MOVERS AND SHAKERS: HOW ANDWHYWOMEN BECOME AND REMAIN ENGAGED IN COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP

This research examines women’s narratives regarding the experiences that lead to becoming, sustaining, and challenging active community leaders. Seventeen women neighborhood leaders, age 28 to 73 years, completed in-depth interviews. Qualitative thematic content analyses identified prominent themes in participants ’ responses that were subsequently linked to a generativity framework. Analyses revealed that leaders reported circuitous rather than linear paths of emerging community participation and growing up among others who demonstrated an ethos of care in informal as well as formal community practices.Women’s initial community engagement wasmost often in response to invitations to address community needs. Both communal and agentic rewards and challenges to community involvementwere identified.Based upon the findings, strategies for promoting and sustaining women’s community leadership are identified. Although there is broad recognition of women’s responsi-bilities and skills in the private domain, women’s roles in the public domain of community, nation, and world are less prominent. For example, women’s leadership in managing and promoting the growth and development of family and friends is often acknowledged, yet women are routinely un-derrepresented in formal civic leadership positions aroun