Leadership, New Public Management and the re-modelling and regulation of teacher identities

Abstract

This article examines the rapidly shifting relationship between teachers and the state and efforts to re-model teacher identities within the wider context of public sector modernization and the New Public Management. The construction and development of officially authorized and normative discursive practices relating to leadership and the accompanying potential for the socio-ideological control of teachers are examined within a shifting social, cultural and political environments. Our interruption as critical leadership researchers is through a focus upon identity theory and how it reveals the ways in which normative discursive leadership practices operate and act as a form of identity work inscribing upon and working their way into the professional lives of teachers.

Acknowledgements

The authors of this paper would like to thank the Economic and Social Research Council for supporting the research reported upon in this paper (RES-000-22-3610). In addition, we would like to thank the Project Advisory Group and those working within schools participating in the SPSO research who were so generous in giving up their time and energy.

Notes

1. This data-set uses the Indices of Deprivation 2007, which provide a range of information including detailed breakdowns for small areas (Super Output Areas [SOAs]) and aggregate summary statistics. In each case, the SOA with a rank of 1 is the most deprived area and the area with a rank of 32,482 is the least deprived.

2. OFSTED – Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. It is the inspection and regulatory body for schools in England.