Richard Niesche – författare

Theorising Identity and Subjectivity in Educational Leadership Research brings together a range of international scholars to examine identity and subjectivities in educational leadership in new and original ways. The chapters draw on a variety of approaches in theory and method to demonstrate the important new developments in understanding identity and subjectivity beyond the traditional ways of understanding and thinking about identity in the field of educational leadership.

The book highlights empirical, theoretical and conceptual research that offers new ways of thinking about the work of educational leaders. The authors take critical approaches to exploring the influences of gender, race, sexuality, class, power and discourse on the identity and subjectivity formation of educational leaders. It provides global perspectives on educational leadership research and researchers and offer exciting new approaches to theorising and researching these issues.

This book will appeal to researchers, students, and professionals working in the fields of educational leadership and sociology, and the chapters within offer readers new perspectives in understanding educational leaders, their work and their identities.

Theorising Identity and Subjectivity in Educational Leadership Research brings together a range of international scholars to examine identity and subjectivities in educational leadership in new and original ways. The chapters draw on a variety of approaches in theory and method to demonstrate the important new developments in understanding identity and subjectivity beyond the traditional ways of understanding and thinking about identity in the field of educational leadership.

The book highlights empirical, theoretical and conceptual research that offers new ways of thinking about the work of educational leaders. The authors take critical approaches to exploring the influences of gender, race, sexuality, class, power and discourse on the identity and subjectivity formation of educational leaders. It provides global perspectives on educational leadership research and researchers and offer exciting new approaches to theorising and researching these issues.

This book will appeal to researchers, students, and professionals working in the fields of educational leadership and sociology, and the chapters within offer readers new perspectives in understanding educational leaders, their work and their identities.

An accelerating pattern in Australia and internationally is the dismantling of public education systems as part of a long-standing trend towards the modernisation, marketisation and privatisation of educational provision. Responsibility for direct delivery of education services has been shifted to contracting and monitoring under the clarion call of school and leadership autonomy and parental choice. Part of this pattern is an increasing blurring of boundaries between the state and private sector, a move from government to new forms of ‘strategic’ governance, and from hierarchy to heterarchy.

Challenges for Public Education examines the educational leadership, policy and social justice implications of these trends in Australia and internationally. It maps this movement through early shifts to school-based management in Australia, New Zealand and Sweden and recent moves such as the academies programme in England and charter schools in the United States. It draws on recent studies of a distinct new phase in Australian school reform – the creation of ‘independent public schools’ (IPS) in Western Australia and Queensland – and global policy moves in public education in order to provide a truly international dialogue and debate on these matters.

This book moves beyond critique. It innovatively brings together Australian and international perspectives and a rich range of diverse theoretical lenses: practice philosophy, feminism, gender, relational, and postmodernism. As such, it provides a crucial forum for illuminating alternate ways to conceptualise educational leadership, policy and social justice as resources for hope.

An accelerating pattern in Australia and internationally is the dismantling of public education systems as part of a long-standing trend towards the modernisation, marketisation and privatisation of educational provision. Responsibility for direct delivery of education services has been shifted to contracting and monitoring under the clarion call of school and leadership autonomy and parental choice. Part of this pattern is an increasing blurring of boundaries between the state and private sector, a move from government to new forms of ‘strategic’ governance, and from hierarchy to heterarchy.

Challenges for Public Education examines the educational leadership, policy and social justice implications of these trends in Australia and internationally. It maps this movement through early shifts to school-based management in Australia, New Zealand and Sweden and recent moves such as the academies programme in England and charter schools in the United States. It draws on recent studies of a distinct new phase in Australian school reform – the creation of ‘independent public schools’ (IPS) in Western Australia and Queensland – and global policy moves in public education in order to provide a truly international dialogue and debate on these matters.

This book moves beyond critique. It innovatively brings together Australian and international perspectives and a rich range of diverse theoretical lenses: practice philosophy, feminism, gender, relational, and postmodernism. As such, it provides a crucial forum for illuminating alternate ways to conceptualise educational leadership, policy and social justice as resources for hope.

This book explores the social justice implications of school autonomy reform within the context of public education in Australia. It is situated within and framed by global concerns about how public schools are navigating their ‘autonomy’ within increasingly marketised education systems.

Drawing on extensive interviews with stakeholders and five in-depth case study schools, the book calls attention to the ways in which the intentions of school autonomy reform to offer schools more freedom to make their own decisions and manage their own responsibilities have become increasingly contained by the market imperatives of economic efficiency, competition and public accountability driving state and national education systems. We build on and enrich existing research in this area that highlights how market imperatives continue to exacerbate inequality within and between schools and their systems.

An essential read for researchers, policy makers, principals and teachers worldwide, the book provides insight into how education systems can better support public schools to mobilise their autonomy in socially just ways.

Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard constitute two of the most notable figures of poststructuralist thought and philosophy of the postmodern period. Both worked to reveal instabilities and uncertainty, and to destabilise assumptions and self-evident traditions for the purposes of reflection, creativity and innovative thinking. This significant volume explores the key concepts central to the work of Derrida and Lyotard in relation to educational leadership, and reveals how these ideas challenge existing structures, hierarchies and models of thought.

Derrida’s notions of difference and deconstruction, and Lyotard’s concepts of language games, performativity and the differend, are specifically used to inform provocative and insightful critiques of the positivist assumptions and knowledge construction in the field of educational leadership. The book provides concrete examples of the application of theories to policy, literature and empirical data, and identifies ideas which continue to impact contemporary practices of educational leadership and management.

Included in the book:

- why bring Derrida and Lyotard to ELMA?- a Lyotardian politics of the standards movement in educational leadership- managing performance- witnessing deconstructions of the leader-follower binary in ELMA- limitations and critiques of Derrida and Lyotard.

This important volume in the series will be of value to all those working and researching in the field of Educational Leadership, Management and Administration.

Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard constitute two of the most notable figures of poststructuralist thought and philosophy of the postmodern period. Both worked to reveal instabilities and uncertainty, and to destabilise assumptions and self-evident traditions for the purposes of reflection, creativity and innovative thinking. This significant volume explores the key concepts central to the work of Derrida and Lyotard in relation to educational leadership, and reveals how these ideas challenge existing structures, hierarchies and models of thought.

Derrida’s notions of difference and deconstruction, and Lyotard’s concepts of language games, performativity and the differend, are specifically used to inform provocative and insightful critiques of the positivist assumptions and knowledge construction in the field of educational leadership. The book provides concrete examples of the application of theories to policy, literature and empirical data, and identifies ideas which continue to impact contemporary practices of educational leadership and management.

Included in the book:

- why bring Derrida and Lyotard to ELMA?- a Lyotardian politics of the standards movement in educational leadership- managing performance- witnessing deconstructions of the leader-follower binary in ELMA- limitations and critiques of Derrida and Lyotard.

This important volume in the series will be of value to all those working and researching in the field of Educational Leadership, Management and Administration.

School principals are increasingly working in an environment of work intensification, high stakes testing, accountability pressures and increased managerialism. Rather than searching for the latest leadership fad or best practice model, this book suggests that in order to better understand these pressures, the work of educational leadership requires more sophisticated theorisation of these practices. In so doing, the book draws upon the work of Michel Foucault to provoke new thought into how the principalship is lived and ‘disciplined’ in ways that produce both contradictions and tensions for school principals. Amidst claims of a shortage of applicants for principal positions in a number of Western countries, what is required are more sophisticated and nuanced tools with which to understand the pressures and constraints that face principals in their work on a daily basis. This book provides a powerful example of theory working through practice to move beyond traditional approaches to school leadership.

Key features of the book:

The book will be of significant interest to principals and those working and researching in educational leadership, including researchers in the field and academics who teach into educational leadership and administration courses. The book will also be of great interest to those working with the ideas of Foucault in education.

School principals are increasingly working in an environment of work intensification, high stakes testing, accountability pressures and increased managerialism. Rather than searching for the latest leadership fad or best practice model, this book suggests that in order to better understand these pressures, the work of educational leadership requires more sophisticated theorisation of these practices. In so doing, the book draws upon the work of Michel Foucault to provoke new thought into how the principalship is lived and ‘disciplined’ in ways that produce both contradictions and tensions for school principals. Amidst claims of a shortage of applicants for principal positions in a number of Western countries, what is required are more sophisticated and nuanced tools with which to understand the pressures and constraints that face principals in their work on a daily basis. This book provides a powerful example of theory working through practice to move beyond traditional approaches to school leadership.

Key features of the book:

The book will be of significant interest to principals and those working and researching in educational leadership, including researchers in the field and academics who teach into educational leadership and administration courses. The book will also be of great interest to those working with the ideas of Foucault in education.

Issues of social justice and equity in the field of educational leadership have become more salient in recent years. The unprecedented diversity, uncertainty and rapid social change of the contemporary global era are generating new and unfamiliar equity questions and challenges for schools and their leaders. In order to understand the moral and ethical complexity of work undertaken in the name of social justice and equity in diverse contexts, this book uses a range of different theoretical tools from the work of Michel Foucault. Rather than a prescriptive, best practice approach to leadership and social justice, this book draws on Foucault’s four-fold ethical framework, and specifically, the notions of advocacy, truth-telling and counter-conduct to critically examine the leadership work undertaken in case studies in schools in Australia and England.

Our approach makes transparent the ethical work that leaders in these contexts conduct on themselves towards creating schools that can address the equity challenges of the present climate. It illuminates and enables critical analysis of the moral imperatives shaping the equity work of school leaders and, in particular, the possibilities for transformative leadership that can work to create schools and school systems that are more socially just.

Overall, the book’s key aims are to:

Issues of social justice and equity in the field of educational leadership have become more salient in recent years. The unprecedented diversity, uncertainty and rapid social change of the contemporary global era are generating new and unfamiliar equity questions and challenges for schools and their leaders. In order to understand the moral and ethical complexity of work undertaken in the name of social justice and equity in diverse contexts, this book uses a range of different theoretical tools from the work of Michel Foucault. Rather than a prescriptive, best practice approach to leadership and social justice, this book draws on Foucault’s four-fold ethical framework, and specifically, the notions of advocacy, truth-telling and counter-conduct to critically examine the leadership work undertaken in case studies in schools in Australia and England.

Our approach makes transparent the ethical work that leaders in these contexts conduct on themselves towards creating schools that can address the equity challenges of the present climate. It illuminates and enables critical analysis of the moral imperatives shaping the equity work of school leaders and, in particular, the possibilities for transformative leadership that can work to create schools and school systems that are more socially just.

Overall, the book’s key aims are to: