Women’s educational leadership: an intersectional capability framework

Purpose This paper aims to develop an intersectional capability framework for women’s educational leadership across K-20 (kindergarten through higher education) settings. It argues that underrepresentation should be understood not only as a matter of unequal representation but also as the result of uneven institutional conditions shaping women’s access to, progression within and sustainability in leadership. Design/methodology/approach The paper is conceptual in nature. It draws on scholarship on women’s educational leadership, intersectionality and institutional inequality to build an integrative framework centered on five institutional capabilities: access, developmental support, legitimacy, protective conditions and sustainability. Findings The paper suggests that leadership pathways are shaped not only by formal opportunity structures, but by institutions’ capacity to make leadership genuinely reachable, credible, protected and sustainable. It further argues that these capabilities are experienced unevenly across women because race/ethnicity, class, disability, language, care expectations and institutional norms shape how opportunities are distributed and converted into leadership trajectories. Research limitations/implications As a conceptual paper, the framework requires empirical testing across diverse educational contexts and across different groups of women. Practical implications The framework supports more inclusive approaches to recruitment, leadership preparation, mentoring, retention and policy design across K-20 educational settings. Originality/value The paper moves the discussion beyond representation by bringing intersectionality and capability logic into the same analytical framework. In doing so, it offers a more institutionally grounded account of women’s educational leadership inequality and proposes a set of propositions for future research.