Making a Difference: women in management in Australian and Canadian faculties of education

This article reports a study of Australian and Canadian women in management positions in university faculties of education. It provides a perspective on the contradictory and multilayered experiences of the first cohort of ac ademic women to reach management positions in any significant numbers in ed ucation. The article explores the way in which women are positioned as diff erent but at the same time negotiate their place by using marginality and d ifference as strengths. Many of the women continue to hold to feminist agen das that were forged in relation to the university of a quarter of a centur y ago. They have strong commitments to 'making a difference'. The authors r aise the question of how these agendas will operate in the years to come an d whether we can anticipate a new feminist politics of leadership.