Women’s Leadership in Islamic Higher Education: Barriers, Enablers, and Pathways to Empowerment

Abstract

While scholarship on women’s leadership in higher education has grown considerably, the lived experiences of women academic leaders in Islamic institutions remain undertheorised, especially with respect to the contradictory work that religion performs in shaping leadership trajectories. Drawing on intersectionality and theories of religious agency, this study explored how women academic leaders in Islamic higher education across Indonesia, Pakistan, and Malaysia negotiated barriers, mobilized enabling conditions, and built pathways to empowerment. The research used a phenomenological multiple-case design, with twelve leaders chosen through purposive sampling guided by Malterud’s principle of information power. Data came from in-depth interviews, institutional documents, and observations, and were analyzed thematically following Braun and Clarke’s six-phase approach with NVivo 14. Credibility rested on triangulation, member checking, and collaborative coding within a multinational research team. The analysis identified four interlocking barrier categories spanning structural, interpretive, social-familial, and individual dimensions, together with four corresponding enabler categories. Cross-country asymmetries were pronounced. Structural barriers dominated in Pakistan, interpretive barriers in Indonesia, while Malaysia’s 30% representation policy generated comparatively stronger institutional support. Religion worked paradoxically, serving as a personal source of empowerment for most participants while constraining others through patriarchal interpretations rather than through faith itself. The sample of twelve leaders supports analytical rather than statistical generalization and does not capture intra-national variation across pesantren, madrasa, and secular Islamic universities. The study advances the Dual Process Model of Religion and the Islamic Women’s Leadership Empowerment Framework, offering policy-relevant insights for institutional reform across Muslim educational contexts.