Women, community and education reform: a study of the participation of women on Boards of Trustees

Abstract

In 1989 the fourth Labour government radically changed the administration of education in New Zealand. A major objective was to set up a partnership between teachers, parents (characterised as the community of a particular institution), and the state. The mechanism for the partnership would be a Board of Trustees. However, the policy document, Tomorrow's Schools (1988) outlining the changes was based on Administering For Excellence (The Picot Report,l988) and this contained at least three competing notions of the role of parents in education. The basis of the reforms, therefore, contained major tensions which have been continually contested. This thesis explores one site of struggle, the role of women trustees in the educational administration of primary schools. The research involved interviewing a number of women trustees from schools with different socio-economic intakes within the Wellington area. From the data gathered, a new theory of community in education is developed. It is argued, from a feminist perspective, that the role of parents in education is not an ungendered category. Instead it is mothers who provide the necessary conditions which contribute to educational communities. It is through their private sphere role as caregivers and their public involvement in their children's education that they form networks between families and schools. These create information channels, obligations and expectations, and social norms within their particular community. Therefore, mothers through these connections, assist in the creation of social capital which is of benefit to children's learning, thereby making a significant educational contribution. The research findings suggest women trustees contribute to educational communities because in the roles they perform on their Boards of Trustees they develop and foster the links between those involved in educational administration and parents. However, whether the links between a particular Board of Trustees and an educational community are effective depends on how that board interprets and encourages community involvement. Key factors which govern the conduct of a Board of Trustees and hence it's view of the nature of educational community include: the socio-economic area in which the school is situated, the way in which the principal is positioned vis-a vis the board, and the way the governance/management distinction, central to the conduct of the boards, is drawn. It is argued that there needs to be a recognition and an understanding of both the nature and the importance of educational communities within educational policy making. In order for this to happen, a re-examination of the new managerialism, introduced through the Tomorrow's Schools reforms, is needed to assess whether it is an appropriate theory of management for a primary school. It is further argued that marketisation of education has no place in New Zealand primary schooling because it threatens the very existence of the type of educational communities which are, according to Coleman (1988), beneficial to learners.