- 學位論文
A gender study on leadership : the female and male principals of Hong Kong secondary schools as perceived by teachers and the principals themselves
A gender study on leadership : the female and male principals of Hong Kong secondary schools as perceived by teachers and the principals themselves
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並列摘要
(Uncorrected OCR) Abstract of thesis entitled A Gender Study on Leadership: The Female and Male Principals of Hong Kong Secondary Schools as Perceived by Teachers and the Principals Themselves Submitted by Alice Kingman Lo Ip Shan for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in December 1996 Although much has been written on gender and leadership, there is still a lack of consensus as to whether women and men lead in the same or different ways. This study is an exploration of: (i) female and male principals�task/relationship leadership traits and transformational/transactional/laissez-faire leadership styles as perceived by teachers and the principals themselves, and (ii) how four representative principals (two female and two male) were perceived by their teachers and themselves in terms of their leadership behaviours in performing various administrative duties at school. The instrument used for the quantitative part of the study was a three-section survey. A total of 5,044 questionnaires was sent to 194 schools. The major findings of the quantitative study were: (1) female principals were in general perceived by teachers to be significantly more task-oriented than the male principals, but there was no difference of statistical significance in the perception of female and male principals�relationship leadership traits, (2) female principals were perceived by teachers as significantly higher than their male counterparts in the display of all four transformational leadership factors, one transactional leadership factor and significantly lower in the display of the laissez-faire leadership style, (3) female principals were perceived by teachers as significantly more frequent in performing both task-oriented and relationship-oriented responsibilities than male principals do in general, (4) female and male principals ranked themselves very similarly in describing their own task/relationship leadership traits, transformational/transactional/laissez-faire leadership styles and frequency in performing task/relationship-oriented responsibilities, (5) findings were generally convergent with those reported above when principals were also compared by type of school and by the same gender, and (6) teachers tended to rank principals consistently lower in principals�task, relationship, transformational, transactional and higher in laissez-faire leadership behaviours than principals ranked themselves. Data for the qualitative part of the study were gathered by 20 individual interviews. The questions asked in the interviews centered on ten core school administrative duties that included: (i) setting of goals; (ii) seeing to needs of students; (iii) decision-making; (iv) commitment to learning; (v) communication with staff; (vi) motivation; (vii) professional development; (viii) review and evaluation; (ix) conflict management; and (x) crisis management. The interviews were analysed based on the transformational, transactional, laissez-faire, task and relationship leadership behaviours of the four principals. The major findings of the qualitative study were: (1) the descriptions of the leadership behaviours of the four principals by teachers and themselves supported the rankings assigned to the principals in the quantitative section of the study, and (2) female and male principals of the same rankings had different leadership styles. This study presents an original and systematic methodology for studying leadership of principals and gender differences in Hong Kong. On the whole, the findings of this study support literature that relates such differences. Apart from contributing towards the research literature in the local and international arena, the study may have also produced findings useful for guiding policies and practices in the selection of candidates by gender for principalship.