Six junior high school female principals’ mental operations in problem solving:A poststructural feminism analysis view

[[abstract]]As paradigm shifts in educational administration, researchers who are influenced by this pradigm shift begin to pay attention to cognitive perspective on educational leadership. While the number of female educational leader increases, many researchers who have been devoted themselves to representing the viewpoints of female educational leaders make efforts to avoid gender essentialism myths in their researches. However, in Taiwan, there are only few empirical studies which focus on educational leaders’ cognitive operations. Even though the increasing number of female educational leaders made researchers add female’s voice to their studies, we should take different pespectives to explore the praxis of female educational leaders’ experience. Therefore, six junior high school female principals from Taipei City and Taipei County were recruited to attend this study for investigating their mental operation of problem solving praxis. This study adopted qualitative case study as the research approach, and employed interview and think-aloud methods to collect data. In addition, poststructural feminism which emphasizes subjectivity, positionality, language, discourse, power, knowledge, and difference were used as the perspective to analyze different female principles’ problem solving experiences. The conclusions in this study were as follows: 1. Female principals inclined to understand problems through their personal interpretations. Their own values and principles may guide their problem solving processes. 2. When confronting problems, female principals tend to find out different solutions rather than set goals after they understand the problems. The problem solving process is dynamic and flexible. 3. In problem solving process, all female principals perceive possible constraints and show their positive and negative moods when encountering problem situations. 4. Although six female principals have different problem solving strategies, communication is seen to be one of the core tactics. 5. There are profound differences between expert and novice female principals’ problem solving praxis, however, with some exceptions. 6. Female principals’ mental operations which show varieties in problem solving praxis are influenced by their subjectivity and positionality. 7. Female principal’s problem solving processes are filled with language and discourse, power and knowledge. 8. The discourse of typical gender studies in educational administration could be deconstructed by poststructural feminism. In the end of this thesis, several suggestions were provided for principals, school administration, principal preparation and future studies.