Leadership’s Causal Link to Classroom (In)Action

Abstract

The previous chapter explored the multiple experiences and identities of women teachers and how gendered norms and expectations have impacted the functionings that they value, how their capabilities are constrained, and how contending with constraint can be related to behaviours associated with the Third World Teacher discourse. In this chapter, I will examine similar themes that are related to issues of leader ship and management, and will use a Capability Approach/Critical Realist lens to do so (see Chapter 2 for an elaboration on the terminology and rationale for this). The salient functionings of ‘being respected’, ‘being able to help students learn’, and ‘being able to upgrade knowledge and skills’ will be discussed in detail; and in elucidating these data, I will draw on various leadership and hierarchy theories to interpret the findings and answer several questions: How are teachers’ conceptualisations of occupational wellbeing influenced and shaped by managers? Why might managers have a hand in shaping these values? How and to what extent do managers constrain or enhance teachers’ opportunities to achieve? And how do teachers exercise agency in the face of constraint?