Abstract
South Carolina public school districts are confronted with a series of difficult circumstances and rely more on female superintendents than the national average. The investigation of female South Carolina superintendents was guided by transformational leadership and the glass cliff conceptual frameworks. The purpose of this quantitative, non-experimental study was to examine the relationship between the sex of South Carolina public school superintendents to (a) self-reported transformational leadership behaviors and (b) select district indicators indicative of the difficult circumstances confronted by public school districts. The indicators for this study were the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) composite indices and school district poverty. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) was selected to obtain self-reported transformational leadership behaviors. Female South Carolina public school superintendents rated themselves higher on all transformational leadership MLQ subscales than did male South Carolina public school superintendents but not at significant levels. Female South Carolina public school superintendents had significantly lower ESEA composite indices than did male South Carolina public school superintendents. No significant difference was found for poverty indices based on the sex of the superintendent. Implications and recommendations for future research are included.
Recommended Citation
Cox, Edward and Bowles, Blanche
(2014)
"The Glass Cliff: Female Superintendents in South Carolina,"
Teacher Education Journal of South Carolina: Vol. 7:
No.
1, Article 4.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.coastal.edu/tejsc/vol7/iss1/4