Att vara rektor och kvinna

Sammanfattning: This study is about heads in the Swedish compulsory school. The aim of the study was toincrease the understanding of being a head and a woman without the ambition to explore sexdifferences. To make the study participatory a research circle was chosen as a general framefor the investigation. In this circle with eight women, specific issues have been elaborated,data have been collected, interpreted and analyzed. Empirical data have also been collectedthrough life history interviews. The work in the research circle decided the theoreticalframes of reference: a theory concerning the relation between state and society, an organisational perspective and a feminist perspective. The issues concerned the women's lives, theexternal conditions for work, their own view of the work situation and how they acquire andhave acquired knowledge.The results indicate that the women, during a period of their lives, have been living inrelative subordination. External conditions of their work varied considerably, but workingconditions were very similar. They worked with administrative tasks and problems ofpersonal relations, not primarily with school development. The women were during theirschooltime all in the position of received knowing, but as heads three of them were in otherpositions. One of them learns in a constructivist way and so she has an authentic voice to usein public. Their background and current social context seem to give very little opportunity todevelop a constructivistic learning and arenas where real talk can be developed.