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Abstract
The introduction of new accountabilities and techniques of government for the purposes of educational reform have created new complexities and tensions for school leadership. Policies such as the publishing of league tables in the UK, high stakes testing in the US and the introduction of the My School website in Australia are particularly significant for school principals. In this article I appeal to the work of Foucault and Deleuze to provide an alternate approach to understanding how principals are constituted as subjects through a range of practices and discourses associated with the introduction of the My School website. I specifically draw upon Foucault’s notion of governmentality and Deleuze’s notion of societies of control to provoke new lines of thought into these government practices. I argue that it is through the performative in the education system that school principals are becoming perpetually assessable subjects.
Notes
1. For a more detailed reflection by Deleuze on Foucault see Deleuze (1988, 1995). Foucault’s comments regarding Deleuze are also significant where he claims ‘Perhaps one day this century will be known as Deleuzian’ (Foucault, 1970).
2. The National Partnerships scheme refers to a program initiated by the Australian Federal Labor Government to redistribute funds to low SES schools with the aim to improve performance against test benchmarks.
3. The data used in this case study comes from a much larger research project examining how school principals enact social justice in disadvantaged contexts. The research project is still in its early stages so additional data from this school will be collected as will additional schools and principals.