GUNTER Helen

University of Manchester ,UK .

School leadership: the managerial restructuring of school organisation

This paper will draw on research evidence and theorising from two projects: Knowledge Production in Educational Leadership (KPEL) Project (ESRC RES-000-23-1192) and Distributed Leadership and the social practices of school organisation in England Project (ESRC RES-000-22-3610). My specific focus will examine knowledge production and the rapid growth of school leadership during the New Labour governments (1997 – 2010), and in doing so I will examine: first, the dominance of a leadership of schools strategy based on the elite determination of professional practice; second, the emergence of institutionalised governance as the interplay between state institutions (based on the legitimacy of the mandate) with individuals and networks of expert knowers who scope the terrain and provide the necessary knowledge and knowing for the effective local leadership of reforms; third, how regimes of practice operate within this space in order to exchange capitals; and fourth, how educational professionals in schools are positioned and seek to position identity and practice within all this activity. I intend to contribute to the debate about the place of sociological enquiry and analysis through examining: Who controls the research agenda? How can knowledge production be examined and theorised?