There is a growing interest in the underlying mechanisms affecting female leaders in higher education. And this paper examines the problem by focusing specifically on Polish public universities which historically stands out by particularly low number of female university rectors. The core of the study is based on 15 in-depth expert interviews with…

Background/purpose: This study represents the first comprehensive study investigating the beliefs about the glass ceiling (GCB) of women working in Kazakh universities. It aims to examine the theoretical validity of the multidimensional structure of GCB in Kazakhstan's higher education context. Materials/methods: The study evaluated the glass…

Despite women's increased participation in academic employment patterns, a global gender gap on senior leadership in universities remains. This mixed methods study explores toxic leadership as a potential contributing factor to the gender gap on senior management levels in universities in South Africa. The Schmidt Toxic Leadership Scale (2008) is…

This article examines the job crafting strategies senior academic women use to progress in their careers. The study was exploratory and inductive and used in-depth interviews to gather data from 43 senior academic women in Australia, the United Kingdom, and Malaysia. Data were analyzed using thematic content analysis in combination with reflective…

Using a culturally relevant leadership lens, this phenomenological study looks at the lived experiences of two female urban school leaders in Pakistani private schools. It highlights the structural enablements and barriers they faced across two different periods -- the 1990s and the 2020s providing reflectively-nuanced insight into female school…

Mexico, the second-largest economy in Latin America after Brazil, has a gender gap index score of 76.4% in 2022 compared to 75.7% in 2021 and is ranked 31 out of 146 countries for 2022. Mexico has become one of the world's leaders in gender-political equality, which shows that the gender ceiling is cracking, and it is yet to see if gender parity…

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the extent of sustainability disclosure through websites at Spanish universities and analyse the determinants that affect such disclosure. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses as methodology a content analysis of the sustainability information disclosed by universities on their official websites in…

This qualitative study examined how female principals from two nations that recently opened up new avenues for women in educational leadership defined instructional leadership and what they did to prepare to become school principals. Using an open-ended survey and snowball sampling, female school leaders from Saudi Arabia and Qatar who led a…

To lead is to create a climate in which a human being and community flourish together. In trying to achieve this, a leader should be conscious of the ambivalent feelings of people and mindful of how to restore them. As a woman in a position of authority in a setting where there was a structural lack of recognition of women in leadership,…

Almost a quarter-century has passed in the new millennium; howoever, the phrase 'Nihil Novum Sub Sole' is still valid for females struggling to move forward amid a male-dominant world. Structural, cultural, and organisational barriers continue to prevent women from achieving academic leadership positions within educational contexts, the so-called…

Inequality and the lack of inclusion of women in academic higher education (HE) leadership roles persist globally. While inclusivity at the top also applies to ethnicity and disability, the issue of gender is the focus of this article. More specifically, the distinct need is to examine the barriers that slow down and/or obstruct women from…

Beryl Gilroy (1924-2001) is often referred to as one of the first Black primary school headteachers in London, England. Her refusal to continue teaching in schools once she reached her fifties has not been explored in recent publications. Her interest in sound, pedagogy and therapeutic recovery can be revisited retrospectively. She strove to…

In this article, we explore more than 100 Chinese school leaders' views about gender, equality and the historical and social contexts of Chinese education that they have experienced. China's success in international student assessment programmes is rising, and Chinese females are continuing a steady trend of outdoing their male counterparts at all…

The importance of gender equality in academic leadership has been widely recognised, yet this issue has been underexplored outside the Anglo-Saxon countries. In this systematic review, we analysed 62 academic articles on women's academic leadership in Bangladesh (15), China (17) and Finland (30), published between 2000 and 2021. Our study revealed…

Women-only leadership development programmes are vital for reducing the global gender gap in senior management; however, research on their impact is limited. This study explores the effect of a transformational women's leadership development programme on self-confidence among female academics in a South African higher education institution. A…