Socio-Cultural Determinants of Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Leadership Effectiveness of Female Head Teachers: Evidence from Public Primary Schools in Morogoro Region, Tanzania

This study focused on socio-cultural determinants of teachers’ attitudes towards leadership effectiveness of female head teachers in public primary schools in the Morogoro region, Tanzania. The study was informed by social cognitive theory which was introduced by Professor Albert Bandura in 1986. Convergent research design was adopted for this study, where a mixed-research approach was used in this study under pragmatism research philosophy. The targeted population was 6,047 comprising 2,976 teachers, 228 female head teachers, 10 educational officers, 97 educational quality assurance officers and 2,736 school committee members. Questionnaires and interviews were used as data collection instruments in this study. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 15 participants for interview while simple random sampling technique was used to obtain 378 participants for questionnaires. Further, on the quantitative side descriptive statistical method was used for data analysis through the scientific package of social sciences version 27.0 while on the qualitative data analysis thematic analysis method was used. On the quantitative side, the findings showed that socio-cultural determinants of teachers’ attitudes towards leadership effectiveness of female head teachers in public primary schools in the Mororgoro region are generally gender stereotypes, patriarchal norms and societal expectations. Further, in the qualitative side, sociocultural determinants of teachers’ attitudes towards leadership effectiveness of female head teachers in public primary schools in the Morogoro region are thematically low pointing to gender stereotypes, patriarchal norms and societal expectations. Moreover, the study concluded that, socio-cultural determinants of teachers’ attitudes towards leadership effectiveness of female head teachers in public primary schools in the Morogoro region are identified as little prevailing in schools headed by female head teachers though the little prevailing situation which has been identified should not be ignored. That being the case, the study recommended that educational practitioners use mass-media to frequently broadcast about gender awareness to teachers as the little negative determinants prevailing in schools may be unconsciously transmitted to other teachers and students. Also it is recommended that educational practitioners try their best to conduct various gender related workshops in schools even once per year. Along the same lines, educational stakeholders continue making implementation of gender-related policies because if they will decelerate, the issue can be transmitted to other teachers and students. On top of that, for any researcher who will be interested to study the related topic, it is recommended that he/she should do the same study at other educational levels like secondary schools, teachers training colleges and universities.