Women Leading Education Across the Continents: Harnessing the Joy in Leadership is a rare and ambitious project that explores both the depth of this important topic while also including important international perspectives. Collectively considered, the book investigates and critiques problems related to women and leadership while also celebrating successes and offering strategies for creating positive change in people, policies and practices. This is a must-read for educational leaders regardless of gender—there are lessons here for all organizations and individuals.
— Jeffrey S. Brooks, professor, RMIT University
I wholeheartedly endorse this excellent collection of women’s research from across the world, focusing on finding and harnessing the joy of leadership within education. Framing the book within a Māori kaupapa is a particularly strong feature, as it provides a platform for sharing what is unique about Aotearoa with the rest of the world. This book provides insights into how women have sought to both understand and transform the environments within which they live. ‘Kei a tātoutēnei ao; kei a tātau hoki ēnei iti kahurangi. This is our world; these are the challenges we must strive to overcome.’ (Māori proverb)
— Sarah Leberman, professor in leadership, Massey University
Too often women and leadership topics focus on the negatives - the toxicity, the issues, the sexism and misogyny. These are all true and unfortunately accurate portrayals of one aspect of the dark side of leadership for women. But there is another side to which this book draws our attention. It is a well overdue collection of chapters on the possibilities and promises of leadership and of the joy within. I read it with great enjoyment and found the stories, drawing on a wide range of women's experiences, inspiring and full of hope. In an era of Trump, this is an important message to be providing.
— Jane Wilkinson, Professor Educational Leadership, Monash University, Joint Editor of Journal of Educational Administration and History
This book is an excellent addition to the work on women in educational leadership, with its broad perspective, and multi-cultural focus. Students of educational leadership will find it an excellent addition to the work in the field, and learn something new both about themselves as leaders, and the richness of the contexts within which women lead.
— Megan Crawford, PhD, director, Plymouth Institute of Education, Professor of Ed Leadership and Professional Learning
This remarkable volume introduces a new dimension to women’s leadership in education. Teacher leaders, school principals and community educators will be inspired by diverse insights, cultural wisdom and global contexts. What a great textbook!
— Margaret Grogan, dean, Chapman University
This book reflects a wealth of experience from women leaders and those supporting women leaders of education throughout the world. It includes established internationally known voices and those fresh to the field who bring new insights. In this ‘Me Too’ era, listening to the voices of women in so critical a field as education could not be more important. This book provides a highway to listening and understanding their experience throughout the world.
— Jacky Lumby, emeritus professor, University of Southampton, UK
This collection of research harnesses the joy of women’s leadership across compulsory and higher education. Women’s stories are recounted by scholars working in contexts as diverse as the Solomon Islands and Afghanistan, New Zealand and the United States. Insightful accounts of women’s status as leaders, the factors that influence their achieving and doing leadership, and seeing women’s rights as human rights amount to a collective and welcome story of hope in challenging times.
— Kay Fuller, University of Nottingham
This comprehensive collection from seminal researchers in the field, alongside emerging researchers and practitioner-scholars, from such diverse contexts, provides a powerful model of scholarship for equity. This book will be a valuable text in academic studies and will also provide insight and guidance for women, and all leaders focused on equity for women, at all levels of the system. Women Leading Education Across the Continents: Harnessing the Joy in Leadership builds on, but not exclusively from, a strong community of voice and research from the Women Leading Education group. It therefore provides critical perspectives, as well as offering practical strategies and hope, for equity for women’s leadership in education.
— Jan Robertson, PhD, Academic Leadership Consultant New Zealand, adjunct professor, Griffiths University Australia
International Women Leading Education, by Rachel McNae and Elizabeth C. Reilly is groundbreaking and sets the agenda for Women Leadership in Education while creating a cultural shift and empowering mechanism. The rich voices presented in the different chapters set the stage for cross-sectional understanding of women leadership and equitable education praxis in different nation states which makes the book of a global value.
— Khalid Arar, associate editor, International Journal of Leadership in Education; author, Arab Women in Management & Leadership, Palgrave