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This chapter provides an analysis of the plight of African American women leaders as they journey to the superintendency. African American women remain largely underrepresented in the superintendency. Although the number of women superintendents has increased over the years, the superintendency remains a male-dominated field and African American women remain in the minority. Consequently, African American female superintendents must overcome many obstacles such as racial and gender stereotypes, caustic work environments, and restricted access to opportunities. Critical to dismantling the underrepresentation of women superintendents is the role of mentorship and hiring practices on the recruitment and retention of Black women superintendents. Mentorship is an essential strategy in weathering these barriers. African American women also deserve a voice in the hiring practices of school districts. Further, when marginalized groups, such as Black women, are placed at the center of hiring discourses, hidden paradigms and vestiges of discrimination will be unearthed to unify efforts to provide increased opportunity and positive workplace environments. These efforts have implications for research and practice in the area of mentorship and hiring to amplify the voices of African American women superintendents and presence in the superintendency.

Reviews current thinking about the professional development and management training needs of heads of department in secondary schools and argues for the inadequacy of some of the “front‐end” models of professional development and training currently in use. The results of a survey of 21 schools in the UK showed that, although the assumption is often held that heads of department are appointed because they already possess the knowledge and skills to undertake the role effectively, this is not always the case. The plethora of training needs identified conveys a sense of frustration of most of the interviewees with their lack of opportunity to contribute effectively to whole‐school decision‐making and development planning. Argues for the possibility of developing more appropriate forms of professional development and training which would incorporate the notions of school‐based research and collegial reflective practice within learning organisations.

Education policies in the United States reinforce social stratification by prioritizing and normalizing middle-class whiteness in schools (Leonardo, 2007; Picower, 2009). The teacher labor market has also become more feminized, making white middle-class women paragons of exemplary educators (Rury, 1989; Tolley & Beadie, 2006). These sociopolitical and historical factors continue to play out in the current U.S. education workforce where 80% teachers are white and 76% of teachers are female (Hussar et al., 2020). Meanwhile, student demographics are shifting with students of color comprising over 50% of the public student population (de Brey et al., 2019). Diversifying the educator pipeline is a well-documented strategy to improve educational outcomes for all students, specifically students of color, and to achieve greater equity and inclusion in public education. However, the retention and promotion of educators of color remains a critical and complex issue.

Thus, looking at the intersection of race and gender in the education workplace, the purpose of this chapter is to highlight the experiences and expertise of women K-12 educators of color to identify best practices for career development. Applying Psychology of Working Theory (PWT) and utilizing modified meta-synthesis methodology, the chapter highlights the experiences of Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Indigenous/Native American women K-12 principals and superintendents to (1) thematize and conceptualize how women of color define their work in education spaces through a PWT lens and (2) understand how PWT themes can illuminate ways to build more diverse and inclusive career pathways for women of color leaders.

Statistics show that women are under‐represented in senior management posts in UK independent schools, especially in the secondary sector. Reviews recent studies on women in senior roles in independent schools, concentrating on the secondary sector and comparing the situation with some studies from the maintained sector. Suggests that much needs to be done to improve the status of women in many independent schools, but that further research needs to be done across the whole independent secondary sector to assess how widespread negative attitudes are. Also suggests that training courses should be suited to women’s needs and that mentoring should be more widely available.

The under‐representation of women in positions of senior management within educational institutions continues to be a matter of some concern, particularly as the teaching force is largely dominated, nationally and internationally, by women. Studies on gender and leadership have revealed a number of barriers to women seeking educational leadership and management positions. This paper is based on narratives drawn from women aspiring to leadership and management in different educational contexts, from very different parts of the world. The study examines the “glass ceilings” and “glass walls”; that is, horizontal and vertical barriers faced by each of the women within their cultures and environments.

In this paper we review current thinking on the role of the head of department in secondary schools which emphasises that theirs is the critical agency in school improvement. We go on to describe a two‐fold strategy for developing successful schools which requires departments to improve: their teaching and their pupils’ learning; their capacity to both make and implement policy and so to facilitate the progress of change. We suggest that improving teaching and learning is best addressed at the departmental level by an evolutionary approach that emphasises vision, commitment, planning, action and review, rather than grandiose aims, statements, over elaborate policies and detailed, long‐term plans. In addition, we suggest that a department’s capacity to implement change depends on seven essential processes but that the leadership of heads of department is the key to developing successful departments and successful schools.

Attempts to explain women’s lack of achievement in educational management, both in countries in the developed world and in Africa, particularly Uganda. Suggests that women are hindered by both internal and external barriers which keep them from advancing; internally in the main owing to the effects of socialization and sex stereotyping, and externally because organizations so structure the behaviour of their workforce that women limit their performance because they are locked into low‐power, low‐visibility, dead‐end jobs. Points out that these barriers are particularly applicable to women educational managers in Uganda, whose advancement is further impeded by the cultural imperatives of male dominance and suppression. Highlights a number of strategies which can help Ugandan women to overcome these barriers, such as a sensitization programme to alert women to the opportunities available, and affirmative action by the government to put equality of opportunity as a high priority on the Ugandan national agenda.

In this chapter, I reflect on the place of hope in activist criminology. Offering reflections from my own activist scholarship, this chapter draws out the ways in which hope structures and sustains our work across temporal frames and distinct modes of academic practice. This chapter develops a hopeful analysis of lineage, memory and resistance, reflecting on my participatory research with the Tamil community in London, and reflects on the revival of utopian thought in criminological scholarship. Hopeful imaginaries of an abolitionist future inform my scholar-activism with Reclaim Holloway – an abolitionist collective formed to influence the redevelopment of the Holloway prison site. I describe this future-oriented work before considering hope as a practice in the present, focusing on ‘pedagogies of hope’ as activist criminology in the classroom.