Freedom to What Ends?— School Autonomy in Neoliberal Times

Niesche, Richard; Thomson, Pat

doi:10.1002/9781118956717.ch11

Cited by 17 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Given that the devolution of decision making within the two Australian states examined relates primarily to staffing and budgetary issues, rather than curriculum and assessment, new and intensive forms of managerialism have emerged (Niesche and Thomson, 2017). As Connell (2013) has noted, Principals and deputy principals are being reshaped in the neo liberal imagination as a managerial class.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Principals’ support for teachers’ working conditions in devolved school settings: Insights from two Australian States

McGrath‐Champ¹,

Stacey²,

Wilson³

et al. 2017

Educational Management Administration & Leadership

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Shifts in schooling policy have had substantial impact upon the role of principals as well as the relationship that principals have with their teaching staff. In this paper we report on the initiatives 30 principals in a diverse range of devolved Australian government schools adopt to shape and support the local, school-level working conditions of teachers. Surprisingly, principals were commonly unable to articulate -or even respond to -this matter. More commonly principals reported being oriented to lifting capability through a focus on student outcomes, a focus that is consistent with much of the devolution and autonomy rhetoric. Of those who could respond regarding working conditions, dispositions of paternalistic 'care', basic distributive actions or even a lack of influence or control were reported, and clear spatial and social dimensions accompanied these patterns. Given that devolution has recently created new responsibilities for principals in Australian government schools, including in relation to staff, this finding is understandable but none the less holds substantial implications and raises questions about the managerial capacity needed for schools to be sustainable, positive workplaces.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Principals’ support for teachers’ working conditions in devolved school settings: Insights from two Australian States

McGrath‐Champ¹,

Stacey²,

Wilson³

et al. 2017

Educational Management Administration & Leadership

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“…The argument is that principals cannot possibly do the work themselves (Thomson and Blackmore, 2006) and therefore need to ‘distribute’ leadership/work to others within the school context. However, with the accountability and performativity of school principals attached to school autonomy reforms (Gobby et al, 2017; Heffernan, 2019), this has been a difficult balance and tension for school principals to manage and overcome (Dolan, 2020; Gunter, 2012; Niesche and Thomson, 2017; Thomson, 2009). These factors are playing a significant role in the issues principals face around workload, stress and anxiety that in turn come through in both existing research and in the participants’ interviews examined in this paper.…”

Section: Autonomy and School Principals In The Australian Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This certainly needs further exploration as to whether it is the experience level of the principal, career stage, personal characteristics, school context-specific issues or other factors that influence how principals engage with particular issues. Then, there is also the issue of political nous, advocacy leadership or acumen as playing a role in principals' resistance (Anderson, 2009;Niesche and Keddie, 2016). This idea then disrupts the argument that experience, and career stage are simply determinants of 'ability' or confidence to resist.…”

Section: Workload Health and Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and educational leadership

Niesche¹,

Eacott²,

Keddie³

et al. 2021

Educational Management Administration & Leadership

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This paper examines principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and leadership as part of a 3-year research project looking at the implications of school autonomy on social justice across four states of Australia (Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland). Drawing on interviews with principals and representatives from principal stakeholder organisations in these four state jurisdictions, the paper identifies a number of key issues for school principals and the implications for understandings and practices of educational leadership. These include varied understandings of autonomy, practices of leadership and implications for health, workload and well-being. The paper argues that while principals have mixed perceptions of school autonomy policies, there has been a narrowing of leadership experiences by principals in the form of managerialism and compliance. Furthermore, principals continue to experience high levels of workload, and some principals, depending on career stage and experience level, feel better able to work within and sometimes against these policies in their schools and communities. These practices are sometimes felt to be despite the system and not due to school autonomy policies themselves. The implication of these findings is that principals are inequitably able to respond to and implement school autonomy policies, an issue often glossed over in educational leadership research.

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“…The emergence of globalization of education policy has influenced establishing accountability policy agendas at the local level through transnational policy networks. For example, international organizations such as OECD and World Bank have been actively involved in transnational policy making in education by producing and disseminating a set of terminologies and discourses (Meyer, Tröhler, Labaree, & Hutt, 2014;Niesche & Thomson, 2017). Through international reports using international indicators, utilization of international testing such as PISA, and internationally organized educational conferences or summit events, transnational policy-making bodies have facilitated spreading accountability policy discourses globally and influenced policy development within nation-states (Meyer et al, 2014;Niesche & Thomson, 2017;Torrance 2006;Steiner-Khamsi, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, international organizations such as OECD and World Bank have been actively involved in transnational policy making in education by producing and disseminating a set of terminologies and discourses (Meyer, Tröhler, Labaree, & Hutt, 2014;Niesche & Thomson, 2017). Through international reports using international indicators, utilization of international testing such as PISA, and internationally organized educational conferences or summit events, transnational policy-making bodies have facilitated spreading accountability policy discourses globally and influenced policy development within nation-states (Meyer et al, 2014;Niesche & Thomson, 2017;Torrance 2006;Steiner-Khamsi, 2003). Several countries including the US, Germany, Norway, and Ireland revised their national education policies to reflect competencies often measured in the PISA framework (Labaree, 2014 ) Commenting on such phenomenon, Meyer et al (2014) stated that "accountability" on this global scale appears to be "the master rationale for education reform" (p. 2).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Logics of accountability: Cross-national patterns in school-level controls

Kim

Yun

2019

EPAA

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This paper explores multiple logics of accountability by examining patterns of control of various school functions under different accountability systems. Research has shown that accountability is a global phenomenon, but how accountability is understood and enacted is locally contextualized, which implies the existence of multiple logics of accountability in practice. By linking theoretical arguments rooted in literature to empirical evidence observed in TALIS 2013, we aim to theorize logics of accountability and then demonstrate the existence of those logics across countries. We first developed a framework of logics of accountability: control-based, professional-based, test-based, and process-based accountability. We then empirically analyzed three types of control—external, internal, and mixed control—at the school level across countries and within four content areas—assessment, human resource, curriculum, and budget—to infer how each country consistently follows a logic of accountability in their schooling practices. We found that a few countries followed a relatively pure form of control-based, professional-based, and process-based logic; however, most countries followed mixed-forms of logic. Our findings provide a systematic approach for the mapping of accountability logics across countries and suggest that more thought should be paid to how the underlying logic of accountability should manifest across these different functions.

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Freedom to What Ends?— School Autonomy in Neoliberal Times

Cited by 17 publications

References 23 publications

Principals’ support for teachers’ working conditions in devolved school settings: Insights from two Australian States

Principals’ support for teachers’ working conditions in devolved school settings: Insights from two Australian States

Principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and educational leadership

Logics of accountability: Cross-national patterns in school-level controls

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