The uses and abuses of power: teaching school leadership through children's literature

Abstract

There are relatively few studies of how representations of teachers, schools and educational administrators in popular films and television might be, and are, used in leadership preparation. This paper seeks to add to this small body of work; it reports on an exploratory study of the representation of headteachers in contemporary children's fiction. Thirty-one texts are analysed to ascertain key themes and the major characterisations. The paper draws on children's literature scholars to argue that both the historical school story and its contemporary counterpart focus heavily on the power of the head to control the micro-world of the school. Because these fictional accounts deal with issues of power and justice more openly than many mainstream educational administration texts, this makes them particularly useful in the preparation of potential school leaders.

Keywords:

• headteachers
• representations
• children's literature

Notes on contributor

Pat Thomson PSM PhD is Professor of Education, Director of the Centre for Advanced Studies and Director of the Centre for Research in Arts, Creativity and Literacy at The University of Nottingham. Her research interests are in creative pedagogies, school and community change; much of her current research is conducted in galleries, museums and alternative education settings. Her most recent book is Helping doctoral students write: pedagogies for supervision, with Barbara Kamler (2014, Routledge, second edition). She blogs as patter at http://patthomson.wordpress.com and tweets as @ThomsonPat