ABSTRACT

This chapter represents an attempt, first presented at a conference of Through the Glass Ceiling, to make sense of what relationships might be found between theorizing about women’s careers in education and participating in one. The evidence for the underrepresentation of women in the higher levels of educational management, both in schools and universities, is discussed, forms of opposition to this inequality are considered, and the likelihood of change reflected upon. This theoretical framework is used as background to discussion of my own experience working in education. Most of the studies to which I refer are from the discipline of sociology; as an undergraduate I was introduced to the recognition that the world is a social world and therefore is both made by and making us. In other words, our world doesn’t have to be like this; we can change things; a powerful and empowering concept on which to hang a career. However, as Miriam David argues (in Acker, 1994) ‘…all these solutions and strategies require enormous reserves of strength and energy to keep up the political fight, which may detract from the more serious pursuit of knowledge’ (p. 6).