RESEARCHING PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHIES OF EDUCATIONAL PROFESSIONALS INNEWDARK TIMES

Abstract

Education reform under the modernisation agenda both in England and internationally has signified the restoration of the 'private' and the decline of 'public' education. Deploying Arendtian thinking on assimilation and identity, we argue that these ongoing reforms are indeed dark times for education professionals. We examine what 'new dark times' mean for those in leader roles in schools and organisations that are contracted to deliver, such as a multi academy trust (MAT). Based on a year-long research project which focussed on a multi academy trust in England, the article reports on the position and practice of the CEO, KT Edwards in these new dark times. We conclude that the emerging CEO position is being defined through individual positioning, a repudiation of the past and the assimilation into the private realm of non-education dark times.

‘A less unpalatable alternative’: Executive leaders strategically redefining their work in primary MATs

“…Charlotte could have highlighted her capacity to perform without local authority support; instead, she chose to foreground how keenly she felt the loss of local authority structures. In doing so, Charlotte not only took on the position of 'complaining' (Hughes et al, 2019), but strategically redefined how a successful academy leader could talk and behave.…”

“…Academisation entailed a ‘break’ (Ball, 2007: 177) from previous structures of schooling in England. This disruption opened up new identity positionings to school leaders which were complex and various, existing on a continuum from engagement to resistance (Hughes et al, 2019). The present research study has explored the identity positionings of four executive leaders based in the primary academy sector, a sector which was previously found to be resistant or ambivalent towards academisation (Coldron et al, 2014; Greany and Higham, 2018; Keddie, 2016).…”

“…For some leaders, post-2010 academisation policy required the enactment of policies which seemed antithetical to their professional identities as public servants. In response to the post-2010 dismantling of public education, school leaders assumed a range of positions from acceptance and leadership to resistance, refusal and attrition (Hughes et al, 2019). The enactment of policy is a ‘more fragile and unstable process than is sometimes imagined’ (Maguire et al, 2015: 498), and those required to enact and embody policy directives in schools do so in complex and multifaceted ways.…”

Thinking with ‘lexical’ features to reconceptualize the ‘grammar’ of schooling: Shifting the focus from school to society

“…This is because lexical features serve to support, or at least not to undermine the overarching grammar, and this grammar organises social meaning. Grammars of schooling therefore underpin careers and identities (see Hughes et al 2019 ), and constitute the field of power relations within which positions are taken, assumed and imposed (see Bourdieu 1990 ). From this perspective, the question of educational change is not so much technical as ethical and power-laden.…”

System leadership as depoliticisation: Reconceptualising educational leadership in a new multi-academy trust

“…Our project contributes to a small body of research that focuses on system leadership rather than system leaders. Our data are drawn from interviews with actors constructed as leaders at all senior levels within a single, new multi-academy trust (MAT), and so complements and builds on important research focusing primarily on the MAT chief executive officer (CEO) (Hughes, 2019;Hughes et al, 2020) or on the relationship between system and other leaders (Cousin, 2019). The MAT structure is presently the site and producer of a form of system leadership most privileged through policy in England, which is a nation recognised as a laboratory and international exporter of education reform (Finkelstein and Grubb, 2000;Gunter, 2015b).…”