Performing and Reforming Leaders

Jill Blackmore is Professor in Education at Deakin University. She is the author of Troubling Women: Feminism, Leadership, and Educational Change and the coeditor (with Jane Kenway) of Gender Matters in Educational Administration and Policy: A Feminist Introduction. Judyth Sachs is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching) at the University of Sydney. She is the author of The Activist Teaching Profession and the coeditor (with Lloyd Logan) of Meeting the Challenges of Primary Schooling.

"…Performing and Reforming Leaders is an insightful, well-researched and timely piece that explores the paradoxical corporate worlds which women leaders inhabit. It is a relevant book for anyone who has an interest in education, gender and organisations." — The Australian Educational Researcher"This book breaks new ground for scholars interested in critical and postmodern feminism in educational leadership. It is refreshing to read about women leaders' experiences in trying times and also to see them positioned as having agency and as appropriating contemporary political discourses to advance their own agendas." — Linda Skrla, coeditor of Reconsidering Feminist Research in Educational Leadership

• AcknowledgementsAbbreviations Introduction: "Living at the Crossroads" Educational RestructuringSituating the StudyStructuring the TextPositioning Ourselves 1. Risky Times for Women Leaders So What Is the Problem Here?Gender, Restructuring, and Educational OrganizationsAmbivalence, Ambiguity, and ContradictionSome Theoretical DispositionsProfessional Discourses, Institutional Metanarratives, and Work IdentityPerformativity and Passion 2. Restructuring Education Globalization and the Performative StateTraveling PoliciesAustralian Education RestructuredThe Strategies of CorporatizationLevel Playing Field? ‘Quasimarkets’ Structuring OpportunitiesHybrid ManagerialismCultural Restructuring and the "Renorming" of Education 3. Gender Restructuring: Toxic, Volatile, and Greedy Organizations The UpsidesThe DownsidesWorking Harder: Labor IntensificationWorking Flexibly: Casualizing Educational LaborWorking "Smarter"? Toxic and Volatile CulturesGreedy Organizations: Privatizing WorkWeary, Worried, and Worn Out 4. "Lived Contradictions": Gender, Professionalism, and the Crisis of Trust Professionalism Made OverThe Undoing of Education ProfessionalismTeaching: Democratic or Management Professionalism?Academics: Professional Experts and/or Public Intellectuals?Training: Entrepreneurial or Just Pragmatic? Cross-sectoral Patterns, Trends, and Local Gender Politics 5. Giving an Account: Performing Work and Working to Perform The Performative State and Organizational PerformativityPerformativity RulesRehearsing the PerformanceReforming to Perform through Accountability"Real" WorkContested AccountabilityLogics of Practice: Anorexic Organizations Living on Audits 6. Accidental Leaders: Acting Out and Acting Up Leadership and the Discourse of ReformLeadership HabitusOften "Accidental," Sometimes "Reluctant," but Forever "Acting" LeadersOpening and Closing Windows of OpportunityMoving up the Ladder: A Matter of Commitment?Learning Leadership through Doing"Feeling Different": Issues of Representation and Re-presentationReflexivity: Making Mistakes and Practical Action 7. Managing the Self: The Consuming Passions of Performing and Reforming Leadership Restructuring LeadershipManaging Leaders or Leading Managers?Context and the Construction of the Self-as-LeaderEducation as Passionate WorkPurposive LeadershipPower/AuthorityPerformance and Managing the "Embodied" Public SelfLeadership as Relational and Ethical Work 8. Caught between Acts: Middle Managers Mediating Change Up and Down People Management: Solution or Problem?"Responsibilization" and the Dispersal of Management WorkPositions, Perspectives, and PossibilitiesNew Modes of GovernanceBuffering ChangeResistance, Investment, and Identity"Just Getting Things Done": The Dangers of Practical Rationality 9. The Managerial Dilemma: The Counterintuitive Impulses of Performativity and Passion Doing Well and Doing GoodThe Sociopsychic Economy The Emotional Management Work of ChangeManaging the Sociopsychic EconomyCompliance and CompromiseA Crisis in Meaning 10. Progression and Regression: Managing Diversity, Equity, and Equal Opportunity Restructuring Equal Opportunity: The Legacies of Gender Equity ReformPolicy Shift: From Equal Opportunity to Managing DiversityPromoting WomenEquity Discourses: Strategic, Symbolic, and InterventionistBacklash PoliticsUnderstanding Gender ReformBeyond the "Body Count" 11. Conclusion: Separation, Transition, and Incorporation? Equity as the Touchstone: What "State" Are We in Now?Paradoxical Restructuring Yet Again in the "New Millenium"Lifelong Learning or a Revitalized Vocational/Academic Divide?Restructuring, Organizational Change, and the Renorming of EducationGender as a Useful Analytic FocusLeading and Managing for Social Justice, Not Just Working Harder and Smarter Notes References About the Authors Index