Valuing knowledge over action: the example of gender in educational leadership

Gender inequalities in educational administration attract calls for research internationally. The degree of concern and the urgent search for cause and cure are characterised as within an epidemic logic, evoking a managerialist scientific' reliance on evidence-driven change. Taking a poststructuralist approach, the paper uses a study of South African women school principals to position gender research as a tool for change. It considers one area of their experience that impacts on their leadership, marriage, as a vehicle to explore how research might be used. The paper challenges Western Enlightenment teleological cultural assumptions. It suggests that knowledge may be all we have to continue the negotiation of power where there is no solid ground of rightness about what views and actions disempower or the contrary and that it may, in itself, be a powerful force in the face of intractable problems.