Catholic Female Religious Orders' Legacy of Leadership in Irish Post-Primary Education

Abstract

The aim of this research is to explore Catholic female religious orders’ legacy of leadership in Irish post-primary schools. The research was timely, due to the dearth of research regarding female religious leadership, particularly in the area of religious sisters’ contribution in the educational arena. With the numbers of religious orders having significantly decreased and the reality of pluralism in Ireland, it is interesting to investigate the insights of religious sisters on their educational leadership experience in Irish post-primary schools through their perspective. The Holy Faith congregation was chosen as a focus for this investigation due to the researcher’s teaching experience in a school with a Holy Faith tradition and the sparse literature on the order. .Narrative inquiry, semi- structured, qualitative interviews were used to elicit eight participants’ perspectives on their post-primary educational leadership experience. Six of the sisters had been principals, one had been a teacher, and one was a current board member of a post-primary school where she had been a chaplain. The following themes emerged from the study: care; Christian servant leadership; Inclusion and Structures. This study provided participants with an opportunity to reflect on their educational leadership experience and captured insights on female Christian approaches to educational leadership, which have implications in terms of recommendations in terms of policy, training and practice for future educational leaders