University of Massachusetts Boston ScholarWorks at UMass Boston Graduate Doctoral Dissertations Doctoral Dissertations and Masters Theses 5-31-2018 Reimagining the Discourse: Media Representation of Women in Boston Public Schools' Superintendency, 1991 - 2016 Lisa M. Cullington University of Massachusetts Boston Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umb.edu/doctoral_dissertations Part of the Educational Leadership Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Cullington, Lisa M., "Reimagining the Discourse: Media Representation of Women in Boston Public Schools' Superintendency, 1991 - 2016" (2018). Graduate Doctoral Dissertations. 390. https://scholarworks.umb.edu/doctoral_dissertations/390 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Doctoral Dissertations and Masters Theses at ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. For more information, please contact [email protected]. REIMAGINING THE DISCOURSE: MEDIA REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS’ SUPERINTENDENCY, 1991 - 2016 A Dissertation Presented by LISA M. CULLINGTON Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2018 Urban Education, Leadership, and Policy Studies Program © 2018 by Lisa M. Cullington All rights reserved REIMAGINING THE DISCOURSE: MEDIA REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS’ SUPERINTENDENCY, 1991-2016 A Dissertation Presented by LISA M. CULLINGTON Approved as to style and content by: ________________________________ Francine Menashy, Assistant Professor Chairperson of Committee ________________________________ Zeena Zakharia, Assistant Professor Member ________________________________ Stephanie Yuhl, Professor College of the Holy Cross Member ________________________________________ Tricia Kress, Graduate Program Director Urban Education, Leadership, and Policy Studies ________________________________________ Tara Parker, Chairperson Department of Leadership in Education ABSTRACT REIMAGINING THE DISCOURSE: MEDIA REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS’ SUPERINTENDENCY, 1991-2016 May 2018 Lisa M. Cullington, B.A., College of the Holy Cross M.Ed., Boston College Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Directed by Professor Francine Menashy This study examines the relationship among public discourse, power and leadership for women superintendents in Boston Public Schools. For this qualitative study, I use a feminist poststructural discourse analysis (FPDA) to examine newspaper articles from The Boston Globe from 1991 to 2016. Through a FPDA, I illuminate the ways in which women superintendents have been discursively produced amidst neoliberal educational reform movements. In this study, I focus on how the superintendent’s role was conceptualized as a male endeavor in The Boston Globe, and the implications of this for current educational leaders. Two major discursive stages frame the study’s time period: Superintendent as Political Strategist Focused on Excellence and Superintendent as Collaborator (Brunner, iv Grogan, & Bjork, 2002). In the first discursive stage, superintendents focused navigating complex city politics and politicians invested in the quality of educational programs. During the second discursive stage, superintendents had to work with rather than over others. Superintendents in larger urban communities needed to collaborate and engage communities of color. This study examines four superintendents: Lois Harrison Jones (1991-1995), Thomas Payzant (1995-2006), Carol Johnson (2007-2013), and Tommy Chang (2015- present). The findings fall into three categories: (1) superintendent as a capable leader; (2) superintendent as a politician or educator; and (3) superintendent as a community ally. For each category, gendered and racialized discourses play a key role in the superintendent’s positioning. This study suggests that the discursive stages are insufficient in the depiction of a superintendent in local media. Intersections of race and gender, situated in the discursive stage’s context, provide a more nuanced analysis. By understanding this intersection, superintendents can identify how these discourses impact their subject positions and use this understanding in their practice. Lastly, the analysis shows a need for a new discursive stage focused on the prominence of neoliberalism in educational reforms in order to fully address educational leadership in the twenty-first century. v DEDICATION To my family, for your patience. To my husband, for unconditionally supporting and loving me. To my dogs, Winston and Charlotte, for all your cuddles. To my mom, the first woman leader in my life. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT When I talk about going to school for my Ph.D., I often say it is one of the hardest things I had ever done in my life—which is the truth. I had never experienced something that challenged me intellectually, emotionally, and physically to this degree, for this length of time. This process was both humbling and inspiring. Without the help of the following people, this most certainly would not have been completed. To my Dissertation Chair, Dr. Francine Menashy, my gratitude covers a multitude of things: your academic insight and eternal support, your ability to see solutions when my head was clouded, and for knowing when to put the pen down and rest. To my second reader, Dr. Zeena Zakharia. Working with you in the fall semester of 2015 became a turning point in my thinking about my work. Without you, this would be a very different dissertation. To my third reader, Dr. Stephanie Yuhl. As an undergraduate student, you ignited feminism in my soul. This work would never be complete without your guidance and input. Thank you for always raising the bar for me and supporting me to get there. To the 2013 Cohort, an amazing group of women who have challenged me, supported me, laughed with (and at) me, and commiserated with me. Thank you for the courage to keep going on. vii To my family, you have supported me for many years, but in these past five, you have gone above and beyond. You have graced me with your understanding, your love, and your patience. To my husband, I met you two days before my first class in the Summer of 2013. Still, you decided to stick around even though I was often off reading, writing, or thinking in some parallel universe. Thank you for your unwavering support over the past five years and for believing in me even when I couldn’t. Now, it is our time. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION……………………………………………………………… vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................. vii LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................... xiii LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................... xiv CHAPTER Page 1. RATIONALE FOR STUDYING WOMEN SUPERINTENDENTS IN THE URBAN CONTEXT ................................................. 1 Introduction ............................................................................ 1 History of Women Superintendents in the Twentieth Century .............................................................................. 4 Problem Statement and Research Questions.......................... 8 Urban Context and Rationale for Study ................................. 10 Conclusion ............................................................................. 15 2. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE, THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS ........................................ 17 Introduction ............................................................................ 17 Employment Related Theories ............................................... 17 Personal choice and motivation ........................................ 18 Glass ceiling and firewall theories .................................... 20 Segregation and stratification: occupational sex segregation theory and job and labor queues ............... 22 History of the Discourse of the Superintendency .................. 24 Superintendent as political strategist focused on excellence ..................................................................... 29 ix CHAPTER Page Superintendent as collaborator .......................................... 29 Theoretical Framework: Feminist Poststructuralism ............. 31 Conceptualization ............................................................. 31 Language and signifying practices .................................... 32 Discourse and subjectivity ................................................ 33 Application of Feminist Postructuralism: A Conceptual Framework ........................................................................ 34 Universal personhood and interpellation ..................... 35 Speaking subject and subversion in gender performativity ......................................................... 36 Power and discourse .................................................... 38 Truth and production of “truth” ................................... 39 Conclusion ............................................................................. 39 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY................................................... 42 Why Feminist Poststructuralism? .......................................... 43 Research Design....................................................................