Session Information
26 SES 05 A, Leadership Development and Preparation
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper aims to illustrate how leadership preparation could be re-conceptualised as a form of governmentality through which the population of headteachers can be manageable, governable and administrable. This research mainly draws upon a case study in Taiwan, investigating a newly developed preparation approach, namely - aspiring headteachers' Administrative Placement (abbreviated as the AP) in local educational authorities. Although it is based on the case of an Asia country, through a Foucauldian analysis its implication would be international. It adopts a critical leadership approach in education to problematise the rationale and the assumptions of this leadership preparation approach.
A critical leadership approach can be easily distinguished from the 'consensual paradigms' of functionalist and constructivist approaches (Hartley, 2010; Simkins, 2012) which views leadership preparation programmes as intrinsically rational, progressive, and then seek for 'best practices' for leaders and 'best pedagogies' for leadership developing (Browne-Ferrigno, 2003; Darling-Hammond, LaPointe, Meyerson, Orr, & Cohen, 2007; Leithwood & Levin, 2005; Kenneth Leithwood, Harris, & Hopkins, 2008; Walker, Bryant, & Lee, 2013). Both functionalist and constructivist approaches could be also critically viewed as 'reflecting compliance with a normative construction of leadership' (Lumby, 2014, p. 310). However, the critical leadership approach pays more attention to power issues, injustices, and changing discourses of leadership within preparation programmes so as to challenge the normative social order (Gunter, 2001; Gunter & Ribbins, 2003; Hartley, 2010). This critical approach has been increasingly, although slowly, adopted in the field of leadership preparation studies, particularly those critical writings drawing upon theories of post-structuralists (Niesche & Gowlett, 2014). One of the most significant figures is Michel Foucault. For example, both Niesche (2011) and Gillies (2013) argue that Foucault's notions of governmentality and discipline have particular fruitfulness for the analysis of leadership and leadership preparation. In order to challenge the mainstream assumption of preparation programmes, this research follows their suggestions of conducting a Foucauldian research. It explores the work practices of aspiring headteachers in the AP through a number of Foucauldian conceptual lenses to demonstrate the ways that these aspiring headteachers are constituted as new subjects.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Browne-Ferrigno, Tricia. (2003). Becoming a Principal: Role Conception, Initial Socialization, Role-Identity Transformation, Purposeful Engagement. Educational Administration Quarterly, 39(4), 468-503. doi: 10.1177/0013161x03255561 Bush, T. (2008). Leadership and management development in education. London: Sage Darling-Hammond, Linda, LaPointe, Michelle, Meyerson, Debra, Orr, Margaret Terry, & Cohen, Carol. (2007). Preparing School Leaders for a changing World: Lessons from Exemplary Leadership Development Programs: Stanford University: Stanford Educational Leadership Institute. Gillies, Donald. (2013). Educational Leadership and Michel Foucault. Oxon: Routledge. Gunter, Helen. (2001). Critical approaches to leadership in education. The Journal of Educational Enquiry, 2(2). Gunter, Helen, & Ribbins, Peter. (2003). Challenging Orthodoxy in School Leadership Studies: Knowers, knowing and knowledge? School Leadership & Management, 23(2), 129-147. doi: 10.1080/1363243032000091922 Hallinger, Philip (Ed.). (2003). Reshaping the landscape of school leadership development: A global perspective. The Netherlands: CRC Press. Hartley, David. (2010). Paradigms: How Far Does Research in Distributed Leadership ‘Stretch’? Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 38(3), 271-285. doi: 10.1177/1741143209359716 Huber, Stephan Gerhard. (2004). Preparing school leaders for the 21st century: An International Comparison of Development Programs in 15 Countries. London: Routledge. Leithwood, K., & Levin, B. (2005). Assessing School Leader and Leadership Programme Effects on Pupil Learning: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges (D. f. E. a. Skills, Trans.). Nottingham: DfES Publications. Leithwood, Kenneth, Harris, Alma, & Hopkins, David. (2008). Seven strong claims about successful school leadership. School leadership and management, 28(1), 27-42. Lumby, Jacky. (2014). Leadership preparation: engine of transformation or social reproduction? Journal of Educational Administration and History, 46(3), 306-325. doi: 10.1080/00220620.2014.919901 Niesche, Richard. (2011). Foucault and Educational Leadership: discipling the principal. Oxon: Routledge. Niesche, Richard, & Gowlett, Christina. (2014). Advocating a Post-structuralist Politics for Educational Leadership. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1-15. doi: 10.1080/00131857.2014.976930 Simkins, Tim. (2012). Understanding School Leadership and Management Development in England: Retrospect and Prospect. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 40(5), 621-640. doi: 10.1177/1741143212451172 Walker, Allan, Bryant, Darren, & Lee, Moosung. (2013). International patterns in principal preparation: Commonalities and variations in pre-service programmes. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(4), 405-434. Yin, R.K. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods (4 ed. Vol. 5): Sage publications, INC.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.