1. 1
Introduction
School leadership still resembles the tradition that picks men over women
(Chabalala, LW 2006). Traditionally, women are not seen as leaders because of
the belief that they are obedient and have trouble when it comes to decision
making (Astin and Leland, 1991-4). The Minister of Education way back in the
year 2001,Professor Kader Asmal said in his parliamentary address on May
24,2001 that the education system should start moving from a framework to
action called, “tirisano” which means cooperation. This implies that intentions
inside the framework, like the Employment Equity Act and related frameworks,
must be supported and purposely implemented to level out the injustices of the
past, which also contributed to, for instance, gender imbalance in school
leadership. When selecting school leaders, considerations regarding women
should be made even if not prioritized.
Barriers to promotion are factors that prevent an individual to have a
professional level of achievement. It can be classified as either intrinsic or
extrinsic. Intrinsic barriers are the so called “lacks” that are within women that
may be a result of a person’s lack of self confidence, work experience, excessively
emotional reactions, dependence and etc. Extrinsic barriers indicate
environmental variables that affect women into the management hierarchy of the
teaching profession. Social attitudes, family commitments and lack of mentors
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are examples of extrinsic barriers that prevent women from being promoted to
certain positions in school (Greyvenstein, 1989-22).
The objective of this study is to determine the relationship between the
barriers that prevent women teachers from being promoted and its effect unto
the teachers’ job satisfaction and attitude towards work. This study serves as
information of what female teachers consider as hindrances to getting promoted
and also to formulate methods on how to ensure the equality in terms of
promotion among male and female teachers.
Significance of the study
The outcome of this study may inform people of the result of certain
barriers that prevent women teachers of getting promoted to their job satisfaction
and work attitude. This may be useful to the following:
Female teachers.They can ensure that their chances for promotion are
equal to male teachers.
Administrators.They can properly design job specifications and requirements in
selecting school leaders.
Department of Education. They can monitor gender equity of teachers in
schools.
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Researchers.This may serve as a guide for future studies regarding gender
equity in schools and factors affecting teacher promotion.
Statement of the problem
This study aims to know the relationship between the barriers to
promotion of women teachers and its effect to the teachers’ job satisfaction and
their attitude towards work. Specifically, it seeks answers to the following
questions:
1) Is there a significant relationship between the barriers to promotion of
women teachers and their job satisfaction?
2) Is there a significant relationship between the barriers to promotion of
women teachers and their attitude towards work?
3) What are the factors that women teachers mostly consider as barriers to
promotion?
Hypotheses
From the given problems above, Item #3 is hypothesis free.
1) Ha: There is a significant relationship between the barriers to promotion
of women teachers and their job satisfaction.
Ho: There is no significant relationship between the barriers to promotion
of women teachers and their job satisfaction.
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2) Ha: There is a significant relationship between the barriers to promotion
of women teachers and their attitude towards work.
Ho: There is no significant relationship between the barriers to promotion
of women teachers and their attitude towards work.
Scope and limitation of the study
The study entitled “Barriers to promotion of women teachers and its effect
on their job satisfaction and attitude towards work” only covers the factors
affecting the chances for promotion of women teachers in three (3) different
departments namely, (1) Math Department, (2) Science Department and (3)
English Department. This study will only be conducted inside the premises of
Digos City National High school and its respondents will only be the selected
female teachers in each of the three different departments of the school.
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Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework of the study comprised two sets of variables;
the independent variable which is the barriers to promotion of women teachers
and the dependent variable which is their job satisfaction and their attitude
towards work.
Independent Variable Dependent Variable
Figure 1.1
Barriers to promotion of
women teachers
Job satisfaction
Attitude towards
work
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Review of Related Literature
Teachers’ Attitudes towards Work
The word “attitude” is defined within the framework of social psychology
as a subjective or mental preparation for action. It defines outward and visible
postures and human beliefs. Attitudes determine what each individual will see,
hear, think and do. They are rooted in experience and do not become automatic,
routine conduct. Furthermore, “attitude” means the individual's prevailing
tendency to respond favorably or unfavorably to an object (person or group of
people, institutions or events) (Morris & Mailto, 2005). Attitudes can be positive
(values) or negative (prejudices). According to Reinter and Kinaki (2007), there
are three components of attitudes: affective, cognitive and behavioral. The
affective component is a feeling or an emotion one has about an object or
situation. The cognitive component is the beliefs or ideas one has about an object
or situation, whereas the behavioral component of attitude reflects how one
intends to act or behave towards someone or something (Reinter & Kinaki, 2007).
In most situations, the three components appear concomitantly to shape teachers'
classroom postures, through direct and indirect interaction between society,
school and teachers (Elite, 1994). Moreover, teachers' styles and attitudes are
strong context outcomes rooted in experience. They do not become automatic
routine behaviors, in the sense that they are developed through very slow
interactions (action and reaction), and become well-established constructs for
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each individual only after some time (Carr, 1990). In that sense, as noted by Carr
(1990), attitudes can be modified only by each individual, when they become
aware, through elements and evidence, that new postures would be better to
deal with the surrounding world.
Attitudes towards work mean perceptions that affect how employees
perform in their positions. In the mid-1970s, Trophy and Good (1974) reported
that many educational researchers have supported the idea that teachers’
attitudes and expectations can be self-fulfilling prophecies. Trophy and Good
(1974) also proposed that once teachers develop a particular attitude or belief,
they may begin to treat students differently in ways that help bring about the
outcomes that they Facial Ahmad and Raffia Sahak expect. On the other hand,
according to Petty and Cacioppo (1986), attitude and behaviour are defined
comprehensively as individuals' general evaluations about themselves, others,
other objects, events and problems. Briefly, attitudes do predict people’s
behavior. In order to understand teachers’ attitudes and understand how
attitude reflects teachers' behavior, we could examine many components of
attitude in context of organizational behavior. In this study, we would like to
focus on four components of attitude used to assess teachers ‘attitude towards
work: job satisfaction (Mitchell & Lassen, 1987), commitment, communication,
and alienation (North craft & Neale, 1996).
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According to Mitchell and Lason (1987), in the organizational behavior
field, job satisfaction is the most important and frequently studied attitude. It
reflects the extent to which people like their jobs (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2007). As
expected, teachers’ working conditions, assessed by their level of job satisfaction,
affect teacher-student interaction. Hence, higher levels of job satisfaction
improve teachers' morale, which students perceive positively.
‘Commitment’ is a term used to distinguish those who are ‘caring’,
‘dedicated’, and who ‘take the job seriously’ from those who ‘put their own
interests first’(Nias, 1989). Commitment is an important work attitude, because
committed individuals are expected to be willing to work harder to achieve their
goal and remain employed (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2007). Nonetheless, according to
Kelchtermans (2005), teachers do not all have the same level of commitment to
their job. For some teachers, commitment is a major part of their lives, and they
afford it extensive consideration and high priority. Others may perceive
indifferently, seeing teaching as just a job (Kelchtermans, 2005). Meanwhile,
reflexive account of research over a 20-year period with 54 primary
schoolteachers indicated that the word ‘commitment’ appeared in almost every
interview (Nias, 1989). In a different context, Jackson, Boostrom and
Hansen(1993), Goodlad (1990) and Sockett (1993) have reported the moral
purposes of teachers, using words such as ‘courage’, ‘integrity’, ‘honesty’, ‘care’
and ‘fairness’. It is easy to see how these words may be associated with
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commitment. The more obvious signs of commitment are enthusiasm for the job
and for the people with whom one works. Individuals' commitment levels affect
their performance at work. However, findings reported by Leung (1997) and Tett
and Meyer (1993) on commitment outcomes, particularly turnover, absenteeism,
tardiness, and work performance, are mixed, weak, or inconsistent.
Communication manifests itself in attitudes as accuracy and openness of
information exchange. Effective communication is the heart of creating and
maintaining an effective school (Rafferty, 2003). Communication that occurs
within schools is crucial in shaping teachers' social reality. School excellence is
Teacher-Student Attachment and Teachers’ Attitudes directly related to what
teachers think and do. Teachers' attitudes and behaviour strongly rely on their
perceptions about their schools.
The fourth component of attitude is alienation, meaning the extent to
which staff members feel disappointed with their careers and professional
development (Rafferty, 2003). On the whole, the concept of positive student-
teacher interaction is multi-dimensional, as it involves organization, workload
(difficulty), expected fairness of grading, instructor knowledge, and perceiving
learning.
Teaching has been identified as a stressful profession (Kyriacou &
Sutcliffe, 1978b; Milstein & Golaszewski, 1985). High stress among teachers has
many negative consequences, including higher than average levels of anxiety
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and depression (Beer & Beer, 1992; Travers & Cooper, 1994) and a desire to quit
the profession and to use drugs (Watts & Short, 1990). Indeed, according
toBakewell (1988) and Kyriacou and Sutcliffe (1978b), teachers' relationships with
their students affect their stress levels significantly. According to Mancini et
al.(1984), teachers with depersonalization (an 'alteration' in the perception or
experience of the self so that one feels 'detached' from one's mental processes or
body ) will behave immorally and fail to give information to their students.
These teachers tend to deny opinions and ideas from students as well as fail to
interact or communicate with their students. Several studies show that teacher
stress predicted negative teacher and student relationships. Significant
correlations were found among teacher stress and negative relationships
between teacher and student (Yoon, 2002). Teacher stress arises from being
unable to discipline pupils in the way they would prefer (Lewis, 1999).
Referring to Day, Elliot and Kington’s (2005) study, teacher commitment
has been found to be a critical predictor of teachers’ work performance,
absenteeism, retention, burnout and turnover. Day et al. (2005) suggested that
teachers remained committed to their beliefs throughout their professional life.
Although their levels of engagement with particular practices were modified
through various life events and activities, their commitment to their ideological
positions did not diminish. However, some teachers' commitment might vary
over time, because different people have different levels, and some can plateau
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earlier or later than others. Commitment was moderated through a range of
factors; some of which were sustaining and some diminishing. Teachers were
less likely to engage in particular activities or behave in particular ways at one
point in time, depending on various work and life contextual factors such as
school contexts, and relationships with students and colleagues. These seemed to
be the major work and life factors that diminished commitment (Huberman,
1993a; 1993b).
The relationship between job satisfaction and stress coping skills of
primary school teachers has been studied extensively by Bindhu and Kumar
(2007). Bindhu and Kumar’s (2007) study shows a statistically significant
difference in job satisfaction between male and female primary school teachers.
However, in case of stress coping skills, they found no statistically significant
difference. Bindhu and Kumar’s (2007) study also shows a significant and
positive correlation between job satisfaction and stress coping skills, which are
self reliance,pro-active attitude, adaptability and flexibility, and total stress
coping skills. In brief, the ability to cope with stress can increase teachers' job
satisfaction.
Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction, in other beliefs, is measured on how the employees like or
unlike their job. Sector (1997) once stated that it is strongly believed that job
satisfaction is measured on simply how contented an employee is to his or her
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job. Moreover, Locke (1976) defined job satisfaction as "a pleasurable or positive
emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences", in
which, had been a widely used definition on job satisfaction. Boundless
Management (2014) mentioned five factors that affect and influence job
satisfaction:
1. Pay or total compensation
Amount or basic salary given affects the contentment of the employee to his or
her job because the pay might be too large or too small for the employee.
2. The work itself
Job satisfaction is also influenced if the job itself is suitable to the employee or
not. It may be the skills of the employee do not match of what work he or she has
as of today.
3. Promotion Opportunities
Employees tend to expect greater titles or positions if they work hard and put a
certain amount of effort on their work.
4. Relationship with supervisor
Communications with the boss also affect job satisfaction. Close relationship
with the higher rank can either heighten or reduce job satisfaction.
Interaction and work relationship with coworkers
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Barriers to promotion
According to Greyvnstein (1989:22), all the factors that hinder an individual to
have an achievement in a professional level are called barriers to promotion. It
can be classified into two types:
1) Intrinsic or personal barriers
These are the factors that are within women. According to Van der
Westhuizen intrinsic barriers have something to do with their value system
and attitude. These are so called female limitations that are the traditional
attitudes of societies about feminine characteristics.
2) Extrinsic barriers
These are the complex and diverse social factors that continue to affect
women’s possibility of entering school leadership. Burke and Nelson (1988:7-
8) state that extrinsic barriers to promotion includes the negative assumptions
in executive ranks about women, their abilities and their commitment,
perceptions that women do not fit in the corporate culture and lack of ore
opportunities for female employees who have leadership potential.
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Methodology
This chapter deals with the discussion of the research design, research
subject, research instrument, data gathering procedure and the statistical
treatment of the data.
Research Design
This study will use a non-experimental design utilizing the descriptive
correlation technique of research which is designed to collect data, ideas facts
and information related to the study. It investigates the relationship between
three (3) variables specifically, (1) barriers to promotion of women teachers, (2)
the teachers job satisfaction and (3) their attitude towards work. This descriptive
research study will use survey questionnaires as tools for gathering information.
This study is interested to know the factors the women teachers mostly consider
as barriers to their promotion, the relationship between the barriers of promotion
and the teachers’ job satisfaction as well as the relationship between the barriers
to promotion of women teachers and their attitude towards work among the
teachers of the three different departments of Digos City National High school.
Research Subject
This descriptive study includes the three (3) different departments of
Digos City National High school namely (1) Mathematics Department, (2)
Science Department and (3) English Department. In all three (3) departments 24
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teachers will be chosen as respondents. A total of seventy-two (72) female
teachers will be the respondents for this research study.
Research Instrument
A three-part questionnaire will be used for this study. The first part
questionnaire is for the barriers to promotion of women teachers adapted from
the questionnaire of the University of Pretoria etd prepared by Chabalala,
LW(2006), The second part questionnaire is for the teacher’s job satisfaction
adapted from the Early Professional Project questionnaire of the University of
Stirling and the third part questionnaire is for the teachers’ attitude towards
work.
Data Gathering Procedure
In order to gather data necessary for the conduct of this study, the researchers
will do the following procedures:
1. The researchers will gather records of how many female teachers are there
in each of the three different departments in Digos City National High
School involved in the study.
2. The researchers will select a uniform number of teachers in each of the
departments to be the respondents of this study.
3. The researchers will search and adapt questionnaires for each variable of
the study.
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4. The researchers will personally distribute the questionnaires to the
respondents as well as retrieve the questionnaires after the respondents
had answered them.
5. The researchers will gather relevant data and will ask a statistician to
analyze the data and the interpretation of the data will be done by the
researchers themselves.
Statistical treatment of data
Certain statistical treatments will be utilized for better comprehension, analysis
and interpretation of the data gathered.
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Questionnaire A
This section is about the five (5) fundamental concepts in identifying
barriers to promotion for women teachers, which are: Leadership, Gender,
Gender and Leadership, Barriers to promotion and Feminism.
In the following statements, please answer by indicating if you totally
Agree, Agree to a certain extent, Disagree to a certain extent or totally disagree
Leadership
Totally
Agree Agree Disagree
Totally
disagree
Men are better school managers.
Women do not possess the necessary
attributes for school leadership.
Most male principals have been
misplaced at the expense of women
teachers.
Relatively, women teachers do not
apply for leadership positions in
school.
Male principals as well as male
educators are threatened by the
inclusion of women leaders in the
school leadership structures.
Even the SGB believes in male-oriented
school leadership.
Gender
Totally
agree Agree Disagree
Totally
disagree
Determines the relative position of
women in the school leadership
Women are good at carrying out
decisions
Women suffer guilt and shame when
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they have to apply for leadership
positions
The concerns of oppressed women is
dominated by the voices of male
intellectuals at the helm of leadership,
where women are almost non-existent
Gender And Leadership
Totally
Agree Agree Disagree
Totally
Disagree
Housekeeping and child rearing are the
only suitable careers for women
Women should change their feminine
approach to life if they want to be
recommended for leadership positions
in school.
Women have internalized the traditional
gender stereotypes to such an extent
they feel inferior
Women are labeled by what they do and
not what they are
All men are equally oppressive
Barriers to promotion
Totally
agree Agree Disagree
Totally
Disagree
Gendering curricular in schools has
significance in the under-
representation of women in the
leadership schools
Society is reluctant to have women in
the leadership positions of schools
Poor mentoring is one of the causes of
the under-representation of women in
leadership positions in school
Most women teachers are not aware of
the legal rules applying to their
professional field
Male principals will not retire unless
an alternative replacement is male
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Feminism
Totally
Agree Agree Disagree
Totally
Disagree
The under-representation of women in
the school leadership should be left
unchallenged because changing it can
be costly
Feminism should be encouraged
because it raises awareness of all
factors that alienate women
Only aggressive women attain
leadership positions
Societies treat women leaders as
exceptions
The education system has been
organized in a way that benefits men
