Terrorism and female teacher leadership in girls’ secondary school

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore female teachers and vice principal’s leadership on girls attendance and learning, safety and security issues in rural girls’ schools experiencing Boko Haram insurgencies. The secondary purpose is to recommend innovative educational policy initiatives at the school, community and state levels, so as to ameliorate girls and teachers’ challenges, and to sustain girls in schools.

Design/methodology/approach

Qualitative educational research orientation and an ethnographic-narrative research design were used for the study. Purposeful sampling procedure was adopted through the selection of female teachers and a vice principal. Soft qualitative oral data (SQOD) were collected from structured interviews and focus groups and participant observation data. Data analysis engaged hand data analysis (HAD) for transcription, while the coding and theming process involved qualitative computer software data analysis (CSDA) of NVivo 8.0. The measures of validity involved the qualitative process of member checking, while ethical issues of anonymity with participants were addressed in the process of data collection, and reporting.

Findings

Major findings revealed a symbiotic relationship between female teacher’s moral leadership and the application of law of tort in the girls’ school; teachers’ adopted spiritual leadership and moral decision making process on girls’ safety, and learning motivation; and improved school community collaboration for security and safety of the girls and effective communication.

Practical implications

Educational policy options are prescribed. They include the training of teachers and girls on fire safety and conflict crisis; recruitment of female school counsellors; housing incentives for female teachers; support grassroot initiatives on school security; and sustaining school-community/parents involvement.

Originality/value

Boko Haram’s impact on teacher and school leadership in girls’ school(s) has not been studied so far. The paper is the first, thereby filling the gap of the literature on girls’ rural education and terrorism.

Citation

Usman, L.M. (2018), "Terrorism and female teacher leadership in girls’ secondary school", International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 669-688. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEM-04-2017-0084