Date of Award
12-1992
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Educational Leadership
Abstract
The objective of this study was to determine which factor or combination of factors are related to the degree to which university women aspire to leadership positions. A random sample of university seniors (N=311) from the business, teacher education, and political science curricula were surveyed by mail. The study attempted to answer the following seven research questions: (1) Are there gender differences among university seniors' aspirations to leader positions, (2) are there differences among university seniors' aspirations to leadership based upon curriculum, (3) are there gender differences among university seniors in their projections of classmates into career roles, (4) are there gender differences among university seniors' projections for their own career roles, (5) does gender-role orientation affect university seniors' aspirations to leadership and their projection of classmates into future career roles, (6) are there gender differences in the influence of specific sociological factors (socioeconomic status, mothers' obtained occupation, and mothers' level of education) upon university seniors' aspirations to leader roles, and (7) are there gender differences in the impact of parental influence upon university seniors' leadership aspirations? This research demonstrates that (a) women have lower aspiration to leader roles than men; (b) business and public administration seniors have higher aspirations to leader roles than education seniors; (c) both women and men have lower career projections for females than they do for males; (d) women hope for less in their careers than do men; (e) it is inconclusive whether gender-role orientation is or is not a mitigating factor in the aspiration to leadership; (f) socioeconomic status and the level of the mother's education are related to the degree to which women aspire to leadership (the results were inconclusive as to whether these same factors are related to the aspirations of men to leader roles), while occupational attainment of mothers and its relationship to students' ambition to leader roles was inconclusive for both women and men; and (g) parental encouragement is related to women's aspiration to leader roles, while its relationship to the aspirations of men was inconclusive.
Access Setting
Dissertation-Open Access
Recommended Citation
Kreuzer, Barbara Katherine, "Women and Leadership: The Effect of Gender, Gender-Role Orientation, Socioeconomic Status, and Parental Influence on Women’s Aspirations to Leader Roles" (1992). Dissertations. 1922.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/1922