women teachers study
TRANSCRIPT
Introduction
School leadership still resembles the tradition that picks men
over women (Chabalala, LW 2006). Traditionally, women are not seen
as leaders because of the belief that they are obedient and have
trouble when it comes to decision making (Astin and Leland, 1991-4).
The Minister of Education way back in the year 2001,Professor Kader
Asmal said in his parliamentary address on May 24,2001 that the
education system should start moving from a framework to action
called, “tirisano” which means cooperation. This implies that intentions
inside the framework, like the Employment Equity Act and related
frameworks, must be supported and purposely implemented to level
out the injustices of the past, which also contributed to, for instance,
gender imbalance in school leadership. When selecting school leaders,
considerations regarding women should be made even if not
prioritized.
Barriers to promotion are factors that prevent an individual to
have a professional level of achievement. It can be classified as either
intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic barriers are the so called “lacks” that are
within women that may be a result of a person’s lack of self
confidence, work experience, excessively emotional reactions,
dependence and etc. Extrinsic barriers indicate environmental
variables that affect women into the management hierarchy of the
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teaching profession. Social attitudes, family commitments and lack of
mentors are examples of extrinsic barriers that prevent women from
being promoted to certain positions in school (Greyvenstein, 1989-22).
The objective of this study is to determine the relationship
between the barriers that prevent women teachers from being
promoted and its effect unto the teachers’ job satisfaction and attitude
towards work. This study serves as information of what female
teachers consider as hindrances to getting promoted and also to
formulate methods on how to ensure the equality in terms of
promotion among male and female teachers.
Significance of the study
The outcome of this study may inform people of the result of
certain barriers that prevent women teachers of getting promoted to
their job satisfaction and work attitude. This may be useful to the
following:
Female teachers.They can ensure that their chances for promotion
are equal to male teachers.
Administrators.They can properly design job specifications and
requirements in selecting school leaders.
Department of Education. They can monitor gender equity of
teachers in schools.
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Researchers.This may serve as a guide for future studies regarding
gender equity in schools and factors affecting teacher promotion.
Statement of the problem
This study aims to know the relationship between the barriers to
promotion of women teachers and its effect to the teachers’ job
satisfaction and their attitude towards work. Specifically, it seeks
answers to the following questions:
1) Is there a significant relationship between the barriers to
promotion of women teachers and their job satisfaction?
2) Is there a significant relationship between the barriers to
promotion of women teachers and their attitude towards work?
3) What are the factors that women teachers mostly consider as
barriers to promotion?
Hypotheses
From the given problems above, Item #3 is hypothesis free.
1) Ha: There is a significant relationship between the barriers to
promotion of women teachers and their job satisfaction.
Ho: There is no significant relationship between the barriers to
promotion of women teachers and their job satisfaction.
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2) Ha: There is a significant relationship between the barriers to
promotion of women teachers and their attitude towards work.
Ho: There is no significant relationship between the barriers to
promotion of women teachers and their attitude towards work.
Scope and limitation of the study
The study entitled “Barriers to promotion of women teachers and
its effect on their job satisfaction and attitude towards work” only
covers the factors affecting the chances for promotion of women
teachers in three (3) different departments namely, (1) Math
Department, (2) Science Department and (3) English Department. This
study will only be conducted inside the premises of Digos City National
High school and its respondents will only be the selected female
teachers in each of the three different departments of the school.
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Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework of the study comprised two sets of
variables; the independent variable which is the barriers to promotion
of women teachers and the dependent variable which is their job
satisfaction and their attitude towards work.
Independent Variable
Dependent Variable
Figure 1.1
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Barriers to promotion of women teachers
Job satisfaction Attitude towards
work
Review of Related Literature
Teachers’ Attitudes towards Work
The word “attitude” is defined within the framework of social
psychology as a subjective or mental preparation for action. It defines
outward and visible postures and human beliefs. Attitudes determine
what each individual will see, hear, think and do. They are rooted in
experience and do not become automatic, routine conduct.
Furthermore, “attitude” means the individual's prevailing tendency to
respond favorably or unfavorably to an object (person or group of
people, institutions or events) (Morris & Mailto, 2005). Attitudes can be
positive (values) or negative (prejudices). According to Reinter and
Kinaki (2007), there are three components of attitudes: affective,
cognitive and behavioral. The affective component is a feeling or an
emotion one has about an object or situation. The cognitive component
is the beliefs or ideas one has about an object or situation, whereas the
behavioral component of attitude reflects how one intends to act or
behave towards someone or something (Reinter & Kinaki, 2007). In
most situations, the three components appear concomitantly to shape
teachers' classroom postures, through direct and indirect interaction
between society, school and teachers (Elite, 1994). Moreover,
teachers' styles and attitudes are strong context outcomes rooted in
experience. They do not become automatic routine behaviors, in the
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sense that they are developed through very slow interactions (action
and reaction), and become well-established constructs for each
individual only after some time (Carr, 1990). In that sense, as noted by
Carr (1990), attitudes can be modified only by each individual, when
they become aware, through elements and evidence, that new
postures would be better to deal with the surrounding world.
Attitudes towards work mean perceptions that affect how
employees perform in their positions. In the mid-1970s, Trophy and
Good (1974) reported that many educational researchers have
supported the idea that teachers’ attitudes and expectations can be
self-fulfilling prophecies. Trophy and Good (1974) also proposed that
once teachers develop a particular attitude or belief, they may begin to
treat students differently in ways that help bring about the outcomes
that they Facial Ahmad and Raffia Sahak expect. On the other hand,
according to Petty and Cacioppo (1986), attitude and behaviour are
defined comprehensively as individuals' general evaluations about
themselves, others, other objects, events and problems. Briefly,
attitudes do predict people’s behavior. In order to understand
teachers’ attitudes and understand how attitude reflects teachers'
behavior, we could examine many components of attitude in context of
organizational behavior. In this study, we would like to focus on four
components of attitude used to assess teachers ‘attitude towards
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work: job satisfaction (Mitchell & Lassen, 1987), commitment,
communication, and alienation (North craft & Neale, 1996).
According to Mitchell and Lason (1987), in the organizational
behavior field, job satisfaction is the most important and frequently
studied attitude. It reflects the extent to which people like their jobs
(Kreitner & Kinicki, 2007). As expected, teachers’ working conditions,
assessed by their level of job satisfaction, affect teacher-student
interaction. Hence, higher levels of job satisfaction improve teachers'
morale, which students perceive positively.
‘Commitment’ is a term used to distinguish those who are
‘caring’, ‘dedicated’, and who ‘take the job seriously’ from those who
‘put their own interests first’(Nias, 1989). Commitment is an important
work attitude, because committed individuals are expected to be
willing to work harder to achieve their goal and remain employed
(Kreitner & Kinicki, 2007). Nonetheless, according to Kelchtermans
(2005), teachers do not all have the same level of commitment to their
job. For some teachers, commitment is a major part of their lives, and
they afford it extensive consideration and high priority. Others may
perceive indifferently, seeing teaching as just a job (Kelchtermans,
2005). Meanwhile, reflexive account of research over a 20-year period
with 54 primary schoolteachers indicated that the word ‘commitment’
appeared in almost every interview (Nias, 1989). In a different context,
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Jackson, Boostrom and Hansen(1993), Goodlad (1990) and Sockett
(1993) have reported the moral purposes of teachers, using words
such as ‘courage’, ‘integrity’, ‘honesty’, ‘care’ and ‘fairness’. It is easy
to see how these words may be associated with commitment. The
more obvious signs of commitment are enthusiasm for the job and for
the people with whom one works. Individuals' commitment levels affect
their performance at work. However, findings reported by Leung
(1997) and Tett and Meyer (1993) on commitment outcomes,
particularly turnover, absenteeism, tardiness, and work performance,
are mixed, weak, or inconsistent.
Communication manifests itself in attitudes as accuracy and
openness of information exchange. Effective communication is the
heart of creating and maintaining an effective school (Rafferty, 2003).
Communication that occurs within schools is crucial in shaping
teachers' social reality. School excellence is Teacher-Student
Attachment and Teachers’ Attitudes directly related to what teachers
think and do. Teachers' attitudes and behaviour strongly rely on their
perceptions about their schools.
The fourth component of attitude is alienation, meaning the
extent to which staff members feel disappointed with their careers and
professional development (Rafferty, 2003). On the whole, the concept
of positive student-teacher interaction is multi-dimensional, as it
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involves organization, workload (difficulty), expected fairness of
grading, instructor knowledge, and perceiving learning.
Teaching has been identified as a stressful profession (Kyriacou
& Sutcliffe, 1978b; Milstein & Golaszewski, 1985). High stress among
teachers has many negative consequences, including higher than
average levels of anxiety and depression (Beer & Beer, 1992; Travers
& Cooper, 1994) and a desire to quit the profession and to use drugs
(Watts & Short, 1990). Indeed, according toBakewell (1988) and
Kyriacou and Sutcliffe (1978b), teachers' relationships with their
students affect their stress levels significantly. According to Mancini et
al.(1984), teachers with depersonalization (an 'alteration' in the
perception or experience of the self so that one feels 'detached' from
one's mental processes or body ) will behave immorally and fail to give
information to their students. These teachers tend to deny opinions
and ideas from students as well as fail to interact or communicate with
their students. Several studies show that teacher stress predicted
negative teacher and student relationships. Significant correlations
were found among teacher stress and negative relationships between
teacher and student (Yoon, 2002). Teacher stress arises from being
unable to discipline pupils in the way they would prefer (Lewis, 1999).
Referring to Day, Elliot and Kington’s (2005) study, teacher
commitment has been found to be a critical predictor of teachers’ work
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performance, absenteeism, retention, burnout and turnover. Day et al.
(2005) suggested that teachers remained committed to their beliefs
throughout their professional life. Although their levels of engagement
with particular practices were modified through various life events and
activities, their commitment to their ideological positions did not
diminish. However, some teachers' commitment might vary over time,
because different people have different levels, and some can plateau
earlier or later than others. Commitment was moderated through a
range of factors; some of which were sustaining and some diminishing.
Teachers were less likely to engage in particular activities or behave in
particular ways at one point in time, depending on various work and
life contextual factors such as school contexts, and relationships with
students and colleagues. These seemed to be the major work and life
factors that diminished commitment (Huberman, 1993a; 1993b).
The relationship between job satisfaction and stress coping skills
of primary school teachers has been studied extensively by Bindhu and
Kumar (2007). Bindhu and Kumar’s (2007) study shows a statistically
significant difference in job satisfaction between male and female
primary school teachers. However, in case of stress coping skills, they
found no statistically significant difference. Bindhu and Kumar’s (2007)
study also shows a significant and positive correlation between job
satisfaction and stress coping skills, which are self reliance,pro-active
attitude, adaptability and flexibility, and total stress coping skills. In
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brief, the ability to cope with stress can increase teachers' job
satisfaction.
Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction, in other beliefs, is measured on how the
employees like or unlike their job. Sector (1997) once stated that it is
strongly believed that job satisfaction is measured on simply how
contented an employee is to his or her job. Moreover, Locke (1976)
defined job satisfaction as "a pleasurable or positive emotional state
resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences", in which,
had been a widely used definition on job satisfaction. Boundless
Management (2014) mentioned five factors that affect and influence
job satisfaction:
1. Pay or total compensation
Amount or basic salary given affects the contentment of the employee
to his or her job because the pay might be too large or too small for
the employee.
2. The work itself
Job satisfaction is also influenced if the job itself is suitable to the
employee or not. It may be the skills of the employee do not match of
what work he or she has as of today.
3. Promotion Opportunities
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Employees tend to expect greater titles or positions if they work hard
and put a certain amount of effort on their work.
4. Relationship with supervisor
Communications with the boss also affect job satisfaction. Close
relationship with the higher rank can either heighten or reduce job
satisfaction.
Interaction and work relationship with coworkers
Barriers to promotion
According to Greyvnstein (1989:22), all the factors that hinder an
individual to have an achievement in a professional level are called
barriers to promotion. It can be classified into two types:
1) Intrinsic or personal barriers
These are the factors that are within women. According to Van der
Westhuizen intrinsic barriers have something to do with their value
system and attitude. These are so called female limitations that are
the traditional attitudes of societies about feminine characteristics.
2) Extrinsic barriers
These are the complex and diverse social factors that continue to
affect women’s possibility of entering school leadership. Burke and
Nelson (1988:7-8) state that extrinsic barriers to promotion includes
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the negative assumptions in executive ranks about women, their
abilities and their commitment, perceptions that women do not fit in
the corporate culture and lack of ore opportunities for female
employees who have leadership potential.
Methodology
This chapter deals with the discussion of the research design,
research subject, research instrument, data gathering procedure and
the statistical treatment of the data.
Research Design
This study will use a non-experimental design utilizing the
descriptive correlation technique of research which is designed to
collect data, ideas facts and information related to the study. It
investigates the relationship between three (3) variables specifically,
(1) barriers to promotion of women teachers, (2) the teachers job
satisfaction and (3) their attitude towards work. This descriptive
research study will use survey questionnaires as tools for gathering
information. This study is interested to know the factors the women
teachers mostly consider as barriers to their promotion, the
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relationship between the barriers of promotion and the teachers’ job
satisfaction as well as the relationship between the barriers to
promotion of women teachers and their attitude towards work among
the teachers of the three different departments of Digos City National
High school.
Research Subject
This descriptive study includes the three (3) different
departments of Digos City National High school namely (1)
Mathematics Department, (2) Science Department and (3) English
Department. In all three (3) departments 24 teachers will be chosen as
respondents. A total of seventy-two (72) female teachers will be the
respondents for this research study.
Research Instrument
A three-part questionnaire will be used for this study. The first part
questionnaire is for the barriers to promotion of women teachers
adapted from the questionnaire of the University of Pretoria etd
prepared by Chabalala, LW(2006), The second part questionnaire is for
the teacher’s job satisfaction adapted from the Early Professional
Project questionnaire of the University of Stirling and the third part
questionnaire is for the teachers’ attitude towards work.
Data Gathering Procedure
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In order to gather data necessary for the conduct of this study, the
researchers will do the following procedures:
1. The researchers will gather records of how many female teachers
are there in each of the three different departments in Digos City
National High School involved in the study.
2. The researchers will select a uniform number of teachers in each
of the departments to be the respondents of this study.
3. The researchers will search and adapt questionnaires for each
variable of the study.
4. The researchers will personally distribute the questionnaires to
the respondents as well as retrieve the questionnaires after the
respondents had answered them.
5. The researchers will gather relevant data and will ask a
statistician to analyze the data and the interpretation of the data
will be done by the researchers themselves.
Statistical treatment of data
Certain statistical treatments will be utilized for better comprehension,
analysis and interpretation of the data gathered.
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Questionnaire A
This section is about the five (5) fundamental concepts in
identifying barriers to promotion for women teachers, which are:
Leadership, Gender, Gender and Leadership, Barriers to promotion and
Feminism.
In the following statements, please answer by indicating if you
totally Agree, Agree to a certain extent, Disagree to a certain extent or
totally disagree
LeadershipTotally Agree Agre
eDisagre
e
Totally disagree
Men are better school managers.
Women do not possess the necessary attributes for school
leadership.Most male principals have been
misplaced at the expense of
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women teachers.Relatively, women teachers do
not apply for leadership positions in school.
Male principals as well as male educators are threatened by the inclusion of women leaders in the
school leadership structures.Even the SGB believes in male-
oriented school leadership.
GenderTotally agree Agre
eDisagre
e
Totally disagree
Determines the relative position of women in the school leadershipWomen are good at carrying out
decisionsWomen suffer guilt and shame
when they have to apply for leadership positions
The concerns of oppressed women is dominated by the voices of male
intellectuals at the helm of leadership, where women are
almost non-existent
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Gender And LeadershipTotally Agree Agre
eDisagre
e
Totally Disagre
eHousekeeping and child rearing are the only suitable careers for women
Women should change their feminine approach to life if they
want to be recommended for leadership positions in school.Women have internalized the
traditional gender stereotypes to such an extent they feel inferiorWomen are labeled by what they
do and not what they areAll men are equally oppressive
Barriers to promotion
Totally agree Agre
eDisagre
e
Totally Disagree
Gendering curricular in schools has significance in the under-
representation of women in the leadership schools
Society is reluctant to have women in the leadership positions
of schoolsPoor mentoring is one of the
causes of the under-representation of women in
leadership positions in schoolMost women teachers are not
aware of the legal rules applying to their professional field
Male principals will not retire unless an alternative replacement
is male
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FeminismTotally Agree
Agree
Disagree
Totally Disagree
The under-representation of women in the school leadership
should be left unchallenged because changing it can be costlyFeminism should be encouraged because it raises awareness of all
factors that alienate womenOnly aggressive women attain
leadership positionsSocieties treat women leaders as
exceptionsThe education system has been organized in a way that benefits
men
Bibliography
Greyvenstein, 1989-22
Mitchell & Lassen, 1987
North craft & Neale, 1996
Kreitner & Kinicki, 2007
Reinter & Kinaki, 2007
Elite, 1994
Nias, 1989
Kelchtermans, 2005
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