Jennie Weiner

Department Head and Professor

Educational Leadership

---

Titles:

Professor 

Department Head, Educational Leadership

Academic Degrees:

ED.D, Educational Policy Leadership and Instructional Practice, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2012
M.Ed, Administration, Planning and Social Policy, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2003
B.A., American Studies, Amherst College, 2000

Areas of Expertise:

Educational Leadership

Gender Discrimination and Gendered Racism in the Educator Pipeline

Organizational Learning and Change

Biography:

The purpose of my scholarship is to re-frame educational leadership (i.e., creating conditions for others to do their best work) and change to make both more inclusive, equitable, and oriented toward collective uplift and continuous improvement. Specifically, I focus on issues of educational leadership and organizational change particularly in chronically under-performing and under-resourced schools and districts. I am interested in gender and racial bias and gendered racism in educational leadership and the pipeline more broadly. Teaching is my passion.

Prior to coming to UConn, I worked for Rhode Island Department of Education on issues of school turnaround and capacity building. I was a senior research associate for the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) at the Milken Family Foundation. I hold a Master’s in Education in Administration, Planning and Social Policy and a Doctorate of Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Books:

Weiner J. & Higgins, M. (2023). Lead(her)ship: Advancing Women in K-12 Administration. Harvard Education Press.

Stevenson, I & Weiner, J. (2020). The Strategy Playbook for Educational Leaders. Routledge.

Press:

Weiner, J. M. (2026, March). Care work: How it impacts women leaders (Principal Leadership, pp. 31–33). Available online: https://www.nassp-digital.com/prik/library/item/0226_march_2026/4322341/

Markin, G. (2024, September 26). Leadership & Well-being Working Together [Audio Podcast
Episode]. In the The Beyond Self-Care Book Club. https://www.gailmarkin.ca/podcast/beyond-self-care-3-ep6

Korengay, S. (2023, August). 10 questions with Jennie Weiner about Advancing Women in K-12 Administration. UConn Today. https://today.uconn.edu/2023/08/10-questions-with-jennie-weiner-about-advancing-women-in-k-12-administration/

Weiner, J. (2023, March). Increasing Female Representation in School Leadership. Principal
Leadership Magazine. https://www.nassp.org/publication/principal-leadership/volume-23-20222023/principal-leadership-march-2023/fit-to-learn-march-2023?

Selected Publications/Presentations:

Broderick, R. & Weiner, J. (2026). From urgency to agency: Urban principals and the work of learning-centered leadership. School Leadership and Management [Online First]

Weiner, J. M. (2026). Guest Editorial: At the margins no more: centering women in K-12 leadership. Journal of Educational Administration, 64 (2), 125-130.

Weiner, J. M., & Bouffard, E. (2026). Inside the labyrinth: The effects of feminization on women assistant heads’ well-being. Education Sciences, 16(3), 432. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16030432

Lamb, A. & Weiner, J. (2026). The logics of educational technology in schools. American Journal of Education, 132 (3), 373–400.

Weiner, J., Holder, S. & Strickland, T. (2025). How whiteness shapes leaders’ understanding and actions regarding racially diversifying the teacher pipeline. Excellence & Equity in Education, 1-15.

 Weiner, J. M., Donaldson, M. L., & Strickland, T. (2024). Structural stasis: Considering education leaders’ efforts to racially diversify the teaching force. American Journal of Education, 131(1), 1-28.

 Devona, K & Weiner, J. (2024). Day camp leadership: Women’s experiences with gender bias, inequity, and double binds. Journal of Experiential Education, 47(2), 218-237.

 Anderson, E. & Weiner, J. (2023). Managing up, down, and outwards: Principals as boundary spanners during the COVID-19 crisis. School Leadership and Management, 43(4), 411-429.

Weiner, J., Garrett-Walker, W., Strickland, T., & Burton, L. (2022). Reifying discrimination on the path to school leadership: Black female principals’ experiences of district hiring/promotion practices. Frontiers in Education (7).

Francois, C. & Weiner, J. (2022). Internal, moral, and market accountability: Leading urban schools during the Covid-19 pandemic. Urban Education, 59(8), 2300-2331.

Stone-Johnson, C. & Weiner, J. (2022). Theorizing school leadership as a profession: A qualitative exploration of the work of school leaders. Journal of Educational Administration, 60 (4), 386-402.

Kim, T. & Weiner, J. (2022). Negotiating incomplete autonomy: Portraits from three school principals. Education Administration Quarterly. 58(3), 487-521.

Cyr, D., Weiner, J. & Woulfin, S. (2022). Logics and the orbit of parent engagement. The School Community Journal.  

 Golden, M., Holder, S., Anagnostopoulos, D., & Weiner, J. (2022). Who’s missing from school choice research? Journal of African American Women and Girls in Education.  

 Weiner, J., Cyr, D., & Burton, L. (2021). A Study of Black female principals leading through twin pandemics. Journal of Education Human Resources, 40(3), 335-359.

 Lamb, A & Weiner, J.  (2021). Technology as infrastructure for change: District leader understandings of 1:1 educational technology initiatives and educational change. Journal of Educational Administration, 59(3), 335-351.

Cyr, D., Weiner, J. & Burton, L. (2021). “I want to speak to a white person”: Daily microaggressions and resilient leadership. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 24(4), 60-73.

Weiner, J., Francois, C. Stone-Johnson, & Childs, J. (2021) Keep safe, keep learning:  principals’ role in creating psychological safety and organizational learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Education (7).  https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2020.618483

 Elliot Major, L. & Weiner, J. (2021). Rethinking social mobility in education: Looking through the lens of professional capital. Journal of Professional Capital and Community, 6(4), 301-317.

Higgins, M., Riza, S., Weiner, J. & Liu, H. (2020). When is psychological safety helpful? A longitudinal study. Academy of Management Discoveries, 8(1), 77-102.

Connery, C. & Weiner, J. (2020). Teachers making sense of undocumented students’ lived experiences and pertinent policy: A critical perspective. Teaching and Teacher Education, 98, 103232.

Virella, P. & Weiner, J. (2020). “The network runs the schools”: From a loose to tightly coupled school district. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 23(4), 47-61.

Stone-Johnson, C. & Weiner, J.M., (2020). Principal Professionalism in the Time of COVID-19. Journal of Professional Capital and Community, 5(3/4), 367-374.

 Burton L., Cyr D., & Weiner, J. (2020). “Unbroken, but bent”: Gendered racism in school leadership. Frontiers in Education.

Weiner, J. & Lamb A. (2020). Exploring the possibilities and limits to transfer and learning: Examining a teacher leadership initiative using the theory of action framework. Journal of Educational Change. 21 (2), 267-297.

Weiner, J. (2020). From new to nuanced: (Re)Considering educator professionalism and its impacts. Journal of Educational Change. 21 (3), 443-454.

Montrosse-Moorhead, B., Dougherty, S. M., La Salle, T. P., Weiner, J. M., & Dostal, H. M. (2020). Datasets from an impact evaluation of a targeted prekindergarten program. Data in brief, 28, 104881.