are such machines (Castells 2000). Even with such benefits there is little research to show that introduction of e-learning for instance improves the quality of learning making such introduction a contentious issue.

The implementation of the change process in schools is often considered a key challenge in school management since most managers do not fully understand the task. Before implementing any changes in the school, sense of teamwork should be first established between the managers and the employees. Thus, the managers need the support of their staff in order to be able to make changes in school (Sharp & Walter 2003).

Furthermore, in the implementation of new technologies in the school requires prior planning as it will enable the manager to give directions to staff and other role players as per the vision and goal of the school. According to Sharp and Walter (2003) planning helps the employees to know precisely how to effectively use their time and energies in attaining organizational goals and objectives.

Moreover, the implementation of new processes will require constant meetings between managers and the staff in order to able to monitor the progress of the new technique. Lunberg and Irby (2006) argue that the success at which the implementation of new technologies in the schools largely depends on the ways, in which the manager plans, leads, organizes and monitors the process.

Accountability

There remains a wide gap between the educational theory and practice regarding the value of new technology in learning. On several occasions the educators have to decide on their own between competing ideas the most appropriate for a particular circumstance.

Theories of educational technology have failed to account for a number of technological impasses that philosophical analysis has been able to predict and explain, for example, technology enabling new forms of interaction. This indicates that there are inadequate conceptual tools for the education technology community to understand its own methodological difficulties (Castells 2000).

According to Kogan (1986), the answerability of the school managers to the government of that particular country help provides standard education defined by the country’s legislation. Women mangers thus in the implementation of new technologies in the education system must convince the government that introduction of such technologies will not hamper the delivery of quality education, but rather improve it.

This is often met with opposition from the policy makers who in most cases are men. The schools themselves are highly structured with clear hierarchy and accountability and firm guidelines that occasionally are not flexible enough to accommodate new innovations.

In this case, the strategy employed by women managers to overcome such conflicts may include the preservation of good relations with the community in the locals, internally within the school and externally with the stakeholders (Sugrue 2005). He states that managers found it unnerving from the time an inspection is carried out and the time the reports are released.

Managing diversity

According to Cuban (2001), apart from educators being ‘luddites’ they adopt technologies that match their beliefs about student learning and which adds to the psychological rewards of teaching. Educators become indifferent to changes that they view as irrelevant to their practice, weakening their control in the classroom or increasing their burden.

With evaluative reports continuing to criticize technology for failing to live up to its promise of providing greater learning opportunities to students, the educational managers are faced with uphill task in implementing the adoption of such technologies into the learning environment. Since the introduction of computers into schools, teachers have been reluctant to implement them because of lack of universal agreement on how teachers should be prepared to use technology.

These managers who operate in environments with diverse opinions, norms, cultural beliefs and even gender diversity must bring all these divergent views into a consensus if an agreement into implementing the technology is to be reached.

Research Questions

The research questions are:

1. What are the major challenges in conflict management confronting managers in implementing the adoption of new technologies in schools?
2. What do managers perceive to be causes of these challenges?
3. How do school managers address the major conflict management challenges they confront?

Research Objectives

General Objective

The purpose of the study is to identify the challenges that face women managers in schools in carrying out their management decision particularly in relation to adoption of new technology in education.

Specific Objectives

The study aims to:

1. To investigate the literature regarding the management challenges women managers in schools face while performing their administrative duties.
2. To explore the strategies adopted by women managers in schools in addressing the various operational challenges they face.
3. To make conclusions and recommendations for the effective management of schools by women managers.

Justification of the Study

Conflict management is a key component of public management and largely determines the efficiency of any particular organization. Recently the government of Australia introduced leadership frameworks, standards, or performance contracts to guide the work of professionals.

These documents in the school context emphasize the improvement of performance without addressing the challenges that these managers face. Analysis that explores the challenges that face women managers as it relates to education provision and women’s equality in employment have logically followed. The significance of this study lies in the fact that establishing the challenges facing women managers will be helpful to the policy makers to put in place measures that will help address the challenges identified.

Ethical considerations and committee approval

A formal submission including a semi-structured interview questionnaire and a letter to the managers of participating schools-those managed by women-will be sent to Victoria University of Human Research Ethics Committee (VUHREC) for approval.

I have the obligation to protect the anonymity of research participants and keep research data confidential throughout. This is due to the fact that some teachers might disclose some information concerning their manager’s shortcoming in the administrative job in school.

I will assign numbers or letters instead of names to represent the school. It is also my obligation to tell the respondents the truth and give them all the facts about the research in order to make an informed decision about participating or not. They should also sign an informed consent form before engaging in the research.

Research Methodology

This part presents the procedures that will be used to conduct the study. The chapter focuses on research design, and study population, sample population, sampling procedure, data collection methods, data processing and analysis.

Research Design

Both descriptive and qualitative research method will be used in this inquiry. McMillan and Schumacher (1997) described qualitative research method as a design which typically investigates behaviour when it naturally occurs in a non contrived situation.

On the other hand, descriptive survey designs will used in preliminary and exploratory studies to allow researcher to gather information, summarize, present and interpret for the purpose of clarification. Descriptive investigation research according to Borg and Gall (1989) is anticipated to produce statistical information about facets of education that concern policy makers in education. Investigation of the problem will be conducted by means of both literature synopsis and empirical investigation.

Sample Population

A sample is small segment of a target population while sampling means selecting a given number of subjects from a defined population to be representative of that population (Neuman 2000).From all the 16 public primary schools in Victoria, Australia managed by women, only eight schools will be selected using simple random sampling technique to take part in the study.

There will also be four teachers from each of the sampled schools, two male and two women, to participate in the study. As such, the sample size for the study will be 8 women principals, 16 women teachers and 16 male teachers making a total of 40 participants.

Sampling Procedure

Purposive sampling will be used to select participants who are conversant with the topic under discussion. In this regard simple random sampling technique is employed and eight public schools managers from Victoria, Australia are selected forming 50% of the target population which is higher than the recommended minimum of ten percent (Gay 1992).

Further, two teachers from each of the sample schools; two males and two females will be selected to participate in the study.

Data Collections Methods

Data collection will be done through intensive, semi-structured, recorded interviews with 8 women managers, 16 male and 16 female teachers and -some conducted face-to-face and others via telephone; through whole group questionnaires; and through discussions and observations recorded as field notes.

Data Processing and Analysis

Data analysis will begin from the onset of the interviews until the process of interviews are completed. After all the data is collected, the analysis of the transcripts will be reduced through a procedure known as coding (Denzin & Lincoln 1994). At this stage the researcher will conduct data reduction, presentation and interpretation. The researcher will carefully but accurately transcribe the responses from participants recorded telephone calls as well as audio recordings.

Transcripts from the interview questionnaire will be read and key points noted. Similarities and differences will be identified and key challenges presented by the managers, teachers and educators noted too. The coded data will be entered in the computer for analysis using the statistical package for social science (SPSSS) (Miller et al. 2002). Descriptive statistics such as percentages means and frequencies will be used to report the data, which will be reported in summary form using frequency tables, histograms and pie charts.

Conclusion

Conflict management in any workplace is an important component of public management that must be thoroughly articulated if efficiency is to be attained in the workplace. Furthermore, for the managers to achieve good working relationships with their colleagues, teachers and all the education stakeholders, they must ensure that they employ the best possible strategies in managing conflicts.

The study will only include female managers and teachers while students will be left out. This is because the study would be too wide and there is less interaction between the managers and students as compared to teachers and managers when it comes implementing new education technologies. As such, the research is limited to a small number of samples which of course is typical of the qualitative research; therefore, the findings cannot be generalized.

From the literature reviewed, it has emerged that various studies have been carried out on challenges faced by managers in management of schools, but no previous studies have identified on the strategies adopted by them in dealing with challenges faced.

List of References

Archinstein, B 2002, “Conflict amid community: the Micropolitics of teacher collaboration,” Teachers College Record.104 (3): pp. 421-455

Barash, DP and Webel, CP 2002, “Peace and conflict studies,” SAGE Publications: Thousand Oaks, London.

Borg, WR & Gall MD 1989, Education research. An Introduction,” 4th edition, Longman, New York.

Castells, M 2000, “The information age: Economy, society and culture,” 2nd ed. Blackwell: Oxford.

Cuban, L 2001, “Oversold and underused: Computers in the classroom,” Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.

Denzin, MK and Lincoln, YS 1994, “Handbook of qualitative research,” SAGE Publications: California.

D’Oosterlinck, F & Broekaert, E 2003, “Integrating school based and therapeutic conflict management models at schools,” The Journal of School Health. 73 (5): pp. 222-225

Gay, LR 1992, “Educational research,” McMillan Publishing Company: Singapore.

Kogan, M 1986, “Education accountability: an analytical overview,” Hutchinson: London.

Kruger, M 1996, “Gender issues in school leadership: quality versus power,” European Journal of Education. 31(4): pp. 447-461

Kuye, JO, Thornhill, C & Fourie, D 2002, “Public administration,” Heinemann Publishers Ltd: Sandown.

Lunenburg, F & Irby, B 2006, “The principalship: Vision to action,” Thomson Wadswoth: USA.

Mayer, R 1995, “Conflict management: the Courage to confront, “Battelle Press: Columbus, Richland.

McMillan, JH & Schumacher, S 1997, “Research in education: a Conceptual framework.” Longman: New York.

Miller, R et al. 2002, “SPSS for Social Scientists,” Palgrave Macmillan.

Neuman, WL 2000, “Social research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches,” Allyn and Bacon: Boston.

Reynolds, C 2002, “Women and school leadership,” State University of New York Press: Albany.

Sandra, L and Gloria, A 1996, “Highly successful women administrators,” Corwin Press: New York.

Sharp, W & Walter, K 2003, “The Principal as school manager,” 2nd edition, Scarecrow Education: Lanham.

Starr, K & White, S 2008, “The Small rural school principalship: Key challenges and cross-school responses,” Journal of Research in Rural Education, vol. 23, no. 5, pp. 108-118, via psu education articles.

Sugrue, C (Ed.) 2005, “Passionate principalship,” Routledge-Falmer: London.

Whitefield, J 1994, “Conflicts in construction: Avoiding, managing, resolving,” MacMillan: New York.

Appendix I

Semi structured interview questionnaire for women managers, school teachers and educators

1. How would you define conflict and conflict management in your words?
2. Kindly report the nature of conflicts which occur in your school?
3. Amongst the reported conflicts which one is/are as a result of implementation or an introduction of new teaching techniques?
4. What are your feelings about these conflicts?
5. What are the conflict resolutions styles that you use in school to manage the conflicts?
6. Kindly report the efficiency of these conflict resolution styles.
7. What is your opinion on the effectiveness of your school manager in conflict resolution?
8. Kindly identify areas that you think the school managers need to improve when implementing management decision particularly those related to technology adoption.
9. Please kindly report on any further area that you feel is not addressed by this questionnaire.

Appendix II

Research Schedule