CHALLENGES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION : reconceptualising educational leadership, policy and social justice as resources for hope / edited by Jane Wilkinson, Richard Niesche and Scott Eacott.

Cover; Half Title; Series Page; Title Page; Copyright Page; Table of Contents; List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Series editors' preface; 1. Challenges for public education: Perils and possibilities for educational leadership, policy and social justice; Introduction; Perils and possibilities of public education: mapping the field; The contributions of the chapters; References; PART I: Theoretical possibilities; 2. Re-imagining leadership as a resource of and for educational practice/praxis in neoliberal times; Introduction; Schools of the Future: an autobiographical account.

Educational leadership as praxis: an initial analysisEducational leadership as praxis: an analysis for education; Discussion and conclusion; Note; References; 3. School and principal autonomy: Resisting, not manufacturing, the neoliberal subject; Introduction; School autonomy as a form of neoliberal governmentality; School principals as entrepreneurial subjects; Conclusion: spaces for resistance and social justice; Notes; References; 4. Educational leadership research and the dismantling of public education: A relational approach; The orthodoxy of systems thinking; Competing normative ends.

TrajectoriesBeyond analytical dualism; Productive theorising; Notes; References; PART II: Local/international cases: Competing practices of a school autonomy reform; 5. Competitive entrepreneurship and community empowerment: Competing practices of a school autonomy reform; Introduction; Background to the IPS initiative; Conceptualising the neoliberalisation of school governance; Regimes of principal subjectivity; The enterprising government of principals; Community empowerment and collaboration; Concluding remarks; References.

6. Exploring a school improvement initiative: Leadership and policy enactment in Queensland's Independent Public SchoolsIntroduction; Theoretical framework: how can we better understand leadership in the Queensland context?; Policy context: leading Queensland's Independent Public Schools; The evolution of a reform initiative; Critiquing this approach: can we view this initiative as leadership for social justice?; Discussion and conclusion; Notes; References; 7. Depoliticisation and education policy; Introduction; The autonomous school; The autonomous school in England; Conclusion.

AcknowledgementsReferences; 8. Oh to be in England?: The production of an un-public state system; What actually is an academy?; The success -- or not -- of structural reforms; A fragmented school system; A school system for the public; An un-public education; Notes; References; 9. Shifting logics: Education and privatisation the Swedish way; Introduction; Aim and approach; Early contexts of change; Decentralisation, privatisation and quasi-markets; Intensified marketisation and efforts to moderate its drawbacks; The new education leaders.

An accelerating pattern in Australia and internationally is the dismantling of public education systems as part of a long-standing trend towards the modernisation, marketisation and privatisation of educational provision. Responsibility for direct delivery of education services has been shifted to contracting and monitoring under the clarion call of school and leadership autonomy and parental choice. Part of this pattern is an increasing blurring of boundaries between the state and private sector, a move from government to new forms of 'strategic' governance, and from hierarchy to heterarchy. Challenges for Public Education examines the educational leadership, policy and social justice implications of these trends in Australia and internationally. It maps this movement through early shifts to school-based management in Australia, New Zealand and Sweden and recent moves such as the academies programme in England and charter schools in the United States. It draws on recent studies of a distinct new phase in Australian school reform - the creation of 'independent public schools' (IPS) in Western Australia and Queensland - and global policy moves in public education in order to provide a truly international dialogue and debate on these matters. This book moves beyond critique. It innovatively brings together Australian and international perspectives and a rich range of diverse theoretical lenses: practice philosophy, feminism, gender, relational, and postmodernism. As such, it provides a crucial forum for illuminating alternate ways to conceptualise educational leadership, policy and social justice as resources for hope.

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.