The ‘Crucified’ Leader: Cynicism, Fantasies and Paradoxes in Education

Hansen, Dion Rüsselbæk; Frederiksen, Lars Frode

doi:10.1007/s11217-016-9539-y

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Within the neoliberal state, teacher agency matters but only as long as teachers use it to make decisions in the "right," controlled, and expected way (Courtney & Gunther, 2015;Masschelein & Simons, 2013;Taubman, 2009). This paradox reflects what might be called governance from a distance (Rüsselbaek Hansen & Frederiksen, 2017). It also reflects an eclipse of those complex inter-and intrasubjective "realities" within which education comes into being.…”

Section: Taking Agency For Granted In Teacher Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reclaiming Agency and Appreciating Limits in Teacher Education: Existential, Ethical, and Psychoanalytical Readings

Phelan

Hansen

2019

mje

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A basic premise of teacher education is the value of teacher agency, that is, the teacher’s capacity to take responsibility for one’s knowledge, beliefs, judgements, and relationships. How can teacher educators sustain a commitment to agency in light of critiques of western modernity, specifically in relation to the existence of a rational autonomous subject, the erasure of history, and the opacity of language? Drawing on existentialism, ethics, and psychoanalysis, we discuss three practicum vignettes to illustrate what we are calling “the chiastic complexity” of agency within the field of teacher education. We argue that admission of the limits of teacher agency may be the source of ethical insight, educational opportunity, and political resistance for student teachers and teacher educators.

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Section: Taking Agency For Granted In Teacher Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reclaiming Agency and Appreciating Limits in Teacher Education: Existential, Ethical, and Psychoanalytical Readings

Phelan

Hansen

2019

mje

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“…Thus, school leadership cannot be perceived as an unambiguous, given entity. With respect to school leaders and the understanding of school leadership, there are competing and sometimes contradictory discourses (Rüsselbaek Hansen & Frederiksen, 2017).…”

Section: School Leadershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leaders of the profession and professional leaders. School leaders making sense of themselves and their jobs

Bøje

Frederiksen

2019

International Journal of Leadership in Education

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In most of the Western world, high expectations of educational leadership exist. School leaders are regarded as important actors in the implementation of reforms, which are occurring at an increasing pace. Furthermore, they are regarded as professionals who can make judgments on behalf of their pupils, teachers, and schools. However, becoming a school leader is an underexposed process that typically involves a departure from one's previous professional identity as a teacher. In this article, we study this process by analysing qualitative interviews that were conducted with three school leaders in the Danish primary public school (Folkeskole): a young member, a middle-aged member, and a senior member. Our point of departure is Bourdieu's theory of habitus, as well as narrative theory. We find that all school leaders construct professional identities in continuation of their teacher identities but that these differ along the lines of what we refer to as professional leaders and leaders of the profession.

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“…Even if the existing research on the topic is rich and well developed (for example, Clarke, 2012;Richardson, 1997;Taylor, 2005;Van Thiel and Leeuw, 2002), the qualitative consequences of the present reform frenzy are underexposed. This is partly due to the fact that the reform processes are still going on at a more rapid pace than ever before (Rosa, 2010), and they are being struggled over, negotiated, managed and handled every day by the implicated parties -not least by welfare professionals and their leaders (Ru¨sselbaek Hansen and Frederiksen, 2016). Thus, rather than attempting to study what the consequences of the modernization of welfare work have been, we look at the modernization process as it takes place in two carefully chosen examples: upper secondary schools and vocational educational training in Denmark.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ‘strong’ state and the ‘soft’ market in educational reform processes: Management philosophies and their consequences

Hansen¹,

Bøje²

2017

Power and Education

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In contemporary western society, welfare work in general, particularly in education, has been struck by an endless series of policy reforms, discourses and technologies. These have consequences not only for the production of professional identity, but also for the way educational tasks are understood and handled. Inspired by the work of post-structuralist thinkers such as Foucault, Rose, Ball, Alvesson and Willmott, and the psychoanalytical thinker Ž ižek, the authors describe some of these consequences by analysing two examples which stem from the Danish educational context: upper secondary schools and vocational educational training. The first example shows how a 'strong' state logic results in a focus on numbers, which leads to a form of cynical leadership and an undermining of teachers' professional judgment. The second example shows how leaders and teachers in a vocational training school, with help from critical utopian action researchers, seek to innovate their practices in accordance with 'soft' market logic. As a consequence, teachers' professionalism is 'hijacked' by a new form of organizational professionalism.

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The ‘Crucified’ Leader: Cynicism, Fantasies and Paradoxes in Education

Cited by 6 publications

References 27 publications

Reclaiming Agency and Appreciating Limits in Teacher Education: Existential, Ethical, and Psychoanalytical Readings

Reclaiming Agency and Appreciating Limits in Teacher Education: Existential, Ethical, and Psychoanalytical Readings

Leaders of the profession and professional leaders. School leaders making sense of themselves and their jobs

The ‘strong’ state and the ‘soft’ market in educational reform processes: Management philosophies and their consequences

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