Gender and headship in the twenty-first century

Methodology

A survey (see Appendix 1) was sent to a sample of women and men heads of
secondary, primary and special schools in England in March 2004. As the focus of
the survey was gender and the aim was to build on earlier surveys of women and
men secondary headteachers, the samples were biased towards women and
secondary heads. The sample was drawn from the DfES database provided by
Edubase as follows:

Sample

women secondary heads 1 in 2

men secondary heads 1 in 5

women primary heads 1 in 10

men primary heads 1 in 20

women special heads 1 in 20

men special heads 1 in 20

Response rates

In total there were 1100 out of a potential 2382 responses, that is an overall
response rate of 46%. A further 40 were returned after the analysis had started and
could not be included. In terms of the individual samples the response rates were as
follows:

321 out of a potential 910 = 35 per cent
725 out of a potential 1472 = 49 per cent
189 out of a potential 490 = 39 per cent
272 out of a potential 490 = 56 per cent
117 out of a potential 381 = 31 per cent
408 out of a potential 911 = 45 per cent
15 out of a potential 39 = 38 per cent
40 out of potential 71 = 56 per cent

The numbers of responses were therefore:

The responses were analysed using SPSS.

The questionnaire was the same as ones sent to secondary headteachers in England
and Wales in 1996 and 1999. The only additions to the survey reported here were
questions on ethnicity and disability.

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