Women’s leadership in education: A perspective from Chilean school leaders

Abstract

This paper analyses the experiences of six Chilean female headteachers. It addresses their career progress, their facilitators and barriers, as well as the challenges they encountered in accessing and enacting school leadership. The six participants were drawn from the three Chilean school types –public, semi-private and private-. This qualitative research collected data from semi-structured interviews. The study subjects were selected by using the convenience and snowball sampling. The findings demonstrate both differences and similarities in participants’ experiences, across all three school sectors. A major difference relates to the additional barriers faced by public sector school leaders, compared to the private and semi-private school leaders.