SEX BIAS IN THE EVALUATION OF ADMINISTRATORS Available to Purchase

Using a set of in‐basket materials that suggest specific leadership styles, 135 graduate students in educational administration evaluated hypothetical superintendents who were depicted as female or male and rule bound or flexible. Overall, the fictitious female superintendent was rated as less fair and less flexible than her male counterpart. Moreover, the female superintendent described as rule bound was rated as more inflexible than the male who exhibited identical behaviors and the woman described as flexible was rated as less flexible than the identidal male. When these results were viewed in the context of a body of literature that shows women administrators to be fully as effective as men and in the context of the small number of women in educational leadership positions, they strongly suggest that sex bias has operated to the disadvantage of women and the education profession.