Narratives of women's life experiences and how it informs their practice as school district superintendents

In the past 75 years, most of the research regarding the school district superintendency has primarily focused on white males. Within the past two decades researchers have started studying females in the superintendent role and since the 1990s this research has utilized individual accounts, biographies, life stories and narratives. In this study the researcher examined the similarities and variations in women's narratives about their life experiences, including their values and beliefs, and how they inform their practice as school district leaders. Feminist leadership attributes and other prominent leadership characteristics shaped the methodology.;A life story was created for each woman using data from her biographical questionnaire, her life line, responses from four semi structured interviews, a sketch of her organizational model and leadership artifacts. Each woman shared experiences from their childhood, adolescence, adulthood and professional pathway. Throughout the study, similarities and variations anchored in feminist leadership attributes are noted. In addition similarities and variations in their narrative regarding change, power and influence are examined.;The ethic of caring, accomplishing work through relationship and learning as an essential quality of leadership permeated the women's narratives. Little variation was found in how the women enacted the three attributes. There was great variation in how the women viewed their organizations that included a significant finding of the importance of relational leadership and the dichotomy in perceived male behaviors that culturally dominate the superintendency and the perceived female behaviors that are culturally expected from women. A variation from the feminist leadership attribute of the integration of personal and professional lives surfaced when the women talked about their role as a superintendent and the dominance of their professional life over their personal life.;Direction for further research includes exploring the life stories of males using a similar conceptual framework and/or interview protocol; examining the psychosocial development of women between the ages of 45 and 65 and perhaps a comparative study with males in the same age range; utilizing biography to explore the feminist leadership attributes of first born twins; and further investigating the emotional side of leadership for females.