Institutional Barriers Preventing Young Women from Ascending to Leadership Positions in Primary Schools: Evidence from Bulawayo Metropolitan Province, Zimbabwe

Abstract

Although women make up almost 70% of the primary school teaching workforce in Bulawayo Metropolitan Province, Zimbabwe, they hold fewer than 20% of primary schools’ headship. This qualitative study examines institutional barriers that prevent young women (ages 25–35) from advancing into leadership positions within primary schools. Using a combination of semi-structured interview and focus group discussion methodologies with 60 total participants (young women who are or aspire to be leaders in their schools, as well as school administrators/ministerial officials), this research utilised feminist organisational theory and social role theory as the theoretical frameworks for its data analysis. The thematic findings indicate that there were three institutional barriers that restrict the advancement of young women into leadership roles: male dominated networks/opaque decision making systems that exclude women from accessing informal sources of influence; rigid organisational policies based upon traditional masculine work culture that do not provide flexible working arrangements to meet the changing needs of individual teachers' lives; and unclear career paths for young women which are subjectively determined allowing for the operation of unconscious bias in the selection process. Together these barriers produce synergistic effects that maintain gendered inequalities even when formal policy commitments have been made to eliminate such inequalities. Overall, the results of this research provide empirical evidence regarding how the structure of organisations produces and maintains gender inequalities in leadership at the primary education level in Zimbabwe, and provide a foundation for evidence-based institutional transformation and support for Sustainable Development Goal 5.