Female leadership: experience of principals of primary schools in Panama

Abstract

This work presents the characteristics of primary school principals from a need to know how female leadership is built in school contexts from a simple random sample of principals in Panama. The quantitative study contemplates a questionnaire applied to a random sample of directors of the Ministry of Education in Panama that contemplates the characteristics of academic leaders from a gender perspective and under the Likert psychometric scale. The qualitative study recovers the feelings and actions of the principals in their schools in schools in Panama. The interviews were conducted with digital tools through zoom and video calls and provided the particularities and characteristics of female leadership in Panama. As important findings are the intentions of female leadership permeated by a strong sense of belonging to the group and convening and convincing skills. The other face that we show is the gender inequalities in female management positions, the eternal feminized management with the glass ceiling that does not allow ascending in the hierarchies of power, as well as greater teaching, administrative and salary inequality to access a position. directive as opposed to directors.