Thinking Management and Leadership within Colleges and Schools Somewhat Differently: A Practice-based, Actor-Network Theory Perspective

Abstract

This article examines the significance of materiality for management and leadership in education using resources provided by actor—network theory (ANT). Espousing the idea that human interactions are mediated by material objects and that these objects participate in the production of practices, ANT affords thinking management and leadership in a somewhat different way. Drawing on empirical data collected over the course of examining management and leadership in vocational education institutions in Australia and innovation and change in Australian schools, it is argued that educational management is primarily to be seen not in terms of the intrinsic capabilities or potentialities of managers and leaders but rather enactments of management. It can, with profit, be conceptualized as a field of practices constituted and enacted contingently by people and objects in complex networks. Moving educational management from individual attribute to contingent enactment makes it possible to study its specific workings including how it operates to produce, and also challenge, the generalizing logics of market and economism that characterize contemporary education (Ball, 2007). It makes visible mundane and material forms of power that frequently go unrecognized yet can serve crucially to make this challenge.

Perspectives on academic staff involvement in the acquisition and implementation of educational technologies

“…Indeed, ANT seems to strike a chord among those scholars that are interested in eliciting the "messiness" of academic experience, especially as it contrasts with the "official story", embedded for example in workload allocation systems (Malcolm and Zukas 2009). ANT-informed studies are no longer a rarity within the field of education, and their focus areas span from literacy (Edwards, Ivanic, and Mannion 2009) to educational policy (Decuypere, Simons, and Masschelein 2011) and academic management (Mulcahy and Perillo 2011). The study described in this article may be situated at the intersection of management-oriented educational research and pedagogy-oriented research, as it deals with issues related to the daily practices of academic staff in a Higher Education setting.…”

Lecturers’ Leadership Practices and Their Impact On Students’ Experiences of Participation with Implications for Marketing Higher Education Services

“…This implies that lecturers who are accessible and provide teaching and learning materials and deliver high quality lectures to students positively influenced them towards achieving their academic goals. Mulcahy and Perillo (2011) found that action based management perspective impacted positively on educational management and improved staff and students' participation. By action based management perspective, the study means the proactive nature of an institution's policy on teaching and learning.…”

Pedagogical Issues in Vocational Teachers’ Learning: The Importance of Teacher Development

“…The debate however, is not solely concerned with structure/agency dichotomies but also concerned with networks. Mulcahy and Perillo (2010) remind that agency is distributed across various entities. Vocational teachers are influenced by the networks where vocational knowledge and skills are enacted into being, where they network with the tools, ideas and mores of the vocational area and it is to these particular networks that we now turn.…”