Friday, October 31, 2008

Good friend NE Iowa Mom wonders how I'm going to gather my data in a quantifiable form. I think, though, that I am looking at more of an in depth interview, text coding kind of study. Because I am curious about the issue of "the good man," but I'm also curious how people at school react to a female principal, and what she sees as the factors at work in how she and other school community members interact with each other. What's worrisome, really, is how to turn this into something manageable. I don't have years to do this study, although I could turn it into a longer project later (maybe a case study of, say, half a dozen female principals of all-boys' schools?), so I have to come up with something where I can gather the data, analyse it, and write it up, all in under six months.

That's almost laughable. No, correction. That IS laughable.

So what I'll have to do is scale this down in some way, and yet still manage to ask a worthwhile question that builds on the existing literature. Said literature seems to be pretty quiet about perceptions about female principals in all-boys schools. There seems to be more about female teachers. But the fact of the matter is that there are relatively few female principals in the world, let alone in the fortresses of patriarchy. Which is what makes this lady fascinating, at least to me.

Much to ponder.

No comments: