THE WOMAN ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL: AN ANALYSIS OF LEADERSHIP ROLES

Abstract

This study investigated male/female elementary school assistant principals and the relative importance they assigned to supervisory and administrative roles. Three questions were posed: (1) What are the differences in the importance of supervisory and administrative roles of assistant principals as perceived by male and female elementary school assistant principals? (2) What is the relationship between the self-reported sex-role type of the assistant principal and the importance that the assistant principal assigns to supervisory and adminstrative roles of the assistant principal? (3) What are the differences in the self-reported demographic characteristics of male and female elementary school assistant principals?;The sample consisted of 273 elementary school assistant principals in the New York City public school system. Three questionnaires were used; Personal and Educational Background Questionnaire, the Role Questionnaire (Gross and Trask, 1976) and the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1975).;Cross-tabulations revealed that females were sex-role typed as "feminine" and "androgynous." Males were sex-role typed as "masculine" and "undifferentiated.".;The hypotheses were: (Hypothesis 1) Female assistant principals would assign greater importance to supervisory roles than their counterparts; hypothesis supported. (Hypothesis 2) Male assistant principals would assign greater importance to administrative roles than their counterparts; hypothesis not supported. (Hypothesis 3) There would be a relationship between the importance assigned to supervisory roles by females and the feminine sex-role type; hypothesis not supported. (Hypothesis 4) There would be a relationship between the importance assigned to administrative roles by male assistant principals and the masculine sex-role type; hypothesis not supported. (Hypothesis 5) There would be a relationship between the importance assigned to administrative roles by male assistant principals and the masculine sex-role type; hypothesis not supported. A statistically significant relationship between the importance assigned to supervisory roles and the "androgynous" sex-role type, and a statistically significant relationship between administrative roles and the "androgynous" sex-role type was observed.;The demographic hypotheses indicated the following: there were more never-married females than males, each had similar graduate school credits, more males had attended private colleges, both had similar socio-economic backgrounds, males resided in the suburbs, females in the city, males had more years in their current supervisory position.;Recommendations for further research were investigation of female assistant principal career patterns and the relationship of female leadership to androgyny.