Passionate Principalship: Learning from the Life Histories of School Leaders

Passionate Principalship

This book puts ‘real life’ back into the literature on school principalship. Through a life-history approach, it portrays daily life in schools as a much more messy, contested and precarious existence, where principals struggle with passionate commitment to find continuity amongst frequently changing and often conflicting policy initiatives. The book draws on comprehensive in-depth interview data with new, experienced and veteran principals in Denmark, England, Ireland and Norway. Their life stories illustrate the struggles involved in the ongoing negotiation of identities through unprecedented change. The authors lucidly argue that: • • •

•

the realities of prinicpals’ lives are much more demanding than rational linear approaches to reform suggest; a revolving-door approach to the appointment of principals is inadequate; passion is central to the lives and work of principals, but this passion needs to be rejuvenated and rekindled through opportunities for learning; there is a need for further research on the relationship between the life cycles of principals, the leadership legacies of school communities and the cycles of mandated reforms as a means of lending coherence to leadership learning and sustained and renewed leaders.

This is essential reading for principals and their professional bodies, academics and researchers, and school leaders on leadership courses internationally. Ciaran Sugrue is Senior Lecturer and Director of Postgraduate Studies in Education at St Patrick’s College, Dublin City University.

Passionate Principalship

Learning from the life histories of school leaders

Edited by Ciaran Sugrue

First published 2005 by RoutledgeFalmer 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeFalmer 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” RoutledgeFalmer is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2005 Ciaran Sugrue, selection and editorial matter; individual chapters, the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Passionate principalship : learning from the life histories of school leaders / edited by Ciaran Sugrue. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. School principals—Europe—Case studies. 2. School management and organization—Europe—Case studies. 3. Educational leadership—Europe—Case studies. I. Sugrue, Ciaran. LB2831.926.E8P37 2004 371.2'012'094—dc22 2004005948 ISBN 0-203-00591-0

Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0–415–31886–6 (Print Edition)

This book is dedicated to the principals who participated in this life history of school leaders project, and to school principals everywhere. Your continued passionate commitment to making a difference needs to be celebrated and nurtured.

Contents

Notes on contributors Foreword by Jerry Starratt Acknowledgements Critical introduction by Ivor Goodson

ix xi xiv xvi

PART I

Passionate principalship 1 Putting ‘real life’ into school leadership: connecting leadership, identities and life history

1

3

CIARAN SUGRUE

PART II

People in principalship: stories of engaged selves 2 Sustained motivation embedded in place: living with accountability and mandated change

27

29

COLIN BIOTT AND JOHN SPINDLER

3 Old metaphors, new meanings: being a woman principal

42

JORUNN MØLLER

4 Memberships and relationships in a changing context

57

LEJF MOOS

5 Creating continuity through change: comfort with uncertainty CIARAN SUGRUE

68

viii Contents PART III

Passionate principalship: learning from life histories 6 Coping with accountability: tensions between reason and emotion

87

89

JORUNN MØLLER

7 Regulation and trust: negotiating relationship

105

LEJF MOOS

8 Immediacy and distance: inter-generational professional learning

123

JOHN SPINDLER AND COLIN BIOTT

9 Being principal: leadership inside out

135

CIARAN SUGRUE

PART IV

Beyond passion in principalship

159

10 Principalship: beyond pleasure, pain and passion

161

CIARAN SUGRUE

Appendices

184

Index

205

Notes on contributors

Colin Biott recently retired as Professor of Professional Education and Development at the Northumbria University in northern England. His main interests are in practitioner research, evaluation and the impact of educational change on the lives and work of professionals. Recent projects have focused on evaluation of multi-agency approaches to supporting young children and their families, training needs of community children’s nurses, induction for newly qualified teachers and improving conditions for school leadership. In 2000, he was a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research and Continuing Education at the University of Klagenfurt, in Austria, where he co-edited a German-language volume (with Franz Rauch), School Leadership: frame conditions, demands and qualifications from an international perspective. Other books include Working and Learning Together for Change (with J. Nias) and Collaborative Learning in Classrooms and Staffrooms (with P. Easen). Jorunn Møller is Associate Professor at Department of Teacher Education and School Development, University of Oslo, where she has worked since 1995. Her professional interests are in the areas of educational administration and leadership, supervision, and school evaluation. She is accountable for and teaches the master programme in Educational Leadership at the University of Oslo, and has been involved in the design, delivery and evaluation of a broad range of in-service projects, in-service education and workshops for school principals, super-intendents and teachers. From 1998 Professor Møller has been a project leader of a national programme for school leadership, initiated by the Ministry of Education and Research in order to improve quality within in-service education for heads and deputy heads throughout the country. She was President of the Nordic Educational Research Association 1999–2001, and is engaged in several comparative research projects and international research networks. Lejf Moos is an Associate Professor of Education and Director of the Research Programme on Professional and Vocational Development

x Notes on contributors

and Leadership at the Danish University of Education, Copenhagen, Denmark. Lejf was a school teacher and a development consultant to municipal authorities before he was employed as researcher at the Danish University of Education in 1992. With colleagues he established a research centre, CLUE (Research Centre on School Leadership, School Development and School Evaluation). In 1999 he was a Visiting Professor at OISE/UT. His main research interest is in leadership in education where he is a leading member of several research projects, nationally and internationally. He has participated in the following international research projects: Effective School Leadership in a Time of Change (with John MacBeath, Kathryn Riley, Neil Dempster et al.); Nordic School Leaders Working Condition (project leader with researchers in all five Nordic countries); School Leaders Professional Identity (with Colin Biott, Newcastle; Ciaran Sugrue, Dublin; and Jorunn Moller, Oslo); and Leadership for Learning (a six-nation action research project with John MacBeath et al.). He serves on the editorial boards of Nordic Education, International Journal of Leadership in Education and The School of Tomorrow (Danish). John Spindler is Head of the School of Education and Theology at York St John College, England. His main interests are in professional learning, with particular reference to professional identity, and the use of fictional writing as a form for educational research. Recent projects in which he has been involved have focused on the experiences of newly qualified teachers, student teachers and school leaders. Ciaran Sugrue is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Postgraduate Studies in Education in the faculty of education at St Patrick’s College, Dublin City University, where he teaches graduate courses on School Leadership, Continuing Professional Development and Qualitative Research. He is a member of the editorial boards of several international journals and is General Editor of Irish Educational Studies (the journal of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland). His research interests include educational change, school leadership and continuing professional development, and he has published widely on these issues. Recently he has been a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University and at the International Center for Educational Change at OISE/UT. He has contributed to a number of Falmer/Routledge publications, most recently co-editing (with C. Day) Developing Teachers and Teaching Practice: international research perspectives. His book Complexities of Teaching: child-centred perspectives (1997) is also a Falmer publication. In 2004 he edited Curriculum and Ideology: Irish Experiences, International Perspectives (Dublin: The Liffey Press).

Foreword

The subtitle of this book suggests that readers have something to learn from the life histories of the principals we encounter here. The introductory and concluding chapters, insightfully composed with illuminating metaphors and sharp analytic frameworks by Ciaran Sugrue, certainly help to drive these lessons home. In this Foreword let me indicate some of the very valuable lessons the book taught me. Lesson 1. Having spent more years than I care to remember thinking and writing about educational leadership, the book taught me that abstract concepts and principles and theories of leadership get quickly pushed off to the side as individual human beings stride onto the stage to speak to us about their lives, their struggles, their passions working in the vineyards of education as teachers and as leaders of schools. By taking account of their upbringing, their own experience of schooling, the cultural and class influences in their homes, the gradual induction as teachers, their graduate or continuing education, we gradually come to understand how their own self-identity was forged and how that self-identity energised and shaped the teachers and then the principals they became. By understanding the story of their lives, we could understand more readily why they chose to be the kind of teacher and the kind of principal they became. We could understand their passion for the learning process, for working with youngsters, for the feeling of community within the school, and between the school and the local community. They have come to see the world of the school as a human place, where happy and conflicted emotions and feelings weigh as heavily as bureaucratic goals and objectives. They see their own human history as intertwined with the histories of the teachers and the youngsters; they are daily present to one another with the shifting moods brought on by misunderstandings among close friends, success on the daily quiz, the annoyance of a missed appointment, the extra effort of a teacher after school to talk through a problem a student was having. Their leadership embraces the daily comedies and tragedies; it doesn’t stand above them. Rather, their leadership helps students and teachers work through them.

xii Jerry Starratt

Beyond sustaining the human dramas being lived out every day in the school, these leaders have ambitions to move the learning process forward, to nudge teachers to explore more creative pedagogies, to involve parents more consistently in supporting the learning of their children. That work requires delicate and consistent negotiation. Unlike the studies of school change that, in their summaries, reduce the process to five or seven steps – thereby creating the impression that other schools simply have to follow them – the life histories of principals telling their leadership stories are far more complex and situated in the micro-politics of that school and its legacy. Their leadership responds to the many-layered subplots that course through the week-byweek, month-by-month interactions with individual teachers and students and parents. It is a leadership that is patient, most of the time compassionate, often uncertain, willing to negotiate through trial and error, but fuelled by the deep passion that sustains their commitment to the large purposes they serve. This first lesson, then, serves as a caution to those of us who teach courses on leadership, or write books about it. The courses and the books, however useful for providing frameworks for guiding and evaluating leadership, are a long way away from the living out by a particular individual the leadership activity in a particular school with a particular mix of teachers and students in a school with a legacy and a culture, over a span of five or ten years. The lived reality of school leadership is more humble, more ambiguous, and yet, in its persistence, more noble. The passion of the leader refers both to the idealised dream that grounds the leader, as well as to the suffering and sacrifice that the pursuit of the dream over time entails. Lesson 2. The self-identity of the leader and the passion that accompanies it in this period of late modernity and globalisation is endangered. In the period of late modernity, many of the traditional norms, values, benchmarks for educational leadership have been contested and at least partially obscured. We live in societies characterised by plurality rather than uniformity, by rapid change rather than predictable futures, by multiple lifestyles rather than rigid conformity to universally recognised standards, by porous national boundaries rather than by parochial self-referentiality, by information overload rather than scarce intellectual resources. In such a cultural maelstrom, identities are being continually improvised, continually being reinvented to take account of unforeseen forces, continually being internally deconstructed in a process of reconstruction. Thus, leadership of a school and the self-identity that stands behind it is by necessity a continuously dialogical activity. Leaders have now to involve the immediate stakeholders in sharing their individual interpretations and perceptions of situations and conditions in the life of the school in order to arrive at some common agreement on a course of action. That points to the redefinition of leadership from an activity of directing, guiding, visioning to an activity of fostering pragmatic, collective, situated learning.

Foreword xiii

However, in a globalised policy environment, where market ideologies seem to be infiltrating the schooling policy agendas all over the globe, the local leadership of the principal and the teachers appears to be in the process of being smothered in relentless waves of policy directives from the national governments that are intended to create a thoroughgoing uniformity on the learning and teaching process. Accompanying these policy directives are simplistic and sometimes virulent criticisms of teachers and principals carried by the media. These criticisms sometimes incite parents and local interest groups to ratchet up their grievances and complaints about the performance of their local schools. The leadership stature of the principal becomes thereby diminished, and this robs the principal of the necessary trust of the teachers that collaborative work requires. In such a context, leaders lose their passion, get discouraged and drop out. This lesson suggests some necessary changes in the way universities prepare educators for the leadership role of the principal. It also suggests the need for a variety of continuing education and support opportunities for principals. It also suggests that this wave of attempts at the marketisation of schools will generate a reaction, if not from educators, then from the students themselves, who will come to see the futility of preparing themselves for a job in the free market that has taken their jobs overseas, or that is quickly roboticising even those jobs. Lesson 3. The myth of the superhero principal leader is no longer useful. A new myth of principal leadership points to the creative activity that builds trust and mutual affirmation as principals and teachers (and parents and students) working together learn how to make something meaningful and valuable out of the challenges and situations they face, for which there are no easy answers or familiar pathways, even while responding to external demands of accountability. Principals and teachers have to bring their core values and beliefs to the table every day as lenses for interpreting situations, while at the same time, they listen to the interpretations of others as to what situations mean and can mean. Out of their collective wisdom and passion, they will build a collective sense of efficacy, a sense that, when they cooperate, they can find workable responses that respect the integrity and the humanity of the stakeholders. Thus, principals will lead by insisting that their work together, in these turbulent times with few universally accepted guidelines, is a work of learning how to make the agenda of student learning exciting, creative, authentic and useful for their human, civic and economic lives in ways that enable them to verify their accountability to the trust the community and the government places in them. The examples of the lives of the principal leaders we meet in this book provide some clues of how to do this. Professor Jerry Starratt Lynch School of Education, Boston College, MA

Acknowledgements

One of the more pleasant aspects of editing a book such as this is the possibility it presents, when the work is done, of acknowledging the contributions of others to its completion. My sincere gratitude to colleagues in Denmark, Norway and England for the faith they expressed in me when ‘electing’ me to edit our work. I hope that I have honoured that trust. Your passionate commitment to the project was one of its dominant characteristics that made it a very positive learning experience, and sustained us in overcoming the restrictions of limited funding, something that has the potential to constrain if not entirely strangle life-history work. Others too, whose names do not appear as authors, contributed significantly in various ways throughout the project and I wish to acknowledge their impact on the work. They are – Eli Ottesen, Terje Anserund, Tone Dyrdal Solbrekke, Anne M. Lindset and Øystein Engeland (Norway), John Gulson and Paul Lunn (England), Nina Blom Anderson (Denmark) and Catherine Furlong (Ireland). Financial support from the Danish Research Council on Humanities and the Danish University of Education are acknowledged also. Permission of A.P. Watt Ltd on behalf of Michael B. Yeats is readily acknowledged for being allowed to reproduce lines from the poem, ‘The Second Coming’, by W.B. Yeats. I extend a sincere word of thanks to Ivor Goodson for readily agreeing to provide the Critical Introduction for the work. His own work on life history has served as an inspiration and a counter to more hegemonic forces in an increasingly homogenising system. In similar vein, this gratitude is extended to Jerry Starratt for contributing the Foreword. His extensive scholarship in School Leadership serves as a shining example that the brute force of reason is more likely to dehumanise learning in our schools than to put the heart back into schooling and to foster inquiring minds. Sincere gratitude is due to Anna Clarkson and Jessica Simmons at RoutledgeFalmer for their patience and support. As publishing houses merge and become multi-national corporations, maintaining a human face has become more challenging. These individuals wear the traditions

Acknowledgements xv

of Falmer with distinction and they serve as exemplars for others to emulate. At a more personal level, I am deeply indebted to Siobhán Nolan for finalising the manuscript. Her skill and attention to detail is much appreciated. Finally, a sincere word of thanks to those principals who participated in this project; your passion and continued commitment to making a difference in the lives of learners and teachers is praiseworthy. As conditions of schooling become more challenging and complex, the research community needs to find creative ways to sustain and support you in ways that are personally satisfying as well as intellectually challenging. Your dedication and sustained leadership has never been so necessary. Ciaran Sugrue

Critical introduction

This book contains a wonderful collection of chapters that provide a welcome antidote to the mainstream of work currently available on leadership. It is as if a humanistic cross-current has been created that challenges the tidal mainstream embodied in the dominant discourse of what we might call ‘prescriptive leadership’. The underpinning methodology that creates this humanistic crosscurrent is a theoretical perspective which focuses on the identity projects of school leaders. This is achieved by considerable employment of the lifehistory method – a method which maximises the focus on people’s life projects and passions. This way we get a finely tuned, grounded vision of leadership as practised and perceived. Not then leadership as prescribed, for as Sugure sagely comments, ‘prescriptive solutions handed down to principals tie their hands in several respects and leave them little room for either negotiation or professional judgement, while autonomy becomes something of a romanticised distant memory’. Now this problem of prescription may seem just something associated with the passing of professional autonomy as a distant memory, but in fact it is far more than that – it is nothing less than the central dilemma at the heart of current educational reform initiatives across the Western world. ‘Prescriptive leadership’ has two faces – firstly the leaders themselves are prescribed to and thereby have their missions defined elsewhere by other hands; but leaders who are prescribed too often tend to prescribe to others in turn, the teachers and administrators who work in their schools. Prescriptive leadership then works in such a way that other hands prescribe tasks for each person. Nobody then has ‘ownership’ of their domain and the result is a pervasive sense of drift disorientation, demoralisation and disaffection in so many of our schools. What more humanistic methods of inquiry illustrate so clearly in this book is that motives and emotions are central to fully functioning social systems. Prescription, almost by definition, ignores these central human instincts. As we noted long ago, ‘motives and emotions . . . are influenced

Critical introduction xvii

by past, as well as contemporary, events’ (Ball and Goodson, 1985, p. 13). Hence, a working knowledge of the life histories of school personnel is a key to understanding what missions and motives people bring to their work. Nowhere is this more important than in the area of leadership, for these are the people who above all must have their ‘fingers on the pulse’ of mission and motive. Dispassionate ‘prescriptive leadership’ is catastrophically ill-suited for the task. As the chapters in this book indicate, in a range of detailed and illuminating studies, the way forward is through engaged, mutually dialectic ‘passionate leadership’. The battle for the future of our schools is epitomised in the battle between prescriptive and passionate leadership. For those with commitment to socially just and inclusive schools, this book makes it abundantly clear which choice we should make. The authors are to be congratulated for the clarity with which they deploy the arguments in favour of passionate leadership. Professor Ivor Goodson Education Research Centre University of Brighton

Reference Ball, S. J. and Goodson, I. (1985) Teacher’s Lives and Careers, London: Falmer Press.

Part I

Passionate principalship

Chapter 1

Putting ‘real life’ into school leadership Connecting leadership, identities and life history Ciaran Sugrue

Introduction Contemporary societies and their systems of schooling are increasingly characterised as fragile, fragmented and, in some respects at least, dysfunctional. Academic communities frequently includes uncertainty and insecurity on this list of characteristics, with enormous possibilities for the few, accompanied by unprecedented precariousness for the many (Hargreaves, 1994). We are all at the mercy, these soothsayers declare, of change wrought by globalisation and the market forces that intensify the pace of change itself while being fuelled by the ongoing telecommunications revolution (Barber, 1996; Beck, 2000; Homer-Dixon, 2001). Yet, despite these unprecedented and uncharted times, one of the most persistent continuities in educational leadership literature during the past two decades, particularly within an Anglo-American axis of influence, some would say hegemony,1 has been the sustained if not heightened emphasis on the importance of the role of school principal, head, leader or Rektor. This state of affairs is reminiscent of Yeats’s oft-quoted lines from his poem ‘The Second Coming’: Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world This poem’s more recent popularity connects with individuals’ experience of the conditions created by global forces and the ensuing chaos in private and public spheres, the net effect of which is, Yeats concludes: The best lack all convictions, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. (www.well.com/usereob/poetry/The second_Coming.Html) This set of scenarios creates the rather paradoxical situation that the more ‘the centre does not hold’, school principals are turned to and expected to

4 Ciaran Sugrue

provide stability and continuity, on the one hand, and possess a talisman capacity also for ‘transformation’, to provide leadership that enables both teachers and learners to transcend biographical, local and national constraints – an exceptionally tall order in contexts that are frequently circumscribed by budgetary requirements that amount to ‘more for less’ and more stringent ‘self-management’. Not surprisingly, this confluence of circumstances has given rise to ‘the myth of the superprincipal’ (Copland, 2001), or the ‘superwoman’ principal (Reynolds, 2002), myths that are frequently shattered when confronted by the hard reality that in several jurisdictions teachers are increasingly forgoing the possibility of promotion to the position of principalship; a considered ‘choice’ or decision made all the more remarkable in a profession that is widely acknowledged to have a ‘flat career’ with relatively few promotional opportunities for advancement. While the educational research community, partly for its own interests and professional needs, has been busy documenting the growing ‘complexity’ of the principal’s role (Morrison, 2002), and indicating the ‘do’s and don’ts’ of successful school leaders, principals have been engaged in ongoing ‘fire-fighting’, trench warfare or occupying the swampy lowlands where dangers and hazards continuously lurk in the shadows of everyday life in schools. The daily lives of principals are frequently made more complex and unrewarding by a public mindset that derides teachers as part of a more general climate of negativity towards the public sector and notions of the common good. In such circumstances, all too frequently, the ‘voices’ of principals are drowned out or silenced by a cacophony of other, frequently more powerful and influential, ‘authorities’ who are all too ready to prescribe for the ills of society various ‘remedies’ that become the responsibility of principals to administer as part of the ‘official’ curriculum. Thus, prescriptive solutions handed down to principals tie their hands in several respects and leave them little room for either negotiation or professional judgment while autonomy becomes something of a romanticised distant memory, belonging to a softer age. In broad-brush strokes, in the Western world in particular, with considerable similarities and variations, continuities and differences, this is how the educational landscape has evolved, taken shape and been shaped over the past two decades in particular. It is appropriate in such circumstances to ask three ‘big’ questions that are distinct but intimately related: 1

2

What does school leadership look like from the perspectives of those who daily dice with the vicissitudes and complexities of the role when role incumbents are afforded the opportunity to speak of such realities in their own voice? What differences would it make to a (re-)conceptualization of contemporary literature on school leadership if the ‘voices’ of princi-

Putting ‘real life’ into school leadership 5

3

pals were given a central role rather than a walk-on or chorus-line part in shaping thoughts and actions? How might the professional preparation and continuing professional education of school leaders and potential school leaders be re-shaped in light of these questions being treated seriously by acting on new insights, understandings and knowledge being generated?

While this book sets out to address these questions, it is a necessary prerequisite to situate the discussion of these queries within an appropriate interpretative framework, and this is the task of the present chapter. There are substantive, methodological and structural/procedural issues to be addressed. First, the concept of leadership is discussed briefly and situated within the larger concern of leadership for what, towards what ends? Second, the identity formation of school leaders is addressed from a theoretical perspective as an important means of locating the personal and biographical as central to the role. Third, school leadership is reconsidered in light of the argument advanced in Part II, particularly from the perspective of what current literature tends to marginalise or ignore. Fourth, the contours of passionate leadership are outlined as an additional means of framing the study and of situating the content of subsequent chapters. Fifth, the strengths of a life-history approach to school leadership are succinctly stated, and the potential for such an approach to fill a gap in current leadership literature is indicated. Sixth, a brief account of the manner in which the study was conduced is provided. Seventh, the chapter concludes with an outline of the book’s structure and an articulation of its rationale.

School leaders – leadership for what? Perhaps one of the more productive ways of beginning this discussion is to focus on the question – leadership for what? As the role of principal becomes more complex, embracing more and more responsibilities, it becomes more problematic for role incumbents to determine priorities. Dimmock (1996, p. 150) captures this dilemma most succinctly when he says: ‘school leaders experience difficulty in deciding the balance between higher order tasks designed to improve staff, student and school performance (leadership), routine maintenance of present operations (management) and lower order duties (administration)’. He acknowledges that the boundaries between notions of leadership, management and administration are porous, that the role increasingly puts emphasis on leadership without any obvious diminution in the significance of the other two. Consequently, he argues ‘many school leaders find difficulty in readjusting their former priorities, values and institutional practices to accommodate

6 Ciaran Sugrue

the new set of expectations’ (ibid. 150). Similarly, Leithwood et al. (1996) acknowledge that definitive statements on the nature of leadership are ‘nowhere to be found’ (p. 3). In such circumstances, it is appropriately alluring to accept the ‘right degree of haziness’ (p. 2) in understandings of leadership, while acknowledging also the implicit assumption that leadership is more necessary than ever as well as being a good thing. While I would wish to concur with this perspective, there is a tendency within leadership literature generally to be more hazy on ‘leadership for what?’ than advocacy of more leadership, particularly of the transformational variety. Under the increasing influence of globalisation, and the market forces that accompany this tendency and ideology, the ‘what for’ of education is frequently reduced to maintaining or increasing market share of the global economy. Consequently, there has been a narrowing of educational goals with increased preoccupation (that varies from one jurisdiction to the next) with ‘standards’, that is actually promoting greater homogenization of school provision and school experience, while a minority of voices argue and indicate that greater ‘ingenuity’, creativity and imagination are required (Homer-Dixon, 2001), thus making it an impossibility to meet diverse needs of learners while actually re-inscribing inequality and failure into the system of schooling (Cuban, 2003). It is readily recognised that much of the evidence and advances in conceptualisations of school leadership have emanated from research on school effectiveness and school improvement over the past two decades, but it is important also to acknowledge that such emphases have both knowingly and unwittingly shaped and circumscribed the discourse on leadership. However, there is growing awareness of the necessity to pay attention to ‘the culture and context in which school leaders operate’ precisely because they influence their ‘beliefs and actions’ (Walker and Dimmock, 2002, p. 1). This emerging discourse needs also to include greater emphasis on the culture and context that, in turn, shapes and is shaped by purposes of schooling, something that appears to be increasingly taken for granted and assumed to have been determined due to the relentless globalising tendency and its concomitant demands for standardised results. The ‘for what’ of school leadership is of direct and immediate interest also to school leaders, particularly when they find themselves buffeted between the prescriptions of policy-makers and their own intuitive and often unarticulated views on the purposes of schooling that have been internalised as a consequence of their ‘apprenticeship of observation’ (Lortie, 1975) while being classroom teachers (Southworth, 1995). Before they assume positions of leadership within schools, therefore, they have already formulated ‘lay theories’ of leadership. It has already been well established that the lay theories of student teachers are extremely robust and not immediately susceptible to alteration and that these are frequently perpetuated in their classrooms after graduation (Britzman, 1991; Holt-

Putting ‘real life’ into school leadership 7

Reynolds, 1992). The lay theories of student teachers and their formulation through apprenticeships of observation are described by HoltReynolds as beliefs developed naturally over time without the influence of instruction. Pre-service teachers do not consciously learn them at an announced, recognised moment from a formal teaching/learning episode. Rather, lay theories represent tacit knowledge lying dormant and unexamined. . . . Developed over long years of participation in and observation of classrooms . . . and teaching/learning incidents occurring in schools, homes or the larger community . . . lay theories are based on untutored interpretations of personal, lived experiences. (1992, p. 236) It is my contention that lay theories of leadership are developed similarly from untutored interpretations of lived experience, and this is more pervasive in jurisdictions where it continues to be the case that an individual can be a classroom teacher today and a school principal tomorrow.2 However, even in contexts where formal training for prospective and newly appointed leaders is rapidly becoming the norm, more theoretical or research-based approaches to leadership have to contend with the robust theories-in-use of leadership that have been internalised by classroom practitioners. There are similarities also with student teachers’ lay theories among potential principals since their experience of principals or head teachers is often limited to merely two or three role models that they have encountered, thus providing an extremely narrow experiential base on which to formulate a set of working assumptions about the nature and practice of leading a school community. Like the lay theories of students and beginning teachers, the untutored version of leadership more experienced teachers hold as a consequence of apprenticeship may be very dated, forged in and for a different time. This narrow experiential base however does not reduce the durability of what has already been internalised. A life-history approach to school leaders’ lives and work has potential to identify and document these lay theories that propel them in a role that is increasingly challenging and difficult to fulfil. These experiential theories-in-use have potential also to divulge what principals are passionate about, as well as provide insight into what sustains them in turbulent times. Nevertheless, despite the robustness of the genetic code of leadership by which role incumbents are informally imbued through their apprenticeships, their identities as school leaders are also fragile. The genetic code of school leadership has been imprinted into the fabric of school life when schools, particularly primary or elementary schools, were conceived and created as ‘institutions’, products of the nineteenth century primarily, to

8 Ciaran Sugrue

stand apart from society as well as to mirror it in particular kinds of ways. It is primarily due to this ‘imprinting’ of life in schools that enables Cuban and others to remark that the ‘grammar of schooling’ remained remarkably consistent throughout the past century (Cuban, 1993; Tyack and Cuban, 1995). By contrast, schools in the late twentieth century were being described increasingly as ‘organisations’ and expected to be much more in tune with the vicissitudes and realities of life and society surrounding them, and to be responsive and flexible. There is a sense, therefore, in which there have been systematic and sustained efforts in recent decades to alter in fundamental ways the genetic code of schools which, in its turn, requires fundamental re-thinking about the roles and responsibilities of school leaders. But it may be the case also that school leaders have inherited this earlier ‘coding’ on leadership, primarily through apprenticeship, to the extent that ‘changing leadership for changing times’ becomes an uphill struggle and goes against the grain of many role incumbents. Transforming schools, their respective leaders and leadership styles, therefore, is crucially concerned with altering the identities of principals.

Leader’s identity re-formation I concur with Giddens when he states that ‘[s]elf-identity is . . . the self as reflexively understood by the person in terms of her or his biography’ (1991, p. 53). Consequently, it ‘has to be routinely created and sustained in the reflexive activities of the individual’ (ibid., p. 52). In general terms, according to Giddens (ibid., pp. 35–69), identity continues to be formed as the nexus between ‘ontological security’ and ‘existential anxiety’ (pp. 35–69). This constant dance between certainty and uncertainty, between security and risk, is lived out in everyday life in ways that are particularly poignant for principals. In that role they are at once alone, as the only principal in the building, yet connected in all kinds of tangible and intangible ways with the school community. The role of principal, therefore, its positioning in the world, has important consequences for shaping an incumbent’s identity. Within Bourdieu’s notion of relations, they are simultaneously positioned by the role and position themselves within the role as important ‘power brokers’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). The existential angst that is embedded in identity re-formation is captured succinctly in the following comments by Giddens when he says: The orderliness of day-to-day life is a miraculous occurrence, . . . it is brought about as a continuous achievement on the part of everyday actors in an entirely routine way. That orderliness is solid and constant; yet the slightest glance of one person towards another . . . may threaten it. (1991, p. 52)

Putting ‘real life’ into school leadership 9

Identity, therefore, similar to lay theories that contribute significantly to ‘who we are’, is at once robust and fragile. It is fashioned continuously between chaos and order, between neurotic attachment to the ‘certainties’ of the past, and a creative risk-oriented leap of imagination beyond slavish adherence to routines as previously enacted. It is necessary for principals in particular to find continuity in turbulent times; they must have ‘the capacity to keep a particular narrative going’ (ibid., 1991, p. 54). This continuity is achieved and sustained by ‘maintaining . . . habits and routines’ (ibid., p. 39) because they provide what Giddens calls a ‘protective cocoon’. Gidden’s protective cocoon is Wenger’s community of practice and the latter asserts the symbiosis between ‘issues of identity . . . and . . . issues of practice, community and meaning’ (Wenger, 1998, p. 145). While Giddens begins with the individual, Wenger starts from a sense of practice, of community, yet recognsies that ‘[t]alking about identity in social terms is not denying individuality, but viewing the very definition of individuality as something that is part of the practices of specific communities’ (ibid., p. 146). Because ‘[w]e cannot become human by ourselves’, it is through the interaction of the individual and the community that identity is continuously buffeted and reshaped (ibid., 1998, p. 41). Learning, as the conduit between individuals and their communities, is the key to identity. Wenger describes learning, and identity by extension, in the following terms: Viewed as experience of identity, learning entails both a process and a place. It entails a process of transforming knowledge as well as a context in which to define an identity of participation. As a consequence, to support learning is not only to support the process of acquiring knowledge, but also to offer a place where new ways of knowing can be realized in the form of such an identity. (ibid., p. 215) Communities can be characterised by loose ties that facilitate inclusion and accommodate diversity, or by strong ties that tend towards being exclusive.3 School communities, then, in particular, may have strong ties that create shared identities and common goals, but such strengths may be a significant weakness also as these strong ties render such community organisations less adaptable and flexible.4 School communities characterised by loose ties allow for a degree of professional autonomy that is difficult to achieve in more ‘exclusive’ groups, while these loosely coupled sets of interlocking relations may create ‘third spaces’ where hybrid identities of principals and teachers are enabled to be imagined and re-formed.5 Re-creating identities takes ‘learning’ time, but it also involves taking risks, and within the ‘genetic code’ of traditional forms of school management, with its emphasis on maintenance rather than transformation, risk

10 Ciaran Sugrue

avoidance has often been a strategy employed by cautious and conservative principals, preferring to ‘play by the rules’ or ‘strictly by the book’. The cocoon of practice therefore may be construed as a means of minimising risk, while communities of learning depending on their configuration along a loose–tight dynamic continuum may be about creating the conditions necessary to take risks in the interest of new learning and identity reformation. Schools, traditionally constructed as ‘conserving’ institutions (Postman, 1979), have tended to favour conserving cocoons of practice over risk taking. However, in more turbulent and less predictable times, Giddens argues that it is no longer feasible to rely on established orthodoxies when he says: In the charged reflexive setting of high modernity, living on ‘automatic pilot’ becomes more and more difficult to do, and it becomes less and less possible to protect any lifestyle, no matter how firmly pre-established, from the generalized risk climate. (1991, p. 126) But risk alone, is not sufficient. Forging an identity more in tune with the vicissitudes of the age is an act of imagination. Wenger’s comments are particularly apposite: Imagination is an important component of our experience of the world and our sense of place in it. It can make a big difference for our experience of identity and the potential for learning inherent in our activities. (1998, p. 176) These understandings of the nature of identity (re-)formation, when applied to the challenges and complexities of the principal’s role, add considerably to its precarious position as both ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ within the school community. In such circumstances, principals are frequently no longer classroom teachers, but may continue to construct themselves and/or be constructed as ‘one of us’ by teaching colleagues; there is need for robustness and sensitivity to the needs and perspectives of others, for collaborative ties as well as professional spaces where autonomy, professional judgment and principled disagreement can flourish (Hargreaves, 1994; Goodson and Hargreaves, 1996). Principals are expected to create this context for learning for staff and students alike, while dealing with these challenges at a personal and professional level – something that at the very minimum requires a robust constitution while also putting biography centre stage, which this text seeks to do as a means of redressing a perceived ‘gap’ in leadership literature. While leadership literature has tended to ignore or down play the significance of biography in the lives

Putting ‘real life’ into school leadership 11

and work of school leaders, it has focused attention on other aspects of the role as well as characteristics of principals that need to be signalled here.

School leadership (re-)considered There are various reasons why the notion of school leadership needs to be reconsidered, and some of these have been mentioned above. Fullan (2003, p. xiii) identified others very recently when he says with the benefit of hindsight: The 1990s was a dismal decade for the principalship. Expectations for schools piled up, policies became more prescriptive but lacked coherence, implementation strategies were neglected, leadership training and development were missing, and few noticed the looming exodus of principals through normal and early retirements. Above all, the principalship was becoming increasingly unattractive, even to, or one could say especially to, those who wanted to make a difference. Fullan’s comments resonate very definitely with evidence of the decline in numbers of applicants for principalship in several jurisdictions and when those passionate about making a difference are turning their backs on such opportunities, it is vitally necessary to have this new mutant ‘illness’ adequately investigated and described. He is quick to point out that previous research suggests that the remedy to this current malady is that ‘leaders must pay close attention to whether they are generating passion . . .’ (ibid., p. 6; italics mine). Despite this, the word passion is not included in the book’s index, while a total of thirty-five aspects of the role are listed under the more general index entry of ‘principal(s)’. It is difficult to fathom why passion is perceived as central yet silenced or marginalised within a discourse on leadership, while recognising that it is definitely prone to fragmentation due to dissipation of role responsibilities. In such circumstances, it is difficult to be passionate, and impossible to be passionate about each item on the growing check list of responsibilities that are increasingly prescribed by policy-makers. If passion invariably has a focus and purpose, it is a Sisyphean task to be passionate in appropriate measure across a role the boundaries of which are increasingly regarded as more complex and all embracing. When such requirements are accompanied by demands for accountability through, for example, local management of schools, financial constraints, an exclusive emphasis on raising standards by a pervasive culture of testing, frequently also accompanied by ‘naming and shaming’, it is not surprising that teachers are ‘voting with their feet’, refusing in such circumstances to put themselves ‘on the line’ for the stakes are too high and ‘the dangers are real’ (Heifetz and Linsky, 2002, p. 236). Because the risks are perceived as too much, not only are

12 Ciaran Sugrue

teachers balking at the prospect of principalship, they are increasingly turning their backs also on teaching as a way of life as evidenced by recent attrition rates. In walking away, they are attempting to ‘conserve what is most precious’ (ibid., p. 235), to conserve their ‘passion’ and to find a context and climate in which this is possible. They are seeking a context that is less volatile, turbulent and hostile to generating continuity of identity in a rapidly changing and frequently more alien and alienating landscape. Research evidence is mounting which indicates ‘the limitations of a tightly orchestrated external press for reform’ (Fullan, 2003, p. 55). In recent times, this relentless ‘external press’, frequently fuelled by school-effectiveness literature, has unleashed a set of policies that have pummeled teachers and principals. Even those in the vanguard of this work recognise that ‘there is increasing pressure to deliver more quickly and to work harder’. In such circumstances, ‘levels of work related stress are high’ (Stoll et al., 2003, p. 5). Stoll and her colleagues identify three responses to this state of affairs by principals. Some respond to external mandates by deploying a set of ‘coping strategies’ but, I would argue, with a tendency towards ‘survival’ rather than coping.6 Others succumb to the pressure by seeking to implement all mandates, a ‘diffusion’ strategy that results in what has been described as ‘Christmas tree schools’ (Bryk et al., 1998). The third way of responding is of particular interest in the present context: The third leaders’ orientation is goal-focused in which the leaders and staff select a few reasonable goals, establish priorities and ignore or manage other pressures. Barbara Tye (2000) suggests that such leaders have an intuitive sense for what is important (and what is not), combined with a willingness to risk displeasing those ‘higher up’ by declining to carry out some of their demands. (Stoll et al., 2003, p. 102) It is another cultural cliché to assert that ‘fortune favours the brave’, but if shame and blame are more often perceived to be part and parcel of being principal rather than fame and (certainly not economic) fortune, then the dominance of ‘survival’ and ‘diffusion’ over more ‘goal-oriented’ styles of leadership should not come as a surprise. Nevertheless, this evidence points to the importance of passion as focused and goal oriented, even if these researchers subsequently argue for putting in place more cognitive ‘problem-solving processes’ that are said to contribute to ‘transformational leadership’ (Leithwood et al., 1999). This more cerebral approach to leadership is partial; it is not the full story. It never is. Nevertheless, it is important to assert that there is growing recognition of the importance of passion in principalship (and in teaching), while little attention has been paid to what fuels passions and how they may be sustained, by

Putting ‘real life’ into school leadership 13

finding continuity and transformation through grappling with change. It is necessary to recognise that continuity, change and transformation are part of a single process rather than fuelling oppositional discourses or binary opposites. Beyond this assertion it is important also to recognise that advances have been made in leadership literature, but it is unnecessary to reiterate the significance of moral, instructional, transformational, managerial, participative, contingent and shared leadership at this point.7 Rather, it is significant that as the literature evolves in response to changing contexts, the menu for principals appears to gain in length. While re-conceptualisation of leadership is work in progress within the academic community, viewed from the perspective of school leaders themselves, the very literature that is intended to provide some signposts can itself begin to look like a bewildering maze. Perhaps leadership literature contributes to the propensity for schools to resemble ‘Christmas trees’ when a rush to publish and to gain favour with influential policy-makers as well as research-funding organizations frequently privileges novelty more than the familiar, the ordinary, the mundane. The search for new insights and understandings without a similar commitment to synthesis and continuity is perversely part of the diffusion. An emerging continuity within the literature is an increasing focus on learning for all throughout the lifespan. However, this is frequently given a very instrumental orientation; such learning is necessary to improve standards, increase test scores, to develop school plans, and improve and, in the context of globalisation, increase market share, so that schools, principals and teachers are caught up in the relentless pursuit of progress. What this book seeks to assert is that sustaining passion should be the first priority and taking a life-history approach clearly indicates why, while readily recognising also that this position is not a panacea. Rather, it has potential to build continuity, thus creating more stability and a climate more hospitable to risk taking and imagination so that capacity for change is enhanced at individual and collective levels. It is necessary to put passion back into the leadership literature, both for its own sake and as an important instrumental means of providing the individual and collective ‘glue’ that begins to focus on continuity and purpose rather than a bewildering array of choices and demands that no amount of problem-solving capability can deal with unless fuelled by passion to act in particular ways. This is not in any sense a denial of the significance of, for example, gender, context, community, class and race, as well as wider policy prescriptions to the leadership of schools. Rather, it asserts the importance of individuals, their biographies and their passions, in how schooling has potential to work for the advantage of all learners. It is necessary, therefore, to begin to unpack passionate leadership as an important ingredient that does not merely add flavour to the ‘brew’ of leadership but is fundamental to it.

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Passionate principalship? In the last line from the Yeats poem, ‘The Second Coming’, quoted above, passion is painted in a negative light – ‘passionate intensity’ apparently without purpose. Similarly, we have grown accustomed to ‘crimes of passion’, frequently sensationalised by the print media in particular, and often accompanied by pleas of diminished responsibility, thus creating the impression that passion and irrationality are allies. Religions too have played a major role in creating a climate in which passions are to be controlled, distrusted and repressed lest ‘anarchy be loosed upon the world’, particularly if such passions arouse sexual desire. However, I want to argue here that passion is a central and crucially important feature of teachers’ and principals’ work that is often submerged and, at best, only partially visible, yet is central and vital, although, as shall become evident, the very nature of the notion of passion remains somewhat elusive. While travelling recently on a Kenya Airways’ flight from Nairobi to London, during that settling-in period immediately before departure when nesting instincts are evident as passengers select their reading material for the flight and surround themselves with a small handful of items that make up the ‘survival kit’ for a long confinement, an article in the in-flight magazine caught my attention (Toft, 2003). While it may have been the beautifully composed photographs of elephants at water’s edge that initially attracted me, it transpired that this piece was about 17-year-old David Scott who had won a prestigious award in London for the photographs reproduced before my eyes. When asked by the author if he would like to follow in his parents’ footsteps and become a professional photographer, he replied: ‘I want it to be a passion rather than a profession’ (Toft, 2003, p. 57). I was sufficiently struck by this positioning of passion and profession to make a note of it at the time, and have returned to it in reflective mode on numerous occasions since. The subliminal messages pervasive in our socialisation regarding passion and its appropriate place in our lives suggests Scott’s separation of passion and profession is more common than might be initially suspected. Similar advice is frequently proffered to school leavers to keep music, art or sport as a ‘hobby’ rather than positioning it as the pivot of one’s career. While this may have more to do with secure employment than a separation of passion and profession the suspicion lingers. Others profess to be passionate about anything from fishing to car racing, from football to such solitary pursuits as crosswords. Fried (1995) suggests that ‘to be a passionate teacher is to be someone in love with a field of knowledge, deeply stirred by issues and ideas that challenge our world, drawn by the dilemmas and potentials of the young people who come into class each day – or captivated by all of these’ (p. 1). However, passion as used by Fried appears as entirely positive, but we

Putting ‘real life’ into school leadership 15

are only too well aware also that passions can be negative and destructive even. For Kane (2002) passion is presented in more neutral terms when she states ‘passion is an intense emotion that compels action’ and is an ‘unequaled source of energy’ (p. 2). This definition brings emotion and passion into relationship, into the same frame of reference. Is emotion then just another word for passion? I think not. When we say that someone is being emotional, we typically mean that they are on the verge of no longer being in control of a particular emotion – grief at the loss of a loved one, elation at a family reunion, ecstatic when a favourite team wins, deflated at defeat – while there may be some suggestion, in some instances at least, that the emotional display may be disproportionate to the occasion. If we suggest that individuals are prone to ‘wearing their hearts on their sleeves’, this is often construed as lack of control of emotions, that they are close to the surface and frequently on display, while there is little attempt or perhaps an inability on the part of the individual concerned to actually ‘keep them under wraps’, hidden from view. Yet dictionary definitions of emotion allow for some cerebral involvement. Chambers describes emotions as ‘a moving of feelings’ such as ‘sorrow’ and ‘fear’, and these are ‘distinguished from cognition and will’. Conversely, those who are termed ‘deep’, frequently quiet individuals who keep their opinions and emotions to themselves, are understood as ‘strong’, sage-like and imbued with substance; solid and more dependable than the more ‘flighty’, somewhat ‘skittish’ members of the species! It is noticeable that in these various cultural phrases, what I sometimes refer to as ‘the distilled wisdom of the tribe’, there is a noticeable absence of the word ‘passion’. Yet, they do indicate that there is a wide spectrum of views and tolerance for the manner in which emotion becomes manifest in everyday interactions, even if cultures vary considerably in their tolerance of display and control of emotions. For example, without wishing to reduce the current discussion to national stereotyping, in a largely European context, southern European – Latin (and Latin American) – passion is often contrasted with Teutonic ‘control’, Scandinavian ‘cool’, British ‘reserve’ and Gallic ‘flair’, and, perhaps Celtic-fringe imagination, but such labels may be self-indulgent also rather than important signifiers. Nevertheless, they serve as a kind of navigational guide as to how emotions are expressed or suppressed – a sort of emotional geography of everyday life.8 But the use of the word passion along with Latin, within the argument being advanced, is misplaced. Passion used in this context appears to convey a greater tolerance for public display of emotion, and yet there is some connection between emotion and passion. What is that connection? When individuals declare a passionate interest in or indicate that they are passionate about something, that passion is focused, it has direction. There is recognition also that it is intensely individual and comes from

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within. A colleague is passionate about number theory, something that leaves me completely ‘cold’, completely passionless, but because I recognise his passion for this subject, I facilitate his work by running numbers continuously on my PC. This passion is not immediately apparent in my colleague, in fact he is usually rather reserved, but should he be asked a question about Fermat numbers, there is an immediate transformation whereby eyes, and body language generally, connect with areas of the brain, and there is an immediate and extended verbal outpouring that communicates both interest and intensity – passionate interest in the subject matter, as Fried suggested above. In this instance, particular emotions are harnessed and transformed into a passion for number theory. What this anecdotal evidence suggests is that emotion is more ephemeral and fleeting while passion is more visceral, more persistent, potent and, rather like the Duracell bunny, possessing more ‘staying power’. And, as my search for the next largest prime number of my PC suggests, such passion has the capacity also to be infectious, to ‘move’ others. Dictionary definitions of the term passion, however, include negatives such as martyrdom, suffering, rage, and sorrow, and more positive passions such as love, sexual desire and, importantly also, ‘an enthusiastic interest or direction of the mind’. In such circumstances, emotions appear to be taken up in a cognitive sense and become a potent cocktail of reason and emotion in some appropriate proportions that are recognisable as beyond ordinary interest or commitment – passion as the elixir of leadership. Kaufmann (2000) makes this point negatively when she talks about encountering a student ‘for whom the lights never seem to go on’ and how we ‘strive to find something . . . that will possibly ignite the student’s inner flame’ (p. 1). The metaphoric use of language is significant in this context. I have argued above that passion comes from within, while seeking to ignite a student’s inner flame is an attempt to trigger emotions that will enable that learner to ‘take off’; many teachers describe that moment when ‘the lights go on’ for a particular learner as one of the major psychic rewards in teaching, when a ‘breakthrough’ is made. There is some suggestion here of struggle, of intensity and engagement, of effort that sometimes results in failure, disappointment and renewed effort; that passion is not always a blazing star. Kaufmann argues that lest we confine our understanding of passion to that inspired by a narrow supply line of positive emotions only, we should ‘re-examine our ideas about it and incorporate a broader and more complex array of feelings and experiences into our definition – even if some of these are dissonant with the positive, uplifting images typically associated with the term’ (2000, p. 1). What emerges therefore is a sense that both positive and negative emotions have potential to be harnessed in ways that stir the passions of individuals. Implicit also is the notion that passion is something that is sustained by such emotional experiences for passion gives rise to sustained

Putting ‘real life’ into school leadership 17

commitment to a particular set of values, beliefs and ‘world view’ that propel individuals to act in particular ways that are broadly consistent with such powerful feelings. There is broad cultural recognition also that, through a combination of career stage that is also closely aligned with age, passions tend to ‘fade’ or, as we tend to say, such and such a person has ‘mellowed’, that their passionate commitments are less sharply delineated and visible. It is important in this context to distinguish between negative emotion and a more pervasive negative, turbulent and disconcerting climate that characterises the workplace. In such circumstances, stress results, passions drain away and individuals in such circumstances seek to ‘distance’ themselves from such negativity (see Troman and Woods, 2001). In relatively stable and positive working environments, passions are a ‘renewable’ energy and vitality that sustain individuals and their collective endeavours. However, there is not some ‘happy hunting ground’ or schoolleader ‘wind farm’ where educators can be sent for rest, recreation and recuperation before being immersed again in the turbulence of mainstream classrooms and schools. Rather, the working environment must be capable of sustaining passions on a continuous basis. It is not by accident that the attrition rate from teaching has increased markedly in recent times, and that there is evidence internationally of a precipitious decline in the number of applicants for the role of school leader. As Troman and Woods (2001, p. 92) conclude: In the conditions of late modernity planning becomes more difficult as traditional social and cultural landmarks disappear and nothing stands still . . . individuals in these circumstances cannot choose not to choose, for in the absence of traditional status passage and attendant rites of passage they have to continually re-invent themselves . . . For many of the phases in the unpredictable new career there are no scripts which people can follow . . . Careers must be negotiated and renegotiated repeatedly. Lifestyle choices involving the re-invention of identity are recurring aspects of late modernity and the demise of the regularized society. Principals in such circumstances, caught in the cross-wires of reform between policy-makers, the well-being of their teaching colleagues as well as the pupils for whose welfare and education they are increasingly being held to account, can become exposed and vulnerable, defensive and isolated, manufactured conditions that are potentially corrosive and anathema to passionate commitment and engagement – no longer a renewable energy and life force. According to Heifetz and Linsky (2002, p. 235) it is necessary to recognise the common origins of passion and compassion, to recognise that ‘the word passion has the same root as the word pain’, and it is this common root that enables us to assert ‘no gain without pain’, that

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being passionate about particular concerns requires sacrifice, and includes a sensitivity also towards the difficulties and perspectives of others. In turbulent times that call for passionate commitment, there is necessity also for compassion, to a value stance that goes well beyond such trite rhetoric as ‘no child left behind’ to a sustained commitment to justice and equity rather than a thinly disguised ideology of ‘winner takes all’. In my experience, when principals exchange advice on various dilemmas it is not uncommon, having proffered a considered view, to add tongue-in-cheek, with an appropriate hint of irony: ‘sure that’s what you get the big bucks for’ – the passion and pain of principalship is what you signed up for! The extent to which the passion/pain principle is rooted in biography and socialisation is captured succinctly by Hargreaves when he states that ‘The emotions that we experience and express and the effects of these emotions on ourselves and others, are developed in families, cultures and work situations where we undergo emotional learning’ (1998, p. 317). It is this socialisation process that turns emotions into passions, where the raw energy of emotion is converted into purposeful endeavour that commands sustained commitment that is readily detectable by those who come in contact with it, and often having a positive impact on those who encounter it. Passion in this positive sense is rather like radiation or may be regarded as a positive virus: it infects and colonises others in ways that enhance a community’s commitment and purpose. However, as Hargreaves (1998, p. 333) argues, ‘including the emotions in educational reform and leadership strategies is just a starting point’, albeit a crucially important one. I concur with his conclusion that ‘It is time to put the heart back into learning, teaching and leading – not as a sentimental concession but as an essential prerequisite for real rather than rhetorical improvement from which all students will benefit’ (ibid.). However, I want to argue that passion is the cerebral manifestation of the heart, and it is necessary to provide leaders with the opportunity to articulate their passions as a means of surfacing their lay theories of leadership, for embedded within them are their beliefs and values that give shape, direction and coherence to their passionate desires when leading schools. A life-history approach has potential to do just that.

A life-history approach to school leaders’ lives and work Several references have been made already in this chapter to the importance of biography, and the identity (re-)formation/learning trajectories of those who assume and occupy the position of leadership in schools. However, critics might well suggest, the power of ‘story’ not withstanding, that an exclusive focus on individual lives through biographical accounts would do little to embellish understandings of the complexities of school

Putting ‘real life’ into school leadership 19

leadership and to enhance approaches to providing them with appropriate professional learning opportunities, both formal and informal. However, it has already been suggested by several researchers in educational leadership that it is both necessary and appropriate to contextualise school leadership adequately by paying attention to context and culture (Walker and Dimmock, 2002). A life-history approach is particularly suited to this task. The case for a life-history approach has already been made by numerous publications that document the life histories of teachers from a variety of perspectives.9 Life history has waxed and waned in popularity as a research method throughout the twentieth century, but this is not our concern here.10 It has been popular among some researchers in documenting the lives and work of teachers, but much less so regarding school leaders, partly as a consequence of the dominance of quantitative methodologies, until relatively recently in this domain, reflecting also the gendered nature of the field. The present study therefore may be regarded as timely if overdue. Casey informs her reader that ‘life history and oral history . . . [are] the same method’ and that life histories are oral histories which have been collected and analyzed in a particular way’ (1993, p. 24). Life stories are transformed into life histories by adequate and appropriate contextualisation. This is deemed necessary, for reasons articulated above regarding identity formation, a dynamic interplay between individual and context. This is an unavoidable obligation for the researcher because ‘the traditions through which particular practices are transmitted and reshaped never exist in isolation from larger social traditions’ (Goodson, 1992, p. 242). It is necessary therefore to connect ‘personal biography and historical background’ (Goodson, 1981, p. 69) as well as policy context and traditions of schooling at local and national levels, for principals are not simply ‘cardboard cut-outs’ but real flesh and blood individuals with ‘Motives and emotions . . . [that] are influenced by past, as well as contemporary events’ (Ball and Goodson, 1985, p. 13). In the asymmetrical relationship between the local and the global, what Beck (2000) refers to as the ‘glocal’, it is important also, as integral to the process of contextualisation, to situate the dynamics of identity re-formation within international perspectives thus indicating how international ‘social movements’ are refracted within national systems and the dynamics of professional identity construction.11 Life stories then are not ends in themselves. Rather, they are the starting points, or points of departure. It is necessary to move from life stories to life histories, from narratives to genealogies of context, towards a modality that embraces ‘stories of action within theories of context’. In so doing, stories might be seen as the social constructions they are, providing glimpses in their location within power structures and social milieu. . . . Only if we deal with stories as

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the starting point . . . as the beginning of a process of coming to know, will we come to understand their meaning, to see them as social constructions which allow us to locate and to interrogate the social world in which they are embedded. (Goodson and Sikes, 2001, p. 86) It is necessary, therefore, to appreciate that the ‘story-ies’ of school leaders and of school leadership are work in progress, emerging stories of lives and work that provide important insights also into the flux and flows of school systems as they shape and are shaped by those in leadership positions. The dynamics of this unfolding drama have potential also to enhance understandings of conceptions of leadership as they are altered, imagined and reconstructed. Principals have stories to tell as actors in an unfolding drama in which they have a prescribed role in terms of a ‘script’, ‘lines’ of priority to be pursued, but with agency also, as they frequently say, ‘to put their own stamp on things’. In constructing the principal’s role as a dynamic interplay of power relations both within and without the school community, I am reminded of the historical significance of the ‘Agent’ in Irish folk memory; the representative of the Landlord, with powers to extract (‘rack’) rents from tenant farmers, and to evict, or to be empathetic also to the plight of others, to reinforce existing status differentials and power relations or to subvert them by taking risks for the benefits of families, their continued survival and well-being. Principals as actors have agency with potential to influence positively or negatively the lives of others, to become the ‘puppets’ of more powerful players in the system, rather ‘wooden’ actors in a sense, that press the ‘party’ line as dictated by policy-makers. Alternatively, they can be catalytic palimpsests within the system actively developing ‘new’ scripts while simultaneously (re-)creating new identities as leaders and re-working and re-writing pre-ordained leaderships scripts, working towards ‘imagined communities’ where co-actors, be they colleagues, students or parents, become co-creators of alternative and empowering scripts. As Theobald (1993) would have it: ‘we must come to terms with the ordinary and the everyday in order to destabilize it’ (p. 21). Yet, as we know from comments regarding the nature of identity formation, the construction of lay theories and the role played by preordained scripts devised by policy-makers and others, there is a place and necessity for continuities too that is rendered more urgent also when the pace of change is more rapid and its contexts more turbulent than in more stable times. School leaders are positioned centrally in the intersection of continuity and change, where they are required to find continuity and stability to ‘keep a particular narrative going’ while simultaneously devising alternative scripts both for their professional selves and the communities in which they toil. Indicating who these ‘high-wire’ artists are, and what makes them ‘tick,’ is what we set out to capture when designing the study reported in this book.

Putting ‘real life’ into school leadership 21

Doing life histories of school leaders Consortium would be much too grand a term for the group of individuals from Denmark, Norway, the north of England and Ireland who comprise the research team for this study. Rather, we are all individuals actively working with school leaders in our own settings, with particular focus on postgraduate studies, continuing professional learning and research on school leadership. We came to know one another through international conferences and networks, and each of us has brought our own particular passion for life-history work, and sought to merge this with a professional interest in leadership research. In short, with limited resources at our disposal, we became a network that conducted fieldwork on the life histories of school leaders and used attendance at international conferences as well as time spent in each other’s institutions as a means of shaping the project and analysing data. While this approach is far from ideal in seeking to sustain international comparative research work, it may serve as an example to others that such initiatives are possible with a modicum of imagination and ingenuity, and limited financial support. Given our modus operandi, we were at least well disposed, empathetic or ‘compassionate’ towards the realities of the lives and work of principals. We decided to interview between nine and twelve principals in each of the four jurisdictions. While the vast majority are primary-school principals, given lack of distinction between primary and lower secondary in Denmark and Norway, some of the principals interviewed had responsibility for children throughout the period of compulsory schooling (6–16). Brief profiles of interviewees are provided in Appendices 1–4. In order to deal with issues of continuity and change, as well as learning across the life span, we decided also to interview three ‘categories’ of principal – those who were recent appointees, in the first three/four years in the role, experienced principals who had served 5–14 years as principals and veterans who were those with more than fifteen years in the position. Each principal was interviewed three times. The first interview was relatively unstructured and open-ended – ‘a green light and a listening ear’ – and this was followed by some data analysis that subsequently informed and shaped more semi-structured interview schedules for the second and third sessions. All interviews were taped and transcribed. Analysis in the first instance was context specific, while the more structured interview schedules for the second and third encounters provided common if tentative themes also to make cross-site comparisons. We experimented with these comparative dimensions by co-authoring papers for presentation at symposia and as additional opportunities also to give shape and direction to further analysis and comparison. This book is a further manifestation of this effort. Data were generated and analysed over a three-year period, 1999–2001, with analysis continuing into the following year. The predominant mode of

22 Ciaran Sugrue

analysis was constant comparative method with identification of crosscutting themes as a means of gaining control over the data while being careful not to make data ‘fit’ emerging categories rather than paying attention to context, difference and diversity. The structure of the text is an attempt also to honour these considerations while seeking to contribute to debate on leadership by giving voice to the life and work of principals. By beginning with biography, we are seeking to identify the passions of school leaders and to re-inscribe passion into leadership literature and professional learning.

Structure of the book The rationale for the structure, content and sequencing of chapters in this book is consistent with a life-history approach. It is in four parts. Part I, Passionate Principalship, which contains this chapter, frames and situates the subsequent sections. Part II, People in Principalship: stories of engaged selves, is consistent with the argument advanced in this chapter that it is necessary to pay attention to biography, to recognise the symbiosis between the life and the work. Towards that end, therefore, we have taken the life stories of individuals in each of the four settings to illustrate various aspects of these connections. Part III, Passionate Principalship: learning from life histories, contextualises the stories more, thus constructing more self-consciously life histories of selected school leaders while continuing to be rooted in life story and context. Part IV, Beyond Passion in Principalship, consists of a concluding chapter that indicates ways in which putting passion into leadership literature has potential to re-orient policy and practice as well as reshape initial and ongoing professional preparation and support for school leaders. For readers unfamiliar with the four contexts in which data for this study were generated, brief descriptions of each are provided in Appendices 5–8. As a means of contextualising the content of Chapters 2 to 9, and of making the reading of their content more meaningful for the reader, these various descriptions should be read in advance of reading each of the chapters.

Notes 1 For example, Walker and Dimmock (2002, p. 15) argue that ‘Anglo-American scholars continue to exert a diaproportionate influence on theory, policy and practice’ of school leadership. 2 At the time of conducting the study, it was the case in Ireland, Norway and Denmark that no additional qualifications or courses were a prerequisite for being appointed to the position of principal. However, this situation has now changed.

Putting ‘real life’ into school leadership 23 3 For a comprehensive account of the significance of communities characterised by strong or weak ties as a means of shaping identities and the creation or demise of social capital, see Putnam’s (1998) book Bowling Alone. 4 For an extensive treatment of the evolutionary significance of intimacy and distance within communities and their capacity to adapt sufficiently rapidly to sudden external changes in the environment, see Fullan’s (1999) Changing Forces: the sequel. 5 In describing school communities as possible ‘third spaces’ I am borrowing from Bronwen Walter’s notion of ‘diaspora space’ which she describes using Brah’s (1996) words as a space ‘where the native is as much a diasporian as the diasporian is the native’ (quoted in Walter, 2001, p. 27). In such spaces there is usually opportunity to question taken-for-granted assumptions, a precursor to transformation of identities. 6 Hargreaves distinguishes between coping and survival strategies; the former are creative and imaginative responses to adversity, while the latter are a means of staying alive, of keeping one’s head above water. For further details see Hargreaves, 1984. 7 For a succinct summary of various conceptualisations of leadership, see Leithwood et al., 1999, pp. 2–20. 8 Andy Hargreaves (1994, 1998) has written eloquently about the emotional geographies of teaching and indicates how emotions can be positive or destructive forces in the maelstrom of schooling. 9 There are several internationally known books within this genre of educational research that both advocate a life-history approach and actually document life histories. They include Ball, 1985; Sikes, 1985; Goodson, 1991; Goodson, 1992; Casey, 1993; Middleton, 1993; and Munro, 1998. 10 For a particularly informative and up-to-date account of the travails of this research methodology, see Goodson and Sikes, 2001. 11 For a particularly useful articulation of the nexus between international social movements and the dynamics of national systems of education, and how the former are refracted within the latter as a function of ‘internal’ power relations, see Goodson, 2004.

References Ball, S. and Goodson, I. F. (1985) Teachers’ Lives and Careers, London: Falmer Press. Barber, B. R. (1996) Jihad vs. McWorld, New York: Balantine Books. Beck, U. (2000) What Is Globalization? Cambridge: Polity Press. Bourdieu, P. and Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Britzman, D. (1991) Practice Makes Practice: a critical study of learning to teach (with a foreword by Maxine Greene), New York: SUNY. Bryk, A., Sebring, P., Rollow, S. and Eaton, J. (1998) Charting Chicago School Reform, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Casey, K. (1993) I Answer with My Life: life histories of women teachers working for social change, New York and London: Routledge. Copland, M. A. (2001) The Myth of the Superprincipal, Phi Delta KAPPAN, Vol. 82, No. 7, pp. 528–533. Cuban, L. (1993) How Teachers Taught: constancy and change in American classrooms 1890–1990, London and New York: Teachers’ College Press.

24 Ciaran Sugrue Cuban, L. (2003) Why is it So Hard to Get GOOD Schools? New York and London: Teachers’ College Press. Dimmock, C. (1996) Dilemmas for School Leaders and Administrators in Restructuring, in K. Leithwood, J. Chapman, D.Corson, P. Hallinger and A. Hart (eds), International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration, Vol. 2, Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer, pp. 135–170. Fried, R. L. (1995) The Passionate Teacher: a practical guide, Boston: Beacon Press. Fried, R. L. (2001) Passionate Learners and the Challenge of Schooling, Phi Delta KAPPAN, Vol. 83, No. 2, pp. 124–236. Fullan, M. (2003) The Moral Imperative of School Leadership, with a foreword by J.Goodlad, Toronto and Thousand Oaks, CA: Ontario Principals’ Council & Corwin Press. Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and self-identity: self and society in the late modern age, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Goodson, I. F. (1981) Life Histories and the Study of Schooling, Interchange, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 2–8. Goodson, I. F. (ed.) (1992) Studying Teachers’ Lives, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Goodson, I. F. and Hargreaves, A. (eds) (1996) Teachers’ Professional Lives, London: Falmer Press. Goodson, I. F. and Sikes, P. (eds) (2001) Life History Research In Educational Settings, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press. Hargreaves, A. (1994) Changing Teachers, Changing Times, London: Cassell. Hargreaves, A. (1998) The Emotional Politics of Teaching and Teacher Development: with implications for educational headship, International Journal of Leadership in Education Theory and Practice, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 315–336. Heifetz, R. A. and Linsky, M. (2002) Leadership on the Line: staying alive through the dangers of leading, Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Holt-Reynolds, D. (1992) Personal History-Based Beliefs as Relevant Prior Knowledge in Course Work, American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 325–349. Homer-Dixon, T. (2001) The Ingenuity Gap, Toronto: Vintage Canada. Kane, M. J. (2002) CEOs Speak on Leadership: vision and passion, www.refresher.com/!mjkvision.html. Kaufmann, F. (2000) Gifted Education and the Romance of Passion, Gifted Child Today Magazine, Vol. 23, No. 6, pp. 20–24. Leithwood, K., Jantzi, D. and Steinbach, R. (1999) Changing Leadership for Changing Times, Buckingham: Open University Press. Leithwood, K., Chapman, J., Corson, D., Hallinger, P. and Hart, A. (eds) (1996) International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration, Dordrecth/Boston/London: Kluwer. Lortie, D. (1975) Schoolteacher: a sociological study, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Morrison, K. (2002) School Leadership and Complexity Theory, London & New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Postman, N. (1979) Teaching as a Conserving Activity, New York: Delacorte Press. Reynolds, C. (ed.) (2002) Women and School Leadership: international perspectives, Albany: SUNY.

Putting ‘real life’ into school leadership 25 Southworth, G. (1995) Looking into Primary Headship, London: Falmer Press. Stoll, L., Fink, D. and Earl, L. (2003) It’s About Learning (and it’s About Time): what’s in it for schools? London & New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Theobald, M. (1993) Teachers, Memory and Oral History, in K. Weiler and S. Middleton (eds), Telling Women’s Lives, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, pp. 9–24. Toft, R. (2003) Winning Ways with Wildlife, Msafiri: inflight magazine of Kenya Airways, February–April, pp. 54–57. Troman, G., and Woods, P. (2001) Primary Teachers’ Stress, London and New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Tyack, D. and Cuban, L. (1995) Tinkering Toward Utopia: a century of public school reform, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tye, B. B. (2000) Hard Truths: uncovering the deep structures of schooling, New York: Teachers’ College Press. Walker, A. and Dimmock, C. (eds) (2002) School Leadership and Administration: adopting a cultural perspective, New York and London: RoutledgeFalmer. Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yeats, W. B. (1918) ‘The Second Coming’ (www.well.com/usereob/poetry/The second_Coming. Html).

Part II

People in principalship Stories of engaged selves

Chapter 2

Sustained motivation embedded in place Living with accountability and mandated change Colin Biott and John Spindler

Introduction This chapter focuses on the story of an English primary-school headteacher,1 who has worked in the same school for over twenty years. A recent Ofsted inspection report described his management and leadership as ‘very good and highly effective in the community’. His commitment and clear-sightedness are cited as major factors in the school’s success. What is particularly relevant to this book, however, is that he has sustained effective leadership into late career, during which time he has not had even one day’s absence. This story provides insights into the professional identity of a ‘passionate principal’ and into the history of the times through which he has lived. It explores interplay between the person he says he is, who he wants to be and who he feels he now has to be. In doing so, it delineates contemporary school leadership as a mix of enduring commitment, clear core values and contingent and strategic attention to accountability. It shows how concern for high quality and standards develops out of long-term engagement in a school community, and how it is both helped and hindered by national reform and external imposition. This is a story of sustained motivation embedded in place. Like Boyle and Woods’ (1996) research, this chapter shows that school leadership is ‘complex, full of conflicts and contrasts and is irreducible to a polarised position’ (p. 549). They have used the term ‘composite head’ to describe a primary-school headteacher who has developed her own form of leadership: a role for herself and situation in the face of changes. It is important to catch the sense in which headteachers are able to recognise their own ambiguities regarding what they do in order to cope with new requirements and at the same time to preserve cherished values.

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A life history of a veteran headteacher How then does a single story help towards understandinging ‘passionate principalship’ within a contemporary history of school leadership? In the example we have chosen, we have found that experiences of national reforms are rooted in personal engagement. What we get here is not the viewpoint of a detached bystander or the critique of social scientist, but a story of ‘me’ – a story of an engaged self. Imposed reforms are introduced into the story as important milestones in a personal career. As Goodson (1992) has observed, quoting the folk-song collector Robin Morton, it is important to get to know the ‘singer not the song’. If we are to understand the song (in this case reforms such as Local Management of Schools) more fully we have to try to understand it in the life of the singer. Somers and Gibson (1994) stress the importance of ‘employment’ in narratives. The sequencing of events and episodes, and the network of relationships between them, that both create a story-line and help to construct social identities. This points to the interaction of two particular dimensions of narrativity: an ontological dimension and a meta-narrative, which conveys the changing times during which the teller lives and has lived. In this sense, a single story is shown to have potential to reveal interplay between private and the public elements of school leadership. It shows how the learning trajectory to becoming an established school leader is embedded in biography and in the interaction between context and agency. This headteacher’s story has what Denzin (1989) has called a ‘cumulative epiphany’. A chronological series of events, incidents and vignettes are used to help convey gradual revelation of his own capability, particularly of his capacity to make the best of demanding situations. This is combined with an unmistakable sense of in-placeness, of always working very close to his home, of being committed to the community and making a difference, as a headteacher, in tangible ways such as by gaining extra resources and raising children’s attainment. At the time of the interviews he had been headteacher of the same school for twenty-one years. He had lived close to the school prior to his appointment and throughout his headship he has continued to live only a few minutes away from it. The locality consists mainly of rented accommodation and available social indicators suggest an above average level of social disadvantage. For example, the proportion of the school’s pupils eligible for free school meals is 47 per cent (well above the national average) and 23.5 per cent of the children are on the school’s register of special educational needs. One of his biographical touchstones is his willingness to play the ‘official game’ when it fits with his real agenda to gain resources for his school and its community. At different points in the story he described how he

Sustained motivation embedded in place 31

volunteered to be involved in three particular national initiatives that many other headteachers saw as unwelcome impositions. First, in 1990, he volunteered to be a pilot school for Local Management of Schools to get more resources for the school. Second, in 1991, he volunteered to be a pilot school for Standard Assessment Tasks because he had always believed in enabling children to do well in tests and so improve their life chances. Third, he volunteered, in 1999, to be part of an ‘education action zone’ to get extra resources even though, geographically, his school was located outside it. He mentions that some headteachers of schools located in the area of the new ‘zone’ were trying to opt out of it, because of the stigma of social disadvantage. He looked strategically at the possibilities arising from the opportunity. He said he would volunteer for anything that brings in resources for the community and the school – and then ‘jump through hoops’ if necessary. He began his story by explaining how he came into teaching by accident. His parents had separated when he was 13 years old, and his mother died unexpectedly when he was sitting public examinations at the age of 17. He did well in those examinations, but he had no plans for a career. A teacher suggested he should try a job as a teaching assistant. He liked it and applied to do teacher training. He was offered places by three colleges, and he chose to go to a local college as a day student because of limited financial resources. At the outset, then, he opens up themes that are woven throughout the story: making the best of difficult circumstances, doing well, making an impression on others who go on to encourage him and staying local. He gained distinctions in the main aspects of the course and impressed people, including a national inspector, with his practical teaching skills. He recalled being influenced by a lecturer, whom other students thought was hard and unpopular. She promoted child-centred education, and from then on, he set out to combine this with more formal methods. He said ‘this has never left me’. At that time, jobs were ‘two a penny’ and so he was able to get a post in a school near his home in a downtown area. He liked that. He had fortyfour children in his first class and he did well with them. At that time it was common for teachers to work through a single text-book or a set of books, but he did practical work with the children and got them involved – again people were impressed. He was the only young member of staff in that school. He took football and cricket teams and did a lot of extra things. He was given the top class (oldest age group in the school) to teach. He was pleased about that, but now recognises he was naive as it was a challenge none of the others wanted. This class had a total of fifty-one children ranging from some who could hardly read to the very able. He was based in a prefabricated building. He also remembered once taking three classes (about 120 children) for games in the afternoon so that other teachers

32 Colin Biott and John Spindler

were able to visit a book exhibition. As he said, ‘somehow you muddled through in those days and nothing much came of it’. He moved to take a post of responsibility at another school where he did not like the approach of the headteacher who ‘kept parents out of things’. At that time, had been teaching for four years and he wanted to further his career. By chance, he noticed an advertisement for a one-year university course. The course was enlightening, especially when he visited Liverpool for a week to see work being done to promote parental involvement for ‘real kids in real situations’ (not in leafy suburbs). Seeing those schools had energised his ambitions. He became deputy head of another school where he was impressed by the headteacher, because his first priority was the children, then the parents. What they were doing was revolutionary at that time. Parents were coming into assemblies and into the classrooms to help out. They built up tremendous rapport with parents and that helped the children’s education. The headteacher was a county councillor and he was away from the school a lot so, as the deputy, he was dealing with everyday problems and decisions. After he had been a deputy headteacher for six years, LEA advisers suggested that he should apply for a headship. He applied for three schools at the same time and he got the one he wanted within walking distance of his home. He already knew a lot of the families. When he took up the post, the staff had been there for a long time. They were set in their ways. For example, one excellent teacher had all her lessons for the year planned out in advance and she took the same age group year after year. Many of them had only taught in that one school. He envisaged staying in that school for the remainder of his career and he set out to change things gradually. For example it took two years to develop the mathematics curriculum. It took many meetings and a lot of preparation of materials – they ended up producing their own detailed curriculum across all years and that was unheard of at that time. Soon after he became headteacher he enrolled on a part-time higherdegree programme. This involved action research and it helped to improve projects already under way in the school. He analysed children’s talk, interaction between teachers and children and how science was being taught. This work involved the teachers as participants in the research. Up to that time he was trying to improve the school according to his own timescales – ‘we got to be strong by being accountable to ourselves and the parents’. His story has a steady rising trajectory up to the point where he began to refer directly to national reforms, some of which he welcomed and others which made things worse. Overall he now thinks that relentless government initiatives have been unhelpful and says he may not even apply for a headship if he had his time over again:

Sustained motivation embedded in place 33

Remember school development plans – they were supposed to be fiveyear plans, but they would never come to fruition because of new changes being brought in. Think of how literacy hour and numeracy hour has overtaken schools own plans – and now we hear that every teacher is going to have 26 hours of computer training. It is crisis management now – we never see the end of it. The next thing is self-assessment of schools. The trouble is it is going to be a file to hand over to an inspector. He has judged successive reforms for what they are worth and he is able to see the ambiguities of his own feelings towards them. Whilst he has remained in the same post for many years he has not settled for ‘making do’. He has developed the confidence to forage for resources and the ‘know-how’ to make best use of whatever opportunities come along.

Securing resources and being in control of budgets: volunteering to be a pilot school for a new reform He is selective about how much effort he puts in to implementing new policies, and volunteering to be a pilot school for ‘Local Management of Schools’ (LMS) was one of the best things he had ever done: In 1990 LMS came along. Now I was at the forefront of that and I wanted to be at the forefront of that. They asked for schools to volunteer and I volunteered. . . . I think that was one of the best things I have ever done, because the secretary, who has been a stalwart of this school all her life and she’s been here for twenty-five years, she was enthusiastic about it as well. Without her help, we would never have been able to do it, but what I did, when we were actually a pilot school, we trialled a lot of the things involved with LMS and what I found out was how to work and how to fiddle on with budgets, which I had never done before and which I found has held me in great stead since then. What happened was, by 1990 when LMS was coming in, we were a big school then, we had nearly 360 children in the school and we were going to have a positive budget, which was not . . . we weren’t going to be in the red. We were going to have quite a bit of extra finance when they started. What happened was, over the first three years of LMS, I had a surplus of about eighty or ninety thousand pounds at one stage. That was the most I had ever had and I had the authority (LEA) telling me I couldn’t have a surplus of that amount and I was telling them I could. Their advisers were coming out and telling me it was obscene and I should get rid of it, and I should employ extra teachers

34 Colin Biott and John Spindler

and I said, well I can’t – I’ve got teachers in every class, I’ve got two floating teachers, what more do you want me to do, I’ve got no extra space for the kids. But I knew what I was doing in my own mind, because what I saw, we reached a peak as far as numbers in the school was going and I knew that, that peak was going to go down and then we were going to have to obviously get rid of teachers and what I was doing was, I was storing up the money for the rainy days that I knew were going to come in the future. The audit commission was in, they came and interviewed me, they went through the whole school and then they asked me, well, did I have any plans for the money? Now development plans had come out about the same time as Local Management of Schools and I had been foresighted enough at the time prior to that to have planning of where I was going to build an extension onto the school and use it as a computer room. Now I had no intention of doing this but that’s where the money was going to go and that’s what it was going to be used for. The governors knew about this and they were asking what we were doing but I never had to go through the thing of actually getting plans drawn up by the authority for this room to be built onto the school. But I knew by the time we came to build it we wouldn’t have the money to build it because the money would have then been spent because the roll (number of children) was decreasing. I have never ever regretted LMS coming into schools because I think that it gave schools money which we couldn’t get our hands on before. He had grown up with scarce resources and he was not going to miss a chance to forage for the kinds of resources that would make a difference. Controlling the budgets enabled this headteacher to: •

• • •

shield teachers from redeployment by not giving in and spending the money as the LEA wanted him to do (later he talked also about how he has also shielded them from detailed trivia when the national curriculum was introduced); make his school ‘second to none’ for resources (he also talks of it being ‘second to none’ for participation in sporting activities); be ahead of the game (for testing children and raising levels of attainment and for homework classes ‘before they were in fashion’); protect him and his school from the influence of the LEA. He said he had not done so well in getting money from the LEA prior to LMS, because he had not wanted to be involved in innovations it promoted. His philosophy towards the LEA was – ‘if we don’t bother them they won’t bother us’.

Sustained motivation embedded in place 35

The meaning of reforms is bound into the story of his life: a story of ‘me’. It is understood in relation to themes that emerge early in the story of being located in place, of striving for resources, of volunteering, of being ‘ahead of the game’ and looking out for extra resources to enable him to have a school that is ‘second to none’. In this sense a ‘story of action’ and a ‘history of context’ interweave and give meaning to each other.

Suffering a reduced sense of being a curriculum developer: the imposition of a national curiculum One of the distinct phases of his story covers the first ten years of his headship, from 1980 to about 1990. In this phase he is firmly rooted in his school and the community. He conveys a sense of being settled, of being in the right place and of setting out to make a difference over a long period of time. He was giving himself time to create foundations to bring about sustainable change: So I wanted to try and change the maths which I thought was important, so gradually we started to look at the maths, we had meetings and we talked about it and we ended up, it took two years to do it, but we ended up producing our own maths syllabus which had never been heard of in those days, I don’t think, in schools like this whereby the syllabus was there. We decided what the first year juniors were going to do, what the second year juniors were going to do, what the third year juniors and what the fourth year juniors were going to do and we had it all written down, typed up and we all agreed with it and that’s what we were going to teach, the content was in place . . . we did get it stabilised in the school, it took two years to get the syllabus produced and then perhaps another year to start working it and I felt that we had really achieved something by doing that but it was a model that involved all of the staff at the time. His use of the collective pronoun – ‘we’ – catches a growing sense of collective action by the whole staff. Three key aspects of how he sees himself as a leader are revealed in what he says, in this phase of the story, about supporting teachers, involving them in decisions and being systematic and organised. His reaction to the imposition of the National Curriculum is in sharp contrast to his view of the Local Management of Schools reform. He and the school staff were losing what they had been building: Baker (Secretary of State for Education) came . . . he didn’t solve our problems, he made it worse because what it was, it was too complicated, too many objectives, too many tick lists, too many things to be

36 Colin Biott and John Spindler

filled in and this is where my role came in as well. I mean I had shielded the teachers from being redeployed if I had taken in and spent all of the money that the authority wanted me. I felt I had to shield them again as far as the actual objective list of tick lists which the authority wanted us to do, the government wanted us to do, but we did it but it was never done in the way it should have been. I mean for some subjects it was ridiculous, you had to have, or was it for all of them, there were about 1600 objectives, which you would have to tick a box to say that they had fulfilled which was just stupid because gone were the days when you were just teaching a subject in the best way that you could, which ever method you wanted to use. Now you were having to teach the subject and also tick little boxes and say whether you had taught it and whether the children had understood it and you were going to be spending all of your time following check lists. In terms of curriculum development, then, he was frustrated because he was unable to sustain what he had built. To make matters worse he would now have to struggle to sustain an approach to teaching he would not have wanted to have built.

Improving children’s life chance: volunteering to pilot national standardised tests His negative attitude towards the National Curriculum can be contrasted with his more positive stance on a national system for testing children. He had always regarded children’s capacity to pass tests as important to them and to their future life chances. It had been one of his key aims and an integral part of his overall orientation to community regeneration in the locality, in which he lived and worked. When Standard Attainment Tests (SATS) were introduced he volunteered to pilot them, just as he had done with Local Management of Schools: About 1991, we started doing SATs – Key Stage 1 SATs. We volunteered to do them to start with and done them ever since . . . we would have to give the kids practice papers to do so they got used to test conditions and examination conditions. We ran mock exams with the kids so that they get used to timing and then we went through the questions with them . . . we showed them strategies for approaching that type of question and all the rest of it and that’s something that we have done over the years. He now saw that what he had always believed in, sometimes against the run of professional opinion, had now becoming fashionable:

Sustained motivation embedded in place 37

But things are changing because other schools are catching up to us now because they are all doing what we used to do years ago and it was frowned upon when we did it. I mean, I remember at headteachers’ meetings we had arguments about it where some headteachers said, well, it affects the curriculum, we’re not going to do it. They just take the papers and that’s it. Then they just throw them away but that’s not the game that we were in, because it had become a game and the game was that you had to perform and that you would be judged upon your performance. It doesn’t matter whether you liked it or not, the only criterion which they were going to use would be the SAT results. He felt he was ‘ahead of the game’ because he had introduced ‘booster classes’, to give extra tuition and support to children, before they were called that by the government: Our results have always been quite good, because possibly we were ahead of the game. The government – last year – has introduced booster classes and all the rest of it. Well we were doing that ourselves with homework classes and one thing and another long before they’d ever set that, but it was only with Year 6 kids that we were doing it. The deputy head and myself used to do it and I used to take kids out and talk with kids, who we thought were Level 3, but with a bit extra help could get to Level 4. So I used to take them for story writing and maths work and things like that and we would try and improve their performance. So our SAT results at Key Stage 2 up to now have always been quite good and we have been quite happy with them. Recently, his stance towards standard attainment testing has changed. As attainment testing has become a focus for public accountability of the education system, he finds himself at odds with the arbitrary ‘ratchet effect’ which bases the next set of targets on a notion of constant improvement: The authority have set the targets but they’ve set them in a quite arbitrary way and I mean our targets are very high because we’ve done well. Now there’s no going back on them, I mean I argued about last year’s targets with [LEA adviser] and who told me in no uncertain terms that if I didn’t accept the authority’s targets or what happened was alarm bells would be rung down in Ofsted headquarters and somebody would be coming out to say, well, why aren’t you achieving the targets and I think we should inspect that school. So it’s like we were blackmailed into accepting them even though you didn’t so it went through the governors, the governors reluctantly accepted them with the proviso that we didn’t agree with them and all the rest of it.

38 Colin Biott and John Spindler

A sense of loss and regret: changes in the community and in relationships with parents Despite references in the recent external inspection report to good links with the local community and to parents’ ‘overwhelming support’ for the school, this headteacher talks about difficulties caused by both local change and government interference. Throughout his story, he tells how he has judged successive reforms in terms of how they might help or hinder his project to build a school to serve the needs of the working-class community in which he lives and works. His stance towards external imposition has been strategic and contingent. He also conveys a sense of regret in changes in the community: I mean as I’ve said, I’ve been here twenty-one years now. It used to be a natural community, but now it is not, because what has happened a lot of old [community name] people have either died or are in homes. Other people have moved into the area now and they are not [community name] people, so that natural affinity to the school has gone. This illustrates a layered reality, and shows how the recent Ofsted inspection of the school provides only a snapshot that fails to catch social change. The inspection report describes how ‘the school’s use of the local community to enrich learning is excellent’. It notes that ‘members of the community are regularly in the school to support learning’ and that ‘parents overwhelmingly support the school, and are very appreciative of what it achieves for their children’. The inspectors’ report reinforces the positive views of the parents they interviewed, but the headteacher takes a longer view and he knows that he has seen better times. Since early in his career he has always given high priority to creating partnerships with parents, but more recently this has become problematic because of changing circumstances. Even though the last inspection report points to excellent relationships between the school and parents, he now feels hemmed in by new demands and is losing control of how he sets the tone for links between homes and the school. This is caused, to some extent by concerns about budgets: We’ve always sent kids home with reading books. We’ve always sent them home with spelling lists. We’ve always sent them home with tables to learn and things like that, but now we’re actually giving them work which is matching work which they’re doing in the curriculum, to help them to actually achieve better results in the examinations, which is what we do. I don’t know where it’s going to end up because the resources for the literacy hour which obviously helps to improve the

Sustained motivation embedded in place 39

reading standards and standards of writing and everything, they are dried up now. Now our good budgets have come to an end as I’ve said. Now I do not know if we would be able to replace the reading books. Now I’m sending home books with kids and I know some of them I won’t get back and so I don’t know how we’re going to replace them. I would want to replace them obviously, but where are we going to get the funding from? We don’t know. He is also aware of changes in the attitudes of parents, and talks of how, because of the government’s influence, some now contribute to the increased levels of stress on those who work in schools: Now parents come to me about the least bit thing: their child can’t do some maths work, they are unhappy with the homework they’ve been given, the parent doesn’t understand the homework, who’s supposed to be teaching them . . .? You get all of this type of issue now and this is I suppose through the government’s policy of highlighting education and talking about it all the time and bringing it to the forefront. It is a much more stressful time for the teacher, for the parents and the children, because you have got everybody under pressure now. We used to set homework and for many years didn’t get any problems – we judged well about what was challenging enough and helpful. He feels that his accumulated knowledge and his capacity to make judgments based on his extensive local experience are both being undermined. He now talks of having to set work that is too difficult for some children even though he knows that their parents cannot help them. As a consequence, he has started to get complaints from parents for the first time in his long career. According to criteria of external accountability he has led a very effective school for over twenty years, during which he has never had a day’s absence through ill-health. If he were just starting his career, however, he would not want to be a headteacher. He still keeps on working hard, but he is being undermined rather than motivated by ratcheting-up of targets and he is disillusioned by the prevailing ‘blame culture’. It is important to avoid over-simpifying the impact of years of relentless reform on headteachers and of assuming that the successful will have coped well and the unsuccessful will have been weeded out. At a time when there is concern about recruitment and retention this is a message worthy of some attention. Why does a headteacher, who has been judged to be successful up to the end of his long career, and who has been committed to improving standards throughout that time, now say that he would not apply for headships if he were just starting his career?

40 Colin Biott and John Spindler

I’ve always enjoyed – I mean touch wood I’ve never had a day off since I started, I’ve been lucky healthwise as far as that is concerned, but it’s changing now because before you could go home and you – you took work home on a weekend and I used to do it on a Friday night and sometimes on a Sunday night and that was it and nothing else. Now you are on the go all the time, because there are so many different things in your mind and then suddenly there’s an announcement on the radio, you listen to the radio on a Saturday afternoon and some minister has announced some stupid thing – ‘God that will affect us’ – you know what I mean – and it’s constantly there and it’s gnawing away at you and there’s so much happening and there’s that much going on and you’re responsible for that much – and in a school like ours – I mean I would say it is a reasonably small school – 230-odd kids – and you’ve got no real help. My deputy headteacher is a fulltime teacher, so you are left to everything on your own and you’ve got people absent and the rest of it, and you are supposed to cover people and it does place a lot of extra strain and stress on you and I can’t see many sane people wanting really to put in for headship now.

Conclusions What we learn from this veteran headteacher is that good quality school leadership is both robust and vulnerable. The message from his story is not about factors that make up a list of competences, but about what makes people continue to work hard. Here we find a capable, engaged self with a strong sense of place. We see how leading a school is imbued with local meaning. He has been variously helped and hindered by government reforms, but recently he has become more and more disillusioned by the ratcheting-up of targets and worn down by a prevailing ‘blame culture’. One of the overall messages of this book is that good school leadership depends on harnessing deep commitments. At a time of concern about recruitment and retention it is important to recognise the fragility of incumbents’ identities and the real difficulties of sustaining passionate engagement when the educational landscape is turned into a hostile environment in which to work.

Note 1 We use the term headteacher throughout this chapter, as this is the preferred nomenclature in the English context, and has a somewhat different historical resonance than the term principal, particularly as it has been and continues to be used in our context.

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References Boyle, M. and Woods, P. (1996) The Composite Head: coping with changes in the primary headteacher’s role, British Educational Research Journal, Vol. 22, No. 5, pp. 549–568. Denzin, N. (1989) Interpretive Biography, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Goodson, I. (1992) Sponsoring the Teacher’s Voice: teachers’ lives and teacher development, in A. Hargreaves and M. Fullan (eds) Understanding Teacher Development, New York: Teachers’ College Press. Somers, M. R. and Gibson, G. D. (1994) Reclaiming the epistemological ‘Other’: Narrative and the Social Construction of Identity, in C. Calhoun (ed.) Social Theory and the Politics of Identity, Oxford: Blackwell.

Chapter 3

Old metaphors, new meanings Being a woman principal Jorunn Mø11er

Introduction This chapter focuses on how Kari, a Norwegian school principal in her mid-career, comes to know the meaning of being a woman principal. You may wish to read Appendix 8 at this point to familiarise yourself with the educational context in Norway.

Kari’s professional life story as co-constructed Kari is in her late fifties. She has been the school principal at Kolstad School since 1994. There are 345 pupils at school and a staff of sixty-eight. Almost 20 per cent of the pupils use the extra-curricular activities. The average teacher age is about forty-eight. The school is located in a small municipality not far from Oslo, and Kari was born and brought up in this small community. Kolstad is in fact the only school in the municipality, and it includes grade one to ten. Because communities are small, most people know each other and this makes it easy to connect with parents and local politicians. Before starting as a head at Kolstad, Kari worked for four years as a teacher, fifteen years as a deputy head and six years as a school principal at a primary school in Oslo. In addition she has been a counsellor to newly employed school leaders. She was educated at a Teachers’ Education College, and later passed exams in ‘multicultural pedagogy’, ‘special education’ and ‘school improvement’.1 She has also participated in a lot of education programmes for school leaders, different school projects, and she has been responsible for courses both for teachers and school leaders. When Kari was appointed as a principal at Kolstad, the school was very traditionally organised, but a lot has happened since she became the head, especially concerning school development and teambuilding. In this chapter, it is assumed that there is a profound connection between identity and practice, between identity and construction of a

Old metaphors, new meanings 43

number of narratives, and between identity and the influence of cultural, class and gender factors. My analysis is indebted to Wenger’s (1998) theory of learning, and Giddens’ (1991) theory of identity construction. The discussion is also informed by Bourdieu’s social theory (Calhoun et al., 1993; Bourdieu, 1996). Bourdieu does not use the concept identity construction in his social theory. However, his concepts ‘habitus’, ‘field’ and ‘cultural capital’ contribute to a way of understanding the interaction between education and identity construction, a way of understanding how people are negotiating and positioning themselves in the field of education. Bourdieu emphasises, for instance, that gender inequality is a result of ‘symbolic violence’. Different forms of ‘symbolic violence’, like positioning women as uninformed, misinformed, too emotional, incapable of taking strong decisions, or not being ambitious enough, might frequently be used to position women as outsiders. While each school principal participating in our study is likely to have distinctive features, they are also connected to and are part of the field of education historically situated within a national context. Wenger’s theory of identity construction may be interpreted as connecting the work of Giddens and Bourdieu (Solbrekke, 2000). In Wenger’s argument, ‘the habitus would be an emerging property of interacting practices rather than their generative infrastructure, with an existence unto itself. This position is closer to Giddens’s notion of structuration, but with practices as specific contexts for the knowledgeability of actors’ (Wenger, 1998, p. 289). According to Wenger, identity cannot be defined outside a cultural practice. We define who we are within the activities and the institutions, and we negotiate who we are. The negotiation processes need to be highlighted, and these processes are not only cognitive. They are processes where emotions and questions of power play important parts. Within this perspective, therefore, identity is temporally constructed in the process of shaping a learning trajectory consisting of both convergent and divergent trajectories. Because the trajectory is constructed in social contexts, it is not like a path that can be charted or foreseen. It is like a continuous motion – one that has a momentum of its own, but also opens to a field of influence. As trajectories, our identities incorporate the past and the future in negotiating the present. The temporality of identities is critical not only because we constantly renegotiate them, but also because they place our engagement in this temporal context. In this chapter these theoretical perspectives are deployed while discussing Kari’s individual learning trajectories and attendant identity construction, with a particular focus on the interaction between the person and the contexts. The purpose is to explore and identify key aspects, which can help us to understand how Kari is both shaping and being shaped by the contexts in which she lives and works. Other studies on educational administration show that four contexts

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seem especially salient in principals’ lives and work (Smulyan, 2000). First, the personal context of the individual, including home, educational background, training and path to the principalship, seem to be significant. Second, the community context that consists of two constituencies: the families served by the school and the teachers who work within it. Third, the institutional context that includes two components – the people in positions of power who control process and product, and the structural regularities of schools and districts that govern the actions of school principals. Finally, the historical and social context encompasses and reflects all of the others. It includes the historically accepted pattern of behaviour, hierarchies of power, and norms of interaction that shape us and that we, in turn, both perpetuate and resist (Smulyan, 2000, p. 4). Kari’s stories comprise all four contexts in a more or less explicit way. She is particularly aware of how her personal trajectories may have affected her entry into principalship, and she is trying to meet external expectations as best she can. She both adapts and challenges the system. She has learned to play by the rules and work long, hard hours to do the job in the way she feels it should be done. During her career she has moved from one place to another. With this experience in mind it has become obvious that context matters, and she has learned to balance the varying expectations of leadership held by the teachers and the families with whom she works. Kari is a school principal who welcomes opportunities for critical reflection on her own performance provided by a life-history approach. In exploring the interaction of person and context, a gender lens is added and applied in the discussion of her story in this chapter. This perspective includes exploring how women and men position themselves and are positioned by others as female and male principals, and linking the analysis to the historical, social and political context. Kari’s case allows us to listen to an individual voice and discuss how it may reflect larger social patterns and issues.

Tracing learning trajectories Becoming a school principal Her decision to become a teacher was conscious and was linked to an event when she, while still a student, taught a young boy how to read. She realised how important it was to contribute and make a difference to other people’s lives. When she started her career as a teacher, she did not reflect on becoming a school principal, but it seems to be a link between her vocation as a teacher and her later vocation as a school principal. Over and over again, she met people who encouraged her in her career and asked her to undertake leadership positions:

Old metaphors, new meanings 45

Let me start by telling about how I became a school principal. Today I know that was not the right way of getting into principalship. I was asked to apply for a position as deputy head. I had only been a teacher for four years and I never even thought of applying for a leadership position. I had only reflected on maybe I should apply for a position as supervisor for the Teacher Education College. But the request of becoming a deputy head – I was so surprised, and I was left with a short time to decide. Then I decided why not, and started. Later, I learned it should be a more conscious choice to become a head. . . . I did make a decision to become a school principal, but the position as deputy head was kind of given to me. Well, I could have said no, but I did not. It was so surprising. I had only four years’ experience as teacher. But I am proud that I took the risk of doing it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I guess by that time, I had enough trust in myself and felt secure. . . . I was in other words, both lucky with the induction into leadership, and have received lots of encouragement and challenges from other people. Then I have been successful, and that gives you security. You take new risks. Building an identity as a school principal consists of negotiating the meanings of our experience of membership in social communities, and the negotiations are processes where emotions and questions of power play important parts. Kari describes her entry into principalship as characterised by good fortune rather than personal effort. She has met mentors who have identified her leadership potential and given her challenges. At the same time she says she is willing to take risks, and she feels secure in her job. Thus risk and confidence seem to become part of her trajectory and this is consistent with theoretical perspectives articulated in Chapter 1. Her comment that her start as deputy head was uncalculated and hasty shows how she has been, to a certain degree, influenced by dominant discourses of leadership in society: ‘Becoming a school principal should have been a conscious choice!’ Nevertheless, her career path, first and foremost has been chosen rather than a response to external demands. Like the women in Hall’s (1996) study, Kari’s path to headship seems more based on self-efficacy and selfactualisation, and she underscores how her values stem from her family roots. Family relationships and influences – Kari’s personal context or ‘sculpted biography’ When Kari is tracing her experiences from family of origin, through school, college and early work experiences to family, educational and career experiences as an adult, she emphasises her cultural and social background:

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I grew up on a farm. I think that has influenced me a lot on what kind of leader I have become. I have often said it is a relationship between sowing and harvesting. You have to be careful, because it is important to sow at the right time, you have to fertilise on the way, and you have to watch the process. In order to find the right time for sowing, you need to know something about the ground, you have to be knowledgeable. You have to prepare the soil, and if you are shirking your duties, your harvest will not be good. One reaps the harvest of one’s effort. This is how it is in school as well. You have to monitor the learning process, you cannot shirk your duties. That is why I think it is important that a school principal is educated as a teacher. You have to be knowledgeable about the kind of activities you are leading. Nothing comes easy. It is hard work. That is what you learn when you are a farmer. In her story Kari often makes use of the metaphor of farming in order to characterise both her job as a principal and as a teacher. From her upbringing she is familiar with and knows a lot about farming, and she underscores the similarities between being a school leader and a farmer. Thus she reshapes being a school leader in ways that resonates with her biography. Her early socialisation seems important, both when it comes to living on a farm and her initial consciousness about class and gender. When she was young and had finished compulsory schooling, she had to move to a town to continue her secondary education. Even though she valued her own background, it was not an easy shift from countryside to town. She positions herself as an outsider at secondary school, and ever since she knows from her own experience how it feels being an outsider: They [her class mates] were teasing and joking about the clothes I was wearing. I was not as modern as they were. I had to rent a room because there was no regular bus to catch from my home to the school. Every Friday I travelled home to stay there during the weekend. I did not like the situation. I was the only one among my classmates, who was staying in lodgings. . . . My parents were also very strict with me. There were lots of things I could not do, and my parents were active church members. I was obedient to my parents and did everything that was expected. But there were so many things I wanted to do, but I felt very insecure at secondary school. I felt everyone was smarter than I was. It could be great to be like them, but I was not sure if I would manage. I think it has to do with being an outsider coming into town from the countryside. This inferiority complex was connected to looking upon myself as being an underdog. This feeling of being an outsider left me, however, the minute I started at teacher education.

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Kari relates her problems at secondary school to the differences of growing up at a farm compared to a more urban environment, of being exposed to a strict Christian upbringing compared to a more secular upbringing in towns. Her reflections must be understood within a historical perspective as well. In the 1950s the local was connected to local space or, as Kari says, her friends were well defined within a small geographical space. She did not have any friends outside her local community before she was fifteen. Implicitly her story is about social class and gender identity. In those days growing up in the countryside was not highly valued, seen from her classmates’ perspective. The girls she met at secondary schools had gained a different kind of security, they dressed differently and had a different jargon. Kari had difficulties identifying with the group. Bourdieu’s (1996, 1997) concepts of habitus, field and cultural capital contribute to a way of understanding the interaction between education and identity construction. He focuses on the field in which one is situated historically and sociologically and how certain discursive practices gain hegemony within the social field. The girls, who had lived their whole life in the town, had a cultural capital Kari was not familiar with. Unfamiliar trump cards were valued, and Kari positioned herself as an outsider. However, when she started her education at the teacher-training college, she felt at home immediately. Within this field she did not position herself as an outsider. How can this change in attitude be understood? One reason could be that Kari met people with similar cultural capital when she started her education at the teacher-training college. An analysis of recruitment into teaching shows that during the 1960s and 1970s a lot of bright girls from the countryside decided to become teachers (Hagemann 1992). Another reason could be that when Kari started at the college she was older, had already married and had children. Alternatively one could interpret this change in attitude as a shift in cultural capital. Those values, which were unfamiliar to her when she started her secondary education, had been adopted and were now taken for granted. Her cultural capital and habitus had been changed through interactions during schooldays. One way or the other, what emerges from this story is that ‘the water we swim in’, the outlook, the values, etc., create continuities or discontinuities that have to be reconciled through the ongoing project of identity construction. The intent here is not to privilege her particular set of beliefs and values. Rather, the transition, becoming a teacher, is less turbulent when context and embedded biographical touchstones are relatively congruent. When she characterises her beginning as a teacher and later as a school principal at the same school, she is very well aware of the impact of social class and social background. Her first job was at a school in the East End

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of Oslo, which is generally inhabited by low-income and working-class people:2 Today I think I was lucky to start my teacher career at that particular school where the way of relating to each other felt familiar to me. It was not stiff and subtle. If my start as a teacher had been at a school situated in the Western part of Oslo, I would probably not have gained that kind of experience. The point is that this context seemed to resonate with her biography. This comfortable (congruent) local community became the lens through which, and the context (habitus) in which, she creates her leadership identity. Negotiating the culture of schooling – the community context Some years ago she decided to move from Oslo to take up a position as school principal in the small community where she grew up. In one way it was a difficult decision. How would it feel coming back to ‘the green grass of home’ after so many years in the city? On the other hand, she felt deeply that she could contribute a lot to school development in this local community. Her children were grown up, and she was in her second marriage. She felt happy and thought this was the right moment to come ‘home’. She moved from a primary school characterised by progressive ideas to a traditional lower-secondary school in the countryside. At her new school she was met by a school culture of individual autonomy for teachers, so different from her first experience. Before she was part of a dynamic leadership team; now she must initiate pedagogical debate. On the other hand, she thinks it is worthwhile to invest her efforts and competency in her home community. She feels she has a lot to give as she has learned so much by working in Oslo. She also knows this small community from inside. She is an insider, who knows all the rules and the cultural capital, but at the same time she has an outsider’s perspective and competency. Within Norwegian schools there has been a strong norm of noninterference in the teacher’s classroom activities, and individual autonomy is part of the tradition in schools and related to the history of teaching in Norway. Trust in teachers’ work has been an established if tacit dimension in principals’ approach to leadership, establishing accepted zones of influence (Berg, 1996). However, established zones of control are now challenged, as some parents and people outside schools question the individual autonomy teachers have in their classroom. At her new school Kari really has to struggle in order to convince her staff that it is important to develop a more collaborative culture, while that

Old metaphors, new meanings 49

was the norm for everyone at her first school. Kari tells how she enjoys initiating the development project in school, and how stimulating it is to support creative teachers with ideas to improve teaching. But at the same time she compares being a school principal to being the teacher of the most difficult class in school. ‘You have to take small steps, you have to convince, you have to confront, and all the time you have to reflect on which kind of means could be successful in that particular context.’ That is why she thinks a formal education in pedagogy is so important for school principals. You have to know a lot about learning processes. Her way of framing leadership in action has roots in the discourse of human-resource management. She shifts between telling in more general ways what you should do as a principal and her own way of experiencing the position: You must give lots of positive feedback and at the same time challenge people. It is important to contribute to vigorous growth and the wellbeing of your staff. You have to make sure that they continue to keep a positive self-identity. You have to give them support and challenges, and they need to know what I am requiring. This is what I think is important. I believe in giving people increased responsibility. At the same time, I have learned the hard way, that all people are not like that. There are people who act irresponsibly, who are not willing to invest their energy into their job. There are not many, but there are a few. In such situations I need to be more competent in confronting people, conducting those difficult conversations, and be more demanding. Her story is to some degree about frustrations because some teachers are not willing to trade their individual autonomy, but first and foremost it is a story about sustained enthusiasm because she experiences so many moments of pride in her job, as the following quotation shows: You become proud on behalf of your students or of teachers, or cleaners, or whatever. I keep saying to myself: Look, they really manage! . . . I am excited when I experience that a team of teachers is able to implement important goals stated in national curriculum guidelines. Then I try hard to stimulate and encourage their work in order to sustain and develop it further. What happens in school is the most important motivation force. The moment I see someone is trying out new ideas in a creative manner, I encourage his or her further development. I say to myself: this is the moment. You better encourage. That is what makes fun. Kari’s story reveals that the relations within the schools are the most important for her, as it seems to be for most Norwegian school principals.

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That is what she is passionate about, and she wants to make a difference to her school. The students’ and the teachers’ self-esteem is her driving force. She has herself experienced challenging mentors throughout her career, and she is now applying that experience in order to give her staff the same opportunities. From her own experiences she knows that if you give people scope for action, they will grow. Again the metaphor of farming underpins her thoughts and actions; it is about sowing and harvesting. As a leader you have to be prepared for the harvest. As mentioned in Appendix 8: the Norwegian educational context, so far the external quest for accountability is still limited. This means it is possible for a school principal to focus mainly and invest most of her/his efforts on the internal life in school. Today each school has to provide some statistics only and a plan for developing the school to the chief education officer each year, and almost nothing happens afterwards. However, recently the bigger municipalities have started to publish test scores in the media, and a huge discussion about the consequences for good or ill is going on right now. Meeting institutional expectations The Norwegian context of school leadership comprises national curriculum guidelines and ministerial circulars, national legislation for education and teachers’ work, municipal governing and economy, and earmarking of grants to school improvement projects. In the name of decentralisation, educational reforms have intended to transmit power and responsibility from the central level to the intermediate level and further down to local level. The municipalities have the responsibility for the running of the primary and lower-secondary schools according to central laws and regulations. Kari does not experience the municipal or state governing as a problem. She seems to have embraced the new national curriculum, agreed to the fundamental values and the broad goals set by the government, and works systematically in order to realise these goals. When talking about these issues, she seems passionate about this part of national policy. The national objectives for education service stress the importance of providing equal access to education regardless of domicile, sex, social or cultural background and abilities, and there should be no streaming according to abilities, gender or other factors. These are all goals Kari has incorporated as her own values, and she does not experience the request for accountability as a problem. On the contrary, she asks for more follow-up by the municipality: Before I started in my present job, I worked in a municipality where they had established a board to govern the school. That was a very

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good experience, and sometimes I wish we had the same kind of organisation where I am working now. I felt quite comfortable with the request of being accountable to parents and superiors. However, I think the problem arises when you have to save money and at the same time introduce changes like this. In my earlier job, I experienced parents elected for the board being shocked when they discovered the amount of money that the municipality granted for education. They really became a great support for the school when they said in public, ‘it is not possible to create a good school without granting enough money’. It should be noted that Kari is living in a small community where she is highly respected. It is easy for her to connect with local politicians, and she is often invited to discuss the local school policy. She also plays an active part in the local church. In other words, Kari seems to be familiar with the community’s dominant cultural capital, she knows what kind of trump cards are valued, and thus she positioned herself like an insider. She is connected to the community and enjoys the security she feels in her job.

Commitment to the development and well-being of children An overarching concern of Kari could be characterised as matters of care and trust. She emphasises that teaching demands dedication, hard work and commitment to the development and well-being of children, and you must be committed to do your best for the children at school. As a school principal she requires that teachers have to be accountable for their actions in classroom, and she tries to be as supportive as possible. She conducts annual meetings with every teacher and every teacher team within the school, where they discuss which results and improvements have been achieved. And she confronts those teachers who do not feel obliged to be in line with the school’s priorities. In many ways, Kari’s story is a story of success. Her induction into leadership was not a stage of survival because she worked with very supportive people. She was part of a team at a well-known primary school in the 1970s. Trust, support and mutual respect characterised the environment of her first school. She talks enthusiastically about her first school principal – how he trusted his staff and gave them scope for action. A failure was seen as an opportunity for learning for the whole staff. It was not risky experimenting with new activities. She hopes people will say she grants the same kind of opportunity to her staff. Kari’s way of telling is partly contradictory. She is so passionate about what she wants to achieve that she gets rather impatient with teachers who are resisting these changes. But one could ask does she grant teachers

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enough time to change? She has been challenged herself by her transitions, and now she is challenging her teachers. Despite some difficulties, she has experienced successful transitions, and she tries to scaffold the challenges she gives to her staff: ‘Risk and imagination are the keys that you need.’ Her own socialisation has given her significant experience. No doubt, Kari seems to invest a lot of emotion and a lot of time in her work: My work hours should not be spoken of in public. I know I work too much. I wish the conditions of principalship could be better. It is impossible to do a good job within the time resources we have as school principals. In spite of this, Kari loves her job and is very enthusiastic in her description of it. But she also finds time for participating in activities related to hobbies. She finds inspiration in music, in painting, as well as in relationships.3 It seems as if she is able to integrate different parts of her life in a positive and constructive way.

Bringing in gender as a lens to understanding Reflecting on her own history, Kari realises that she has taken several conscious choices as a woman.4 Even though she acted radically several times, she felt she did not have a choice. She had to follow what was right for her. For instance, when she married in the 1960s, she decided to keep her maiden name, which was very uncommon in those days. She was also very aware that she wanted a professional education even though she had married early. In many ways she tells a story similar to what Reynolds (2002) characterises as ‘the employment equity generation’ of the 1960s and 1970s, who felt it was personally important for them to come forward to lead at the school level. Like the women in Reynolds’ study, Kari also tells with joy about the support she has received from powerful male ‘fathers’ within the system. She also seems to have taken on the ‘professional success’ script, which Blackmore (2002, p. 62) typifies as: ‘The success of individual women is due to hard work, merit, and sheer professionalism alone. It is about the gender-neutral individual who makes choices.’ It is interesting, however, that Kari does not mention the impact of the women’s movement on her thinking. In what way do the communities of practice, in which she took part in the late 1960s and early 1970s, influence her story? Kari talks more about a strong feeling from inside that guided her. The interviewer does not, however, ask an explicit question about this issue. That could be the reason why her way of framing gender identity is not connected to larger social movements current during this period of her life, or maybe it is something that is taken for granted. However she does speak animatedly about how she decided to become

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part of a support group of female principals when she was a newly appointed school principal: Some of the female school principals in Oslo decided to establish a support group. We needed it in order to gain security as a principal in a male-dominated group. We decided to give each other support in public whenever needed. Some of the elder male principals laughed, teased us and made jokes when we participated in discussions. Nowadays we have laughed a lot when we reflect back on our first experiences within the formal assembly of school principals. But they did call us the women mafia. . . . I think after a while the male principals started to take our group seriously, and they started to listen to us. We have all laughed a lot later when we talk about what happened in the early 1970s. But it was important. When an assembly was going to be arranged, we met in advance, discussed the issues and made a strategy for promoting certain opinions. It was important particularly for us women. We were a small group and half the age of the male principals in those days. Within feminism as a social movement a clear strategy was creating support groups for and with women. Kari, however, does not have any explicit references to her participating in such social movements. But her way of describing the strategy was part of the dominant gender discourse in the mid-1970s, and that probably influenced both thoughts and actions. Kari explains what happened, with reference to being part of a maledominated assembly of school principals where also the women were a lot younger. At the same time she says, times have now changed, and the strategy of the 1970s is not that important any more. Now she can make a joke of the way they had to relate to their male colleagues in those days, partly because it is unproblematic now for a woman to get into a position as school principal, in part because the gender discourse has changed. But she still has close connections with the ‘women mafia’. They have become close friends and meet once every month to share experiences about their job. She is also in search of new communities of practice, and she underscores how important it has been for her to be involved in further education while she has been working as school principal. Educational theory has become an important signpost for her in her work. As Kari’s story shows us, feminism as a social movement seems to have a weaker position within Norwegian society in the beginning of the new millennium than in earlier decades. Gender equity has been an aim in educational policy for many years, and school principals live in this rhetorical universe which probably frames their understandings and constructions of gender identities. Compulsory schools have a gender balance in the ranks of school principals, but not upper-secondary schools. During the 1980s and 1990s the number of women in leadership positions at school level has

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increased considerably. At the same time fewer and fewer men decided to become teachers. That is particularly the case for primary schools. Within Norwegian society it is true that more women have achieved top posts in politics, but research on gender and politics shows that differences between women as a group have increased (Holter, 1997). Despite the Norwegian government’s stated commitment to equal rights for men and women, substantial differences remain in terms of the division of labour and leadership positions even in the public sector. There are obviously competing discourses about gender identity, and discourses regulate to a large degree how we understand who we are, as well as how we understand our limits and possibilities in the social order (Blackmore, 1999). In the 1970s it was strongly advocated that women should join a female network in order to gain influence. Now the dominant discourse underscores how men and women have the same opportunities, and the focus is on how each person as an individual can grow and develop. A concept like solidarity is seldom to the forefront, and the market alternative in education is high on the political agenda. Freedom of choice for the individual is advocated.

Conclusions In her stories Kari is very well aware of her social, cultural and economic background, and she highlights how she has made conscious choices as a woman, that in some instances, seem to have been despite rather than because of her upbringing. This resonates with the view expressed in Chapter 1 that passion can be a consequence of conflict and strife and not just positive experiences. Her induction into leadership was filled with enthusiasm and support. Learning from her work and life is an important basis for her identity construction. Nevertheless, she values educational theory as an important signpost. She is passionate about her work, is very committed and underlines how she experiences many moments of pride. She has a clear focus on the purpose of schooling and is driven by her wish to make a difference in students’ lives. She invests herself as a person in her job, and her story shows how professional knowledge is both about cognition and about emotions. She must do what she feels is right. Unlike many of her colleagues she does not look upon managerial accountability as a problem. As a matter of fact she misses external affirmation. She is willing to play with power, but she does not problematise the emphasis on hierarchical structure in the school system. That is taken for granted. What do we get from her story that gives us some insights into principalship within a Norwegian context? What is it a story of? What sort of interaction between individual agency and context can be discovered? First, the notion of transition seems to be important. It is first a transition from a tight community to a city, which represents discontinuity.

Old metaphors, new meanings 55

Then she experienced a transition when she started at Teacher Education College. This is a period characterised by a degree of congruence. Then she started her professional career, and her first job represented a certain degree of continuity. She very soon got the feeling of security. Thus, her story seems rooted in biography, it is cumulative, and she seems to emphasise the importance of being an insider. She knew what it was like to have a feeling of insecurity. The job both as teacher and later as school principal fits her very well; she is comfortable. Second, the metaphor of farming has significance. Her early socialisation seems important, both when it comes to living on a farm and her initial consciousness about class and gender. In her story Kari often makes use of the metaphor of farming in order to characterise both her job as principal and teacher. From her upbringing she is familiar with and knows a lot about farming, and she underscores the similarities between being a school leader and a farmer. Thus she reshapes being a school leader in ways that resonate with her biography. She has made the job fit. The old metaphor of farming is re-framed with a new meaning in a new context. The metaphor of farming indicates how biography is influencing her way of understanding her job. She talks about the harvest, which is around the corner, the annual cycle of the school year, the annual meetings at school. She does not feel she is compromising her own values. She has incorporated the values stated in the national curriculum. She is living out her biography and her values are consistent with the dominant discourse, and the way she talks about context is gendered. Third, her story indicates the importance of belonging and membership and, not surprisingly, she regards these as important dimensions of principalship. Her membership in her local community, in the women’s support group, in the local church, are all influencing and shaping the passion she has for her job. Her own personal contexts, her formal and informal education and the community within which she works, shape the ways in which she presents herself, and it affects other people’s responses to them. As Wenger (1998) suggests, in the course of interpreting the obligations and in interacting with others, her identity is shaped and constructed.

Notes 1 Universities and Teacher Education Colleges each year offer thirty credits courses focusing on topics like these, and quite a lot of teachers and school leaders have taken these courses. 2 Social and economic class structure is evident by people’s place of living. The West End represents to a large degree upper middle class, and houses are much more expensive compared to the Eastern parts. 3 Kari is in her second marriage, and her children are now adults. 4 As a comparison, the male principals within the Norwegian sample do not bring gender identity into the foreground.

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References Berg, G. (1996) Steering, School Leadership and the Invisible Contract, in J. Kalous and F. van Wieringen (eds) Improving Educational Management, Educational Policy and Administration Series: De Lier Akademisch Boeken Centrum. Blackmore, J. (1999) Troubling Women: feminism, leadership and educational change, Buckingham: Open University Press. Blackmore, J. (2002) Troubling Women: the upsides and downsides of leadership and the new managerialism, in C. Reynolds (ed.) Women and School Leadership, Albany: State University of New York Press. Bourdieu, P. (1993) Concluding Remarks: for a sociogenetic understanding of intellectual works, in C. Calhoun, E. LiPuma and M. Postone (eds) Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives, Cambridge: Polity Press. Bourdieu, P. (1996) Understanding, Theory, Culture and Society, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 17–37. Bourdieu, P. (1997) Af praktiske grunde, København: Hans Reitzel. Calhoun, C., LiPuma, E. and Postone, M. (eds) (1993) Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives, Cambridge: Polity Press. Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity, Cambridge: Polity Press. Hagemann, G. (1992) Skolefolk: Lcerernes historie i Norge, Oslo: Ad Notam Gyldendal. Hall, V. (1996) Dancing on the Ceiling: a study of women managers in education, London: Paul Chapman Publishing Ltd. Holter, H. (1997) Om kjønn og politikk [Gender and Politics], in H. Holter and B. Halsaa (eds) Hun og han. Kjønn i forskning og politikk, Oslo: Pax Forlag. Reynolds, C. (2002) Changing Gender Scripts and Moral Dilemmas for Women and Men in Education, 1940–1970, in C. Reynolds (ed.) Women and School Leadership, Albany: State University of New York Press. Smulyan, L. (2000) Balancing Acts: women principals at work, New York: SUNY Press. Solbrekke, T. (2000) Om konstruksjon av skolelederidentitet – en presentasjon av to rektorer I norsk grunnskole, Hovedoppgave I pedagogikk hovedfag [Constructing School Leaders’ Identities – the Stories of Two School Principals], A Master’s Thesis, University of Oslo. Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 4

Memberships and relationships in a changing context Lejf Moos

Introduction This chapter focuses on the story of an experienced, male Danish principal. Peter Petersen is 49 years old and has been leading his school for four years. Prior to that he was a deputy in another school for five years. So he is an experienced principal. This ‘Folkeschool’ (with students from age six to sixteen) has got 542 students, sixty-three staff, thirty-seven of whom are teachers. The school is situated in a wealthy suburb, the political majority of which has been Conservative for many years. This story gives insights into the professional life and identity of an engaged principal who is focusing on relationship and membership (Biott et al., 2001; Connelly and Clandinin, 1999; Goodson, 1992; Horsdal, 1999; Kelchtermans, 1993; Lieblich et al., 1998). The story shows how Peter enters into and engages in several kinds of relations: with teachers, students, parents, colleagues, managers at the local level and politicians. One set of relations is more important to him than the rest: relations with teachers individually, with teacher teams or with the assembled group of teachers. It seems to be the basic understanding that leadership is primarily carried out in relations with and sometimes through teachers, not in relations with students, parents or the local educational authorities (Bourdieu, 1977). The story shows us an image of a principal who is primarily motivated by the possibilities for taking action and making decisions for which the position provides opportunities and possibilities for entering into and engaging into special kinds of dialogues. Peter Petersen’s story is one of a principal who is struggling with uncertainty in his relations with teachers and parents by focusing on professional credibility and effectiveness.

The life story of an experienced principal From middle manager to teacher Peter was trained to be a professional graphic worker in the graphic industries in the 1970s. The workers in these industries were very focused on

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fighting for their rights through the trade unions. The communities that were built on that basis often created a profound sense of solidarity and belonging. At a relatively early career stage Peter became a middle manager in a small private company with eight to ten workers. He found this position to be without prospects for the future because it was only about satisfying customers. He found out what the difference between private companies and the educational system is: School is by tradition a cultural meeting of people. Whenever there is a cultural meeting with people you have a dialogue that is about respect and responsibility towards other people and about democracy. That isn’t necessarily the case in the private sector, it certainly isn’t like it. Peter found out that the political discussions he had with his colleagues were very often about educational and social items, the kinds of issues that schools seemed to be all about. So instead of standing outside looking in he wanted to be part of it himself. He had always wanted to be a teacher. I liked going to school as a child. I was one of those students who attended to my duties, who were hard working but maybe not very bright. I wasn’t, but I liked the community, I liked the good fellowship in school, and that meant to me that I must have, somewhere subconsciously, had the feeling that I was thriving in being together with other people, where leisure time and working hours are interconnected, that’s where I thrive. That proved right. Peter always wanted to be where decisions were made and where one could decide. As it has always been in my career that I wanted to become a school teacher I had to rearrange my life in my mid-twenties. I stopped paid employment in the day time but went on working nights and weekends and started at the teacher training college. So at an early stage he got used to having ‘a full working 24 hours’. At teacher training college Peter joined several committees including the educational development committee and the executive committee. He didn’t see it as students’ political activity but as organisational activities. I spend a few good years at the teacher training college. I formed with 5–6 other students a professional, social forum where, at that early

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stage, we discussed how to transform school. Actually that was the prospect, that it should be transformed. Peter finished teacher training in 1979 and was employed as a teacher in a social-democratic-governed municipality. He also took part in organisational tasks here, becoming a substitute for the shop steward and chair of the teachers’ committee,1 working hard on the educational development of the school. He took part in school-board activities and in the municipal joint teachers’ committee. He took those posts for seven years. ‘Then a natural transformation happens to you. You say to yourself: “That is that. You have tried that and then what?” When a deputy post was vacant in his municipality Peter thought to himself, “well, I’ll go for that”.’ In and out of leadership He was appointed to the post of deputy and after a few months he was appointed temporarily as acting principal because the principal had been seconded to do work at the local authority. He had this post for ten months and then was ‘pushed back to the deputy post’. He didn’t feel good about that. This role reversal almost made him passive because he had to go back to a position without the overview, the planning and the delegation as part of his employment. There had to be changes. He was still engaged in reflecting on his position and predicament when the politicians decided to shut down the school in a move to reduce public expenditure. Students and employees were dispersed to several schools. Peter arrived as a deputy in a transformation-minded school. At the same time as Peter’s transfer, the local school system initiated leadership education with themes like educational development of the school system and quality development: At that early stage we started talking about these items. I implemented some of it in collaboration with my colleague, the principal. We started at that school at the same time, he arrived half a year earlier than me and we knew each other. So we initiated educational transformation, which didn’t look like educational transformation that was known up to then. It was joint school development. Those initiatives looked like the national initiatives in the late 1990s. ‘It worked perfectly in this school partly because my colleague and I were a great inspiration to each other. It’s about diversity in a leadership team. That is very important.’

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Losing one’s footing Peter acted as a deputy for six years; then he applied for and was appointed principal at another school. It is situated in a more conservative and wealthy suburban municipality. Shortly after taking over he established an educational development committee in his school because he wanted to continue with joint school development. Consequently, Peter cultivated strategic rather than value-based relations with networks, consultants and advisors at several levels in the educational system. When he took up his position he cited Kierkegaard as saying that one might lose one’s footing temporarily, when moving, but if one doesn’t move at all one risks losing it for the rest of one’s lifetime. The teachers didn’t think he meant it before he actually began moving by talking about pedagogic practice and using professional terms. I demanded that everybody should know the professional terms. I said ‘You will not find craftsmen or a professionally trained group without a language’. That is our basis for understanding each other; it is our professional language. The professional discussions can only take place if you as a leader are alert and if you intervene in teachers’ activities, if you indicate a profile at once, if you question things. You must have ideals, you must have things you stand for and teachers must very quickly be able to measure themselves against them. You must definitely not be pompous and you must be informal in dealings with colleagues. You must be careful not to create distance and at the same time create distance. Those are difficult mechanisms. One reason for school development is in response to parents’ requests: My long-range political objectives of a professional and educational nature are to establish educational credibility so the teachers don’t have to hide. They should know that what they do is fine and they can be proud. That demands a profile towards the parents. The parents in this neighbourhood are very well educated and they know precisely what they want for their children. The children therefore need to be educated in a way that parents find meaningful. Accountability to parents was stressed in the Act on the ‘Folkeschool’ of 1993 (Moos, 2001; Moos et al., 2000) and it is certainly a major concern of Peter’s. Not all teachers live up to the professional and educational demands in this school development. For example, it is difficult for some of them to collaborate closely in teams: It has been a big and exciting challenge because teachers have joined the transformation. Some times they feel run down and they protest

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vigorously, but the small team that I have created around myself as an educational development committee understands the way of thinking and they spread the message. When you as a leader do things it has got to have an impact over staff. Some of them might say ‘this is not my cup of tea’ and then they move on to another school or retire if they are in their early sixties and could have gone on for ten more years: ‘Let me get out.’ More than 40 per cent of the teachers have left since I started. Some have retired and one or two have been asked to leave. It means something that so many new teachers join us. With those new ones one can start forming the group according to the way you would like the school to develop in a dialogue with them. You lead but in a dialogue. I try hard to be openminded and extrovert. I try hard to be in the organisation so they can communicate directly with me. You have to be in dialogue with your fellow human beings and talk openly to them so they have confidence in the things you undertake. I’m known to be a bit tough whenever I want to. I don’t find it necessary to discuss matters that I already know must be like this. I don’t spend much time on those things. There are several aspects to this discussion. You have to balance the fact that sometimes as leader you have decided upon something and you therefore can be action minded while recognising also teachers’ need to feel ownership of the initiative. This balance is very important in the everyday life of school and it is important for democracy in schools. It is important for each individual to be participating the whole way through. At the same time I have come to recognise that as a leader there is a tendency towards too much talk without action. When we have a dialogue then it’s not for the sake of the dialogue itself. We have a dialogue in order that it leads to action. When the decision about action had been made, it has been made and should not be redone. Nobody should resume that discussion because then anarchy is close at hand. The principals’ latitude Principals have to be attentive at all times. When the principal least suspects it, a problem emerges – it is necessary to expect the unexpected. It calls for a special mentality: I find that the energies spring up when I occupy myself with things that interest me as a human being: being with other people, being in dialogue with other human beings and in constant communication with other people. Then I set energy free. I need the same amount of sleep

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and everything else as other people; on the other hand, though, maybe not, come to think of it. At one point I rise to an adrenalin level. I can feel that I’m racing and it takes a while to calm down again. There should be no split between work and leisure time, but this also presupposes some balance between domestic and work life. Situations can occur, however, where he loses power and feels insecure: My biggest problem, where I become uncertain as a leader, is when a criticism is brought forward that I’m unable to act on. That paralyses me. An example: If a teacher is not doing his job properly and the parents take their child out of school without consulting me or without telling me. That paralyses me because it could produce myths. Then people suddenly say that this school never acts on problems. That is terrible and I get paralysed. I can’t do anything. That often happens in this neighbourhood because parents act very individualistically. Peter has attended some short leadership courses, among them a municipal course that was very good: I think that having been a teacher before becoming a leader isn’t bad if you are trained in a proper way. You may not have to be educationally trained but it certainly is an advantage, because if you placed an accountant at this table the school would collapse or the teachers would take it over. Peter attends to his networks. I look for inspiration in dialogue with fellow professionals. I look for it whenever there is an in-service course at our school. Then I’m very attentive to what’s going on. I talk to friends privately and read professional journals. But a lot of what I do is self-taught. You have the feeling that this is right. You can feel in yourself that this is the right way to proceed. It’s about credibility. If you can feel that what you do is credible. Here you don’t compromise your values. Credibility is related to readiness for action. When we have decided on something you have to be purposeful, otherwise you are in a zigzag. My predecessor suffered from that. When they had made a decision in educational committee somebody undermined it and they had to redo the decision. There you have to be very, how should I phrase it, authoritarian. Once the decision has been made I must act or lose my credibility.

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Accountability Peter does not have difficulty with school-development initiatives being taken at national level. They might get stagnant schools moving: But F20002 annoyed me. It annoyed me because here came something that I had been doing for six to seven years and it was introduced as if it was new and ground-breaking which it wasn’t. I think it is noise if somebody is coming to our school wanting to transform us when we are actually developing our quality ourselves. I look more seriously to evaluation and have established procedures for it in my school. We assess literacy in all grades several times each year. We are in control. Interests that are not coming from schools govern many initiatives from central level. I do know that talk of evaluation and assessment is only a matter of some political forces in society that want to make everything measurable and efficient. I don’t think we can use that much. I have told my authority that we assess every year. Students do the end of school tests. If you are not able to create that room you are not able to act. This is really a political action. You are in the midst of the room created by the pressure from parents, pressure from teachers and pressure from politicians. It might be that one group prevents you from acting according to the wishes of another group. Then you have to make sure not to be so closely attached to one group that you are unable to act. As a leader you need room for manoeuvre, you need latitude. That in many ways turns it into a political job. It was much easier to be a middle manager in the business world telling people that this is the way it must be because, I tell you, I don’t want to be a slave. My integrity must be firm while I am at the same time a loyal civil servant. That’s why I have to contradict my school board if I think they are wrong and contradict the authority. I find it disagreeable to have political pressure on me that I know can change the school’s credibility, if you act only to satisfy politicians or parents or whoever it may be. You need latitude as leader. If you don’t you will be tied to poor solutions. The local authorities request schools to produce a work plan every year. Peter finds that preparing this plan is quite sensible because it sparks off a discussion in school. The work can become part of developing the school into a learning organisation. Some phases are difficult: When chaos occurs everybody wants to have somebody tell them ‘that’s what we do’. That is exactly the moment where I’m not telling

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them what to do, but I let the processes stay open because that’s when we get the frustrations, the conflicts and the dialogue into the processes and in that hotchpotch something turns up. Something of which we are able to say, we own it, it’s part of the system. It is in those situations that teachers are energetic and active and that’s the basis on which the school must be founded. Teachers learn when they are active and so do students. We do our utmost to stay in balance between humanistic development and knowing at the same time that facts must be presented.3 ‘That’s the fundamental balance in school, in educating students and in our being with them and upbringing them. It’s about finding the balance so they come out with a democratic weft that turns them into proper citizens and people that carry some subject knowledge with them.’

An overview of the story At the beginning of interview number three I asked Peter to tell me what kind of image of himself he saw in the transcripts of interviews number one and two. He said: I get an image of a leader who must consider so many things in the everyday life. He must try to avoid becoming paralysed because of those considerations. I’m talking a lot about credibility. You need to keep yourself in focus, because the way you act is important to staff, parents and students. It’s never accidental and I think that is clear in the transcripts. It is important that the system believes that no matter if it’s a conflict or a success story you are in mental balance. It’s about managing, it’s about objectives, it’s about having an idea of what the institution is about. That’s the important thing, that everybody knows that task. When interpreting the interviews with Peter a number of items seem more important in his telling his story: •

•

•

Peter always felt good in school, he was a good student, and liked the community of peers. This was continued as he was influenced later by the communities of graphic worker unions. Before Peter became a teacher he was a middle manager in a private company. That gave him special experiences to draw on in principalship. From Teacher Education College onwards Peter was a member of educational development committees. The collaboration in those committees and later on in the leadership team are important.

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• •

•

•

He felt that the transformation from teacher to leader was a ‘natural transformation’, another step on the ladder. Several times Peter mentions the urge to establish educational credibility. Peter seems determined to be a clear leader (over 40 per cent of teachers left within the first four years of his leadership), who likes making decisions and likes acting. Therefore it’s important to Peter that the principal should have latitude to act. Leadership through dialogue is important to Peter. It is seen as a consequence of the way schools should be run according to a democratic objective. However, Peter seems driven also by external mandates and while he speaks of democracy and dialogue there is a sense also that his vision prevails, a tension between prescribed, constructed and shared commitments. Yet, he is affirmed also by ensuring that his vision prevails. External accountability to local authorities is not important, but accountability to parents is very important.

Peter talks a lot about being an insider or an outsider in communities of practice (Wenger, 1998; Giddens, 1991): the private company, the educational committees both at the Teacher Education College and in his teaching career and in leadership. The community of leader colleagues is important. The community of teachers is another community to which Peter partly belongs and is partly outside because of his leadership position. This position, partly belonging to and partly not belonging to the group of teachers, is very important: here Peter has to negotiate his membership and thereby his influence over the community. Through those negotiations Peter constructs his identity as a clear leader of dialogues. Peter is a member of more communities inside and outside of school: he underscores that he is a family man – stressing the need for the closeness of his family – and at the same time a very busy principal who is away from home for many hours every week. He is a member of the group of colleagues in the municipality where he finds much inspiration. Being with and in dialogue with people is very important. Peter’s comprehension of what kind of leadership is needed is close to the orthodoxy of principalship as it is laid out in official statements: visibility and dialogue are often mentioned in the discourse. Peter’s identity seems to have been shaped by the trajectory he has followed: from being a good student, to acting as a middle manager, to being a member of professional, educational communities. This is evident in his relations with teachers where he experiences tension between the need to create distances and avoid creating distance. One of the reasons for school development is at parents’ request. In line with contemporary principalship models Peter is aware of parents’ demands and wishes and at the same time of the need for teachers to be prepared and competent in

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handling parents. But he is pragmatic also when teachers do not share his vision and does not appear to experience any misgivings when a considerable minority of his staff transfer to other schools or take refuge in early retirement. Peter’s ideal is to lead through dialogue. He underlines this notion several times in the interviews. At the same time he wants to be the role model with firm ideas about the way the school should develop. One gets the impression that the dialogue is more like a conversation where Peter argues for his solutions and maybe even persuades teachers to follow his ideas than the kind of dialogue where both parties put forward their arguments and the ‘best argument’ gains ground (Sergiovanni, 1995). Peter seems tuned into contemporary management thinking the way one finds it in New Public Management: the leader is – on behalf of the authorities – leading the followers (MacBeath et al., 1998). Peter is aware of the external, political climate. It is reflected in different ways: on the one hand, it’s there, but not worth the effort – it’s a political whim. But one has to stay firm and protect professional credibility and not simply try to satisfy politicians. On the other hand, some initiatives can work productively in getting stagnant schools moving. It seems that the external pressure for accountability, exerted by politicians and local authorities, is not as important to Peter as the local, cultural accountability: the image and reputation that parents carry of their school. If anything happens that endangers that reputation and if Peter is left in a position where he is unable to act, that is the worst-case scenario: that paralyses him. Peter doesn’t feel under pressure from external authority control. He finds that most of the requests originating at the centre such as setting goals and evaluation are good tools for leading the educational processes in schools. In more ways he finds that the tools have made it easier to carry out educational leadership. He seems not to be loyal to the authorities for loyalty’s own sake, but because he agrees with and is convinced of the educational and leadership values of the educational system. He translates and transforms the external accountability demands into internal educational tools. In this life story nothing points to the Danish curriculum being a problem. Peter seems to have made the 1993 Act his own. He has internalised the values and objectives of the Act and works to implement curriculum in giving support to and making demands on teachers. The role of parents is accepted: Peter collaborates with parents in order to fulfil the objectives of education. It is interesting to note that Peter experiences and describes all of those accountability categories as collisions and clashes between accountabilities: the ‘traditional’, educational accountability towards pupils, teachers and parents often clash with the ‘new’, managerial accountabilities towards local authorities. A major dilemma is touched on: ‘You put your professional credibility at risk if you simply try to satisfy politicians.’

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Notes 1 For many years (up until the mid-1990s) the general career ladder for principals was like this: Teacher training – teacher practices – chair of educational community or shop steward – member of municipal educational committee or chair of local branch of teachers union – deputy – principal. 2 The Ministry of Education, the National Association of Municipalities and the Teachers’ Union co-operated in launching a national programme, ‘The Folkeschool Year 2000’, in order to boost school development according to the principles of the Act on the Folkeschool from 1993. 3 Facts here mean test results.

References Biott, C., Moos, L. and Moller, J. (2001) Studying School Leaders Lives, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 45, No. 4, pp. 395–410. Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Connelly, F. M. and Clandinin, D. J. (eds) (1999) Shaping a Professional Identity, London: Teacher College Press. Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-identity, Cambridge: Polity Press. Goodson, I. (ed.) (1992) Studying Teacher’ Lives, London: Routledge. Horsdal, M. (1999) LivetsfarbeUinger – en hsgomlwshistarierogiflentitet,Copenhagen: Borgen. Kelchtermans, G. (1993) Getting the Story, Understanding the Lives: from career stories to teachers’ professional development, Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol. 9, No. 5/6, pp. 443–456. Lieblich, A., Truvval-Maschiach, Rivka and Zilber, Tamar (1998) Narrative Research: reading, analysis and interpretation, London: Sage. MacBeath, J., Moos, L. and Riley, K. (1998) Time for a Change, in J. MacBeath (ed.) Effective School Leadership: responding to change, London: Chapman, pp. 20–31. Moos, L. (2001) Folkeskoleledernes arbejdsvilkar [The Working Conditions of Folkschool Leaders] Copenhagen: Danish Union of Teachers. Moos, L., Carney, S., Johansson, O. and Mehlby, J. (eds) (2000) Skoleleddx i Norden [School Leadership in the Nordic Countries], Copenhagen. Sergiovanni, T. (1995) The Principalship: a Rejektive practice perspective, Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press.

Chapter 5

Creating continuity through change Comfort with uncertainty Ciaran Sugrue

Introduction This chapter provides a selective ‘portrait’1 of Margaret who, at the time of conducting the research, had been principal of a mixed primary school in a small Irish town for nearly ten years. The purpose of this chapter, and the partial picture it ‘paints’ of this experienced female principal, is to indicate the extent to which individual biography, family history and local context collectively provide the ingredients for an individual’s cultural capital and identity, while also shaping the passions that the individual brings to the challenge of principalship in times of unprecedented change and social flux. In contexts of increasing uncertainty, the ballast provided by passionate attachment to value stances, beliefs and commitments become important compass points for tacking the uncharted waters of school leadership. Continuity and (dis-)comfort with the past, with familiar routines, become the basis also for dealing with change and uncertainty.

Margaret: a biographical sketch At the time of conducting the interviews, Margaret, then in her early fifties, had managed during the previous thirty years to balance life and work, family and professional life, as well as invest in her own learning, if sometimes intermittently and precariously. She is the eldest of five children, and has three sisters and one brother. Margaret always liked school, and for as long as she can remember she was ‘going to be a teacher’, in that kind of essentialist thinking redolent of Britzman’s (1991) work where those who become teachers are ‘to the manor born’ because they possess a ‘teaching personality’. From a biographical perspective, this is not entirely surprising since Margaret’s mother was a teacher, albeit one who was forced into compulsory retirement on marriage, as part of postindependent Ireland’s mindset of an ‘Irish Ireland’ where family and motherhood were exalted, and scarce employment could be ‘reserved’ for males (Walter, 2001). Margaret makes the more general point also that

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she ‘didn’t know any alternatives’, a combination of a lack of role models as well as lack of opportunity generally. She learned at an early stage at her mother’s knee that a delicate combination of being silent and vocal was a powerful and effective means to ‘get ahead’, to engage with, undermine and circumvent existing power relations. This combination of silence and holding strong views could be harnessed in pursuit of independence and to follow one’s ambitions, and this tendency finds ready continuity in her life and work. Margaret married young; her husband too was a teacher, she had four children, but unlike her mother who was forced to retire to domesticity, she continued to juggle professional and family life. Like her mother who worked in schools with religious principals, Margaret too found that her early career was dominated by ‘strong’ females who exercised power over schools and communities as part of a hegemonic Catholic influence that was pervasive until more recent decades. This was the result of a confluence of historical events and a post-colonial mindset that conspired to have the ‘national’ school system become a major conduit for the promotion of a particularly nationalistic and catholic Irish identity. The former principal and writer Bryan MacMahon captures this hegemonic world-view succinctly in his autobiography, appropriately titled The Master, when he describes the prescribed role of primary teachers in the first half of the twentieth century in the following terms: It was enjoined upon us by the state to undertake the revival of Irish as a spoken language,2 . . . and it was also enjoined upon us by the Catholic Church,3 which, to put it at its mildest, was powerful at the time, to transfer from one generation to the next the corpus of Catholic belief . . . (1992, p. 89) This brief sketch of biography, family and social context, indicates clearly the intimacy of the personal and the socio-historical setting, and the mutual shaping of personal and professional identities through dynamic interactions. The remainder of this chapter is focused on an elaboration of this general theme, of indicating the extent to which ‘passions’ are deeply embedded in biography and socialisation, and how these become the tools of the trade in putting one’s stamp on the role of principal, while simultaneously demonstrating how individuals find balance and comfort in the dance with continuity and uncertainty that becomes more difficult in more turbulent times. Before elaborating on this general theme by extending the partial portrait, it is appropriate to return briefly to theoretical concerns about continuity and change.

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Continuity and change: two sides of one coin? There has been so much preoccupation during the past decade in particular with change, its pace and pervasiveness, one could be forgiven for thinking that continuity had been silently and secretly removed from the lexicon. Yet, as the opening chapter of this book establishes, continuity and change are intimates in the daily dance between ontological security and uncertainty (Giddens, 1991). They are bed-fellows also in various guises in the ongoing individual and social choreography of constructing the future from the present and the past. An extensive search of the indices of books on the subject of educational change reveals a notable absence of the term continuity. Rather, change seems to be more usually positioned in a binary relationship with control, stasis and resistance rather than notions of continuous adaptation. Where the term continuous does appear, it is more likely to be paired with ‘improvement’, a product of relentless pursuit of ‘what works’ and how to sustain teacher learning in more turbulent contexts characterised by fast-paced demands for more and more reforms (Fink 2000a). As Fink himself concludes, consistent with the sub-title of his book – ‘why school reform doesn’t last’ – ‘very little . . . has been written on how innovative . . . schools can maintain their momentum in the face of an increasingly complex, diverse, unpredictable, and often unforgiving world’ (2000b, p. 166). In short, in such circumstances, there is an individual and collective failure to build the kind of capital necessary to enable such school communities, in Giddens’s terms, simultaneously to build ‘the capacity to keep a particular narrative going’ (1991, p. 54). What is absent is a sense of continuity, more essential than ever in periods of unprecedented and unrelenting demands for further change. A continuous focus on change, to the exclusion of continuity, creates a fear of destablisation, when there is a corresponding need also to recognise and to strive for stability. While Giddens readily recognises the necessity to balance security and insecurity, a neurotic attachment to the past and a necessity to take imaginative risks in the ongoing (re-)construction of stable identity, Wenger too suggests that learning is the key to ‘negotiating enough continuity to sustain an identity’ (1998, p. 97). Consequently, whether the focus is on finding continuity in terms of self-identity or within school communities (as communities of learning), it is important to acknowledge the ongoing presence also of discontinuity, it is necessary to avoid ‘blanket assumptions of inherent stability or instability’ (Wenger, 1998, p. 98). From a leadership perspective, finding such continuity is adaptive behaviour. Heifetz and Linsky (2002, p. 13) summarise this perspective in the following terms:

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. . . these adaptive challenges . . . require experiments, new discoveries, and adjustments from numerous places in the organization or community. Without learning new ways – changing attitudes, values and behaviours – people cannot make the adaptive leap necessary to thrive in the new environment. The sustainability of change depends on having the people with the problem internalize the change itself. By focusing on Margaret’s biography, her individual learning trajectory, this chapter indicates and illustrates this adaptive learning whereby continuity and dis-continuity are shown to be intimates in the process of identity construction and the practice of leadership. This ongoing process of identity construction is presented as a series of vignettes rather than more systematic cultural themes, thus creating a pastiche that is rooted in biography, while seeking also to situate the life within its social context. In doing so, it is important to recognise also from a methodological perspective that the story told is ‘an interpretation of the facts narrated . . . and the way the dots are joined profoundly affects the picture that appears’ (Bourke, 1999, p. 208).

Becoming a teacher There are important biographical and socio-historical systemic issues that intersect at the point where Margaret becomes a student teacher, and these characteristics of her learning trajectory find particular resonance to the present day. She recalls from an early stage wanting to ‘be some sort of teacher’, but there are interesting family and system issues that come into play. To begin with, she could not sing, something she says ‘came from my father’ and this is significant for at the time girls who could not sing would not be offered a place in teacher training. However, Margaret also suggests that being a ‘domestic science teacher’ was also a possibility. However, this became less likely as a consequence of the secondary school chosen for her by her mother, because ‘they didn’t have domestic science for the brighter students’, which suggests that the positioning of ‘domestic science’ by the religious order of nuns who ran and owned the school had been influenced by what Goodson describes as the ‘professionalization and the social organization of knowledge’ (1994, pp. 41–50).4 There was an assumption at this point that she would be ‘a national school teacher’ and to achieve this preordained end the nuns would ‘work up her singing’. Equally revealing in other respects and also redolent of the positioning of females in Irish society, as well as Margaret’s own family history, one of her mother’s reasons for selecting this particular boarding school was the possibility it offered to study French, thus adding to her cultural capital in a manner that the more local ‘day’ school could not. However, even in this school and despite Margaret’s capabilities in mathematics, she could not

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take the subject at honours level in her Leaving Certificate Examination (LCE): ‘I didn’t have the opportunity to take honours maths in school or anything ’cos you were constrained as a woman to what you were expected to do.’ As Cullen suggests, it was necessary for curricular provision in such schools to accommodate the ‘French convent tradition . . . with its emphasis on religious formation, ladylike accomplishment rather than intellectual formation; and preparation for marriage and domesticity’ (1987, p. 3). Consequently, those in authority in such schools perceived ‘too great an interest in intellectual development or careers as a potential threat that might divert girls from their true vocation’. Within this worldview, pervasive at the time, ‘marriage was a full-time career for women and all that was needed in addition was a nice job to fill the gap between schooldays and wedding day’ (ibid., 1987, p. 4). Margaret’s career trajectory was being shaped by major social forces that were being played out within the culture and educational institutions she attended in 1950s and early 1960s Ireland. However, the anti-intellectualism implicit in the comments above was pervasive in the fabric of ‘Irish Ireland’, and while it may have played out differently from a gender perspetive, the socialisation of males was similarly circumscribed and construed to mean ‘to question is to be disloyal’ (Lynch, 1989; Fitzgerald, 1991; Lynch and Lodge, 2002). An employment opportunity brought her to the capital, and her father took care to find his eldest daughter accommodation in a hostel run by the Dominican nuns who quickly established her interest in teaching, whereupon it was immediately suggested, ‘I’m sure they’ll take her into Sion Hill’, where there continues to be a Froebel College run by the same order. As she was ‘bored out of my mind’ working for the city fathers, she was glad to sacrifice employment and remuneration to become a teacher, something made possible by family resources. She describes her mother’s negotiations with her local secondary school in the first instance, where she was informed that it was unnecessary to allow the girls to sit for scholarship examinations, and subsequent negotiations around languages and domestic science as ‘a fighting against constraints all the time’. Nevertheless, in the scheme of things, she was fortunate in having an able advocate in her mother, someone who was familiar with ‘the nuns’ and who also had the education, social confidence and position to seek to overcome constraints. When her mother was informed that she would have to teach French herself to Margaret now that the individual nun who had been giving her ‘private’ lessons in school had left to do teacher training, her mother used this constraint to send Margaret ‘as a boarder where she had been to school.’ Margaret readily recognises that in the boarding school, after completing her Intermediate Certificate Examination (ICE) in which she excelled academically at her local day school, her new location had a ‘different culture’ with less emphasis on academic success, something she admits ‘I enjoyed’. These encounters brought her into contact with three

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different religious orders of nuns, each with their own traditions, trajectories, histories and social-class positioning, and the fact that Margaret (with the support and advocacy of her mother and father) successfully navigated across these boundaries and constraints is indicative of considerable social capital, as well as a combination of determination and deference, depending on the nature of the negotiations. This family history becomes an important string to Margaret’s bow, part of her own capacity to negotiate as well as to pursue her own agenda.

Professional formation: autonomy and control Margaret escaped from or was rejected by the mainstream teacher-education institutions at the time, all of which were, and continue to be, denominational. As indicated above, she ‘failed’ the singing requirement for the major college run by the Mercy Order of nuns, but was offered a place in the Froebel College run by the Dominicans. Within the traditions of these religious communities, there are important social-class distinctions, each catering for different social strata, the former being more proletarian in its world view, and membership of these communities tended to be drawn from the social milieu to which it ministered. Margaret contrasts her experience of teacher education with her sister’s experience at the very same time, in the ‘mainstream’ college from which she had been excluded. While these institutions were geographically located within a few miles of each other, Margaret describes them as being worlds apart. Margaret declares, ‘all of my education was with the nuns and much of my teaching’ but being educated by the nuns should not be understood as entirely homogenous, as the social-class location of pupils, students and members of religious orders had a significant shaping influence on the experience as a whole. She contrasts her experience of a three-year Froebel Diploma with her sister’s two-year experience of one of the allfemale state-funded but privately owned colleges where a two-year diploma was then the norm to qualify as a primary teacher. She says of their experiences in general: ‘I enjoyed my three years an awful lot more than she enjoyed her two.’ She recalls having conversations with nuns about writing and discussions stimulated by study of Bowley5 and while some of her college period was spent sharing a flat with her brother, she reports, ‘I was encouraged to be independent’. Her sister’s experience, by contrast, is painted in entirely negative terms. She describes it as ‘being regimented in the extreme’ and she frequently felt ‘terrorised’ by rigid application of rules that when breached were likely to lead to ‘humiliation’ while the threat of ‘expulsion’ was heavy in the air as a deterrent to those sufficiently spirited to circumvent the rules. McGahern, speaking of his experience of being a student teacher a decade earlier, identifies a pervasive ‘anti-intellectualism’ to the extent, he suggests, that ‘there was

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something considered wrong and dangerous and idle about reading books’ (1990, p. 66), that students with an interest in ideas and debate ‘were absolutely hounded’. He describes some of the same surveillance on male student teachers that resonates comfortably with Margaret’s description of her sister’s ascent into teaching. His comments suggest that potential leaders of small schools and their communities were poorly served by their professional formation. These were people nineteen and twenty, and they were going to go out and teach and would be leaders of most rural communities. This fellow would prowl up and down the study hall, and if you were reading Eliot or some book that wasn’t on the course, you could actually get biffed at the back of your ears. (McGahern, 1990, p. 66) While Margaret’s experience of teacher education seems more hospitable to independence of mind and personal autonomy than that of her sister, such oases of intellectual interest were situated within a wider culture of conformity so that it would be necessary to perpetuate her early socialisation of conformity, resistance and circumnavigation into early teaching career. She was learning too about how power was exercised within the system, and how it could be used to bring about enforced compliance, or in a more enlightened and open manner that fostered autonomy and more independent thinking.

Teaching career: early experiences – continuity and change When her initial teacher education was completed, Margaret returned to her own general geographical area for her first teaching position that was secured through personal contacts. Without any note of irony, she informed me that her first teaching job was in a school where the principal was a member of the Mercy Order, the same group of nuns who, along with the state, deemed her unfit to be a student teacher due to her incapacity to sing. She accepted this position in favour of her local school in part at least because her mother had by then returned to a teaching position there. Establishing her own identity and maintaining some autonomy were important trajectories at this point in her early career. However, by the following year she was back in the boys’ school in her native heath. Having completed her two-year probationary period, she married and moved school again. On this occasion she was prompted to do so by the inspector when completing her probationary examination. He simply suggested that she contact the principal and indicate that ‘I recommend you’ and he felt confident that ‘they [would] take you’. She was now working

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for another religious principal though belonging to a different order than those she had previously encountered. She remained there for the next five years and was ‘pregnant for the third time’ on departure. On this occasion, it was the clerical manager of the school rather than the inspector who intervened on Margaret’s behalf. Having offered her a position in a small rural school, he indicated that he would make it easy for her too when he said, ‘I’ll resign for you’, lest, of course, the nuns would seek to persuade her to stay in her present position. Margaret indicates her own positioning, compliance and silence when she says, a little tongue in cheek: ‘so of course I was very docile and I let him, and I got a kick out of doing it as well – that is how things were done in those days.’ Her story suggests that within a patriarchal system dominated by male inspectors and celibate clergy, females, either religious principals or classroom teachers, were both pawns and players in the process of changing and perpetuating the status quo. After three years in this small rural school, Margaret and her husband surprised both family and community by packing their bags and heading for a position in sub-Saharan Africa. They were both at a ‘career stage’ (Huberman et al., 1993) where they wanted to broaden their horizons and ‘critical incidents’ in their family life propelled them also in this direction. However, due to a promotional opportunity for her husband, the African experience was cut short, lasting just one year, and Margaret was once more back in her native heath, beginning to seek new challenges.

Becoming a principal: continuity and change Margaret began her teaching career in 1968 and was appointed to the position of teaching principal in 1991. Her motivation to take up the challenge of the role is complex, but it is apparent also that seeking to ‘buck the trend’, as well as prove that she was more than capable of fulfilling the role, are important biographical considerations in terms of how she tells the story. Prior to her application, she had felt for some time that ‘she wanted to do it’ and she was at a stage in family life where ‘she felt free enough to do it’. However, as she reveals, it was not simply a matter of applying for the first vacancy in her locality; that would be to ignore traditions and power relations. After she had set her mind on becoming a principal, the first vacancy was in a provincial town where she had taught previously, but a colleague counselled her, ‘don’t [apply], as you’re not going to get it’ and better not to ‘be counted among those who tried and didn’t get it’. Consequently she did not apply. At the time, a number of schools in the wider geographical area were in transition from religious in the position of principal to lay leadership, while the religious concerned continued to maintain influence through a school’s Board of Management.6 Further advice suggested to her that the reason she would be unsuccessful in her first outing for a

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principalship was because the religious community concerned had already (pre-)selected the successor. Frequently, in such cases, in an effort to ensure continuity, particularly regarding school ethos and religious orthodoxy, these considerations were privileged to render transitions seamless. Margaret confides, ‘let’s just say, one of their own had been head-hunted’. It is not uncommon for females who were previously members of religious congregations who continue as lay teachers to be appointed to such schools at these points of transition. However, from her perspective, she was also taking on patriarchal privilege by considering the possibility of principalship. She says: ‘in larger schools, and even in the smaller schools, there’s a man going to get it anyway because it is controlled by the clergy.’ She indicates the extent to which an informal network of clergy responsible for the appointment of principals7 and clergy, who also had management responsibility until recently for one of the major colleges of education, would ‘make arrangements’. The local clergy would, if necessary, travel to the college and make inquiries regarding ‘suitable’ males about to graduate, and having some achievement in football was often a distinct advantage. Criteria for selection were never articulated and put into the public domain, but being the proverbial ‘safe pair of hands’ was often a dominant consideration. It may be claimed that in general, therefore, those who were promoted to the position of principalship were likely to be conformist, placing emphasis on continuity and tradition, rather than having a reputation for innovation or for ‘rocking the boat’. Superficially at least, the continuing emphasis on change and the need for more rapid reform in schools and the role of leadership within schools documented in research literature, appears to be anathema to this tradition of appointments. It suggests that many role incumbents in the Irish context, appointed for their conformity and orthodoxy, are increasingly being challenged to transmogrify into imaginative risk takers in the process of transforming schools as organisations, as well as places of innovative teaching and learning.

Role identity: assuming the mantle of leadership While Margaret was critical regarding the manner of appointment to principalship, she was strategic also about her application. It would be difficult to deny that by applying for the principalship of the school that she had attended as a pupil, and where her family continues to have ‘cultural capital’, that she was also maximising her chances of success. The fact that she was appointed principal of the same school from which her mother was forced into domesticity a generation earlier was not lost on her. When this was mentioned to her as a possibility during one of the interviews she admits to being ‘appalled’ by the ‘horrific extent’ to which deep down she is vindicating her mother in the process. In sharp contrast to her trajectory

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into principalship, she regards her own ascent as very benign in comparison with the kinds of Machiavellian manoeuvres effected by others in pursuit of promotion. In her case she admits that she had never even ‘thought about’ doing a course on the role, and furthermore she hadn’t ‘even thought about being the principal’. She was much more secure in her belief that she wanted the position, for deeply biographical reasons, but she also ‘wanted to make a difference there’. She was also motivated by a more feminist consideration which she describes as ‘the kind of rebel in me – anything you can do I can do better’ and, as the first lay principal in this school, she was determined to vindicate this point of view, as well as right a few perceived wrongs along the way. Thus, when appointed she was at least tacitly aware of considerations around continuity and change. She was conscious of ‘an ethos and reputation for hard work’ as well as ‘the feeling of community’ and both of these she wished to retain and continue. She reverts to her own experience of school, in part as a basis for her assertions, ‘I have good and bad memories of that school’, and because of this she ‘wanted to bring a liberal, open encouraging atmosphere to it’, and this seems consistent with her experience of her teacher education as well as the more liberal senior-secondary education that she received in the boarding school, that sought to provide a more rounded education than merely prepare girls for examinations. However, in this context she was ‘interested in raising academic standards . . . too’ if this were possible. She wishes to transform the ethos of the school also so that ‘the weakest child would be just as important to me as anybody else’ but she is conscious also that ‘the Bishop is the patron of the school and this is a Catholic school’ though she is uncomfortable with aspects of the ‘religious ethos’. She feels frustrated and constrained by a Church that is losing its power and influence in a more secular and more educated Ireland, and as a consequence members are more inclined to want to retain power while in her experience they are more reluctant to take on the responsibilities such power implies. Margaret seeks to change the school ethos, to distance it from narrow interpretations of the Catholic tradition, and she asserts that ‘to be Christian is not to be critical’. Within the school community, she has good reason to assert this ‘principle’ as a means of creating that ‘more liberal atmosphere’. Apart from her commitment to this, she is conscious also that such an atmosphere is likely to be more conducive to colleagues on the staff, one of whom is preparing the children for the sacrament of confirmation, and is ‘in a second relationship’ while another ‘is very obviously in a second relationship’ and such ‘obvious’ signs in the past would be ‘disappeared’ from the system lest orthodoxy be breached. Another dimension of her new role is that she ‘wanted to spread the power around’ while she adds with some humour that she ‘wanted a little bit of it for myself also’. The sub-text of this element of the conversation is

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again to alter the manner in which power had been traditionally exercised within the school community in an authoritarian dictatorial manner that required passivity and obedience from members, particularly pupils, rather redolent of her sister’s experience of teacher education, as well as her own ‘bad’ memories of being a pupil in this particular school.8 While deepseated passions are rarely single issues, and they can be fuelled from various sources, she returns to the view that ‘I wanted to prove that anything you can do I can do better’ but mollifies this slightly when she says: ‘it is not as bad as that, but I wanted to show that I could do it, I felt I could contribute.’ This is fuelled by both positive and negative emotions, of being competent and capable and wishing to demonstrate this, while carrying a torch of sorts also for her mother, for women of her generation and for her own peers who were denied career advancement by a variety of constraints that pervaded the culture and traditions of schooling in the setting. Wertsch makes the point that: Like religious collectives, states often seek to produce texts in which ‘the force of the word is strong enough’ to ‘supercede the differing economic and social backgrounds of participants, welding them, for a time at least, into a unit’. (Stock, 1990, p. 150, quoted in Wertsch, 2002, p. 28) An important argument of this text regarding literature on leadership is that the subjectivities and biographies of role incumbents are too often ignored and in the process an important element of the script of leadership is rendered mute and invisible. However, lest the reader be allowed to think that Margaret and those like her are operating purely in some preprogrammed manner that denies individual agency, the final section of this chapter focuses on ways in which she has sought continuity and change, how she has re-shaped her own identity while seeking also to re-shape the traditions of schooling and leadership within her own purview. To achieve this she has persistently sought to invest in her own learning despite considerable constraints both systemic and domestic. This period of her career is co-terminus also with unprecedented change in Irish society, and particularly during the years of her principalship that broadly correspond to Ireland’s economic flowering.9

Identity: refashioned through learning It is apparent above that Margaret relished the prospect of taking on the challenge of principalship, of putting her own stamp on things, of ‘proving’ that she could do it, while getting secret satisfaction also from altering the rules of engagement in the process, while making a difference. This is one of the major continuities in her biography that can be indicated most

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effectively through documenting the manner in which, despite constraints and responsibilities, she has sought out and relished new challenges, particularly through availing of emergent learning opportunities. Shortly after she began her teaching career, a seismic shift in primary education occurred in Ireland in 1971 with the launch of a child-centred curriculum.10 While limited in-service opportunities surrounded the introduction of this new programme in the early 1970s, this period too coincided with a career stage for Margaret where giving birth and combining family and work were intense. During this phase, and in a context and a time where professional identities of teachers did not include more recent notions of continuing professional development and life-long learning, Margaret managed to participate more than many of her peers, albeit in an unplanned, opportunist manner. In the absence of planned and coherent professional learning opportunities, many teachers of Margaret’s generation frequently sought intellectual stimulation and community through amateur drama, sporting organisations, choirs, musical societies and the voluntary sector generally, and in a vicarious manner these experiences shaped identities and coloured professional thinking and action. Although Margaret admits that she hadn’t really thought about principalship before deciding that she was going to apply, she did feel ‘equipped to do it’. The reason for this confidence was because she had invested significantly in ‘communication and counselling’ skills and work through marriage guidance. While this might be construed by some as succumbing to her ‘domesticity’ it can also be understood as consistent with wishing ‘to make a difference’ in others’ lives, while it gave confidence also: ‘I felt I could deal with people . . . I had a good deal of experience and some training in a counselling role.’ In ‘another life’, as Bateson (1990) suggests, this experience also fostered a particular disposition. She says: ‘I trained as a tutor at one stage, so I would have been open to training and personal development.’ She continues that, while this was outside the ambit of schooling, she has little difficulty finding continuity with it – ‘in fact it was . . . related to teaching’ – in a manner that resonates readily with the work of van Manen and Levering (1996) on the significance of continuity and change in the construction of identity. They say: . . . we do not need to choose between, on the one hand, a stable core of self that remains identical over time and, on the other hand, the fragmenting plurality of ever-changing shards of selves that lack the recognizable quality of identity. (1996, p. 100) Relying on the work of Ricoeur (1992), van Manen and Levering suggest that:

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. . . the notion of self as involved in constant reinterpretation of the past (the narrative self reinterpreting memory of itself through creative imagination, such as through story or recategorization of its identity) is the biographical self seeking a sense of order or unity. (p. 100) Within her narrative therefore, Margaret creates continuity between her personal self and her professional identity by engaging in boundary crossings that involve transfer of learning in one domain to reconstruct her professional identity in a manner that strengthens her disposition while providing continuity and a degree of comfort with the fit of the emerging persona. This disposition and training inclined her to a more democratic and inclusive style of leadership in opposition to the manner in which she had previously seen power exercised in an exclusive cliquish manner. When she describes her leadership style, it appears consistent with this biographical trajectory. She says she wanted to be ‘hands on’ while she is also ‘interested in keeping people on side . . . I didn’t want to have factions’, and this approach, apart from resonating with her generally liberal disposition, was shaped also by her encounters with other styles of leadership. She says: One of things that I have seen of leadership and which I’ve hated is a leader who gathers a little group around themselves and they decide – I don’t like that, or where a leader withdraws, I don’t believe in that either – I would work towards resolution and inclusivity. However, lest the impression be created that all of this is entirely smooth and without incident, Margaret has lived through ‘turbulent’ times when the boys’ and girls’ schools were amalgamated and she became principal of the new entity, and this caused her to ‘stand back and rethink’. Additionally, she recognises the more turbulent social setting in which these continuities have had to be forged when she says: . . . the children coming to school nowadays are socialised differently from how children were coming to school ten or twenty years ago – the job is different now – many people don’t realise that it is different now, they are trying to do an old job and it’s actually different. As evidence from her own perspective of the necessity to ‘move with the times’, she indicates how she has moved away from ability grouping – ‘I would be totally against that now’ – to a ‘more democratic approach to learning’, to ‘helping children to achieve . . . feeling good about themselves’. This is further evidence of the manner in which an individual

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learning trajectory finds continuity through grappling with change within the wider social milieu as well as within more focused learning opportunities. However, within these changing circumstances she identifies further continuities also when she says, ‘I know what it’s like for a married woman and trying to juggle a job and a family’, and while this world-view, fuelled by a desire to prove she can ‘do better’, by ‘working fierce hard to do one’s best in school’, she is compelled also to ‘be supportive of women’. Nevertheless, when she was appointed, she was acutely aware also that she was an ‘outsider’, coming into a school where there were three internal candidates, while taking heart from the knowledge also that she was, ‘dare I say it, better qualified than any of them’.

‘Moving on’ – finding continuity in challenge and change Like many of her generation who combine family and professional life, it is sometimes necessary to put ambitions, aspirations and career goals on hold. In Margaret’s case, when the nest was all but empty, she had the opportunity to study for a Bachelor of Education on a part-time basis. This opportunity also provided her with the opportunity to study mathematics as an academic subject to degree level, and she particularly relished this challenge and opportunity since she had been denied the possibility of ‘doing honours’ when she had taken her Leaving Certificate Examination (LCE) all those years previously. Here was an opportunity, a challenge, a chance to vindicate herself and her prowess in mathematics as well as ‘strike a blow’ for her female cohort. Modesty would not permit Margaret to say just how lip-smacking, finger-licking good these learning experiences were, for modesty too was inculcated into this generation through the ‘convent values’ they were supposed to internalise and through wider social positioning and expectations. Nevertheless, it is very evident from the tone in which she talks about these experiences that they were a major ‘yippee’ factor, both emotionally and intellectually. At the end of this process, and bolstered by the confidence that a high honours degree confers, Margaret was proud of her achievements, relishing the intellectual stimulation and hungry for more – learning was exciting and, as confidence grew, so too did her capacity and readiness to conquer new horizons. She talks about this learning opportunity and how she felt about it in the following terms: I did the BEd . . . I wanted to do it for myself. I enjoyed the study and I knew from the two years that I could do lots of things, and I probably could have been constrained from doing as a young married woman, and I wanted to do something . . .

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Significantly also, it was on her way home from a weekend of lectures that, on a visit to her sister, she first learned of the forthcoming principalship vacancy, and her immediate reaction was to say, ‘right, here goes, I’ll do that’. However, she quickly indicates also that this was not a spur-ofthe-moment response. Rather, ‘I felt that I wanted to do it from sometime towards the end of the BEd’, thus suggesting that the confidence and learning were already re-shaping her identity so that other challenges were now within her compass. Additionally, she says, ‘I also felt free enough’ to take on the challenge, and she was going to relish the prospect of being the first lay principal in a religious-run school, as well as strike a blow for women by becoming a principal, a role from which married women in particular had been largely excluded. She was prepared also to wrestle with theory and practice, with the intellectual stimulation of doing ‘academic maths’ and the teaching of mathematics. When it came to selecting a topic for her minor thesis, not surprisingly she focused on the teaching of mathematics. As the old cliché suggests, nothing succeeds like success, and Margaret was very quickly seeking new heights to conquer. Her preference was to pursue a Master’s Degree in Women’s Studies, but geography prevented her from doing so, and she settled for a Master’s in Leadership. Here again, with greater emphasis on reading, writing and analysis, there were additional challenges in which she excelled, and when the time came to select a topic for her dissertation, leadership succession brought her full circle where she grappled with the constraints that her mother faced and the manner in which, until recently, lay women were largely marginalised from leadership positions in schools by a coalition of interests. She was, in a sense, reconstructing her own life story while situating it within its social history; reconstructing her own identity through narrative while seeking continuity, keeping the narrative going by using the challenge of change to weave persistent threads in her biography while also re-shaping and retexturing the fabric of her life and work in the process.

Conclusions What this partial portrait of Margaret indicates and illustrates is the extent to which change and continuity are the waft and weave of the ongoing project of identity re-formation, while learning opportunities, both formal and informal, are a catalyst for this ongoing project. However, while making the case for continuity, for the necessity to ‘keep a particular narrative going’, this should not be understood as an argument for stasis. Rather, close scrutiny of the narrative reveals continuity through transformation – ambition finds an outlet when more opportunities are available on the landscape, and time is also more opportune, dormant interest in mathematics is similarly kick-started, a liberal well-rounded education

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rather than being narrowly focused on examination results only, are recombined with a passion for hard work and high standards, but in a more inclusive democratic community of learners characterised by respect for all, rather than clique-ish hierarchical exercise of power that seeks to control and exclude. This cocktail can also be understood as having been influenced by positive and negative experiences, and informed by an awareness of more widely embedded constraints within the system that, for Margaret, took on a particular hue due to the experiences of her mother and her own a generation later. Collectively these shaping influences are re-woven into the fabric of identity in a moving mosaic that continues to be a work in progress. There is considerable resonance between Margaret’s learning trajectory and the description provided by Hall (1996) of Heather who moved to a new principalship having served four years in another school. The same sense of continuity and change, as well as confidence and competence, are evident: Four years on and in a new school, Heather’s ideas and values had not changed, nor the framework of her personal life which provided so much support for an often stressful job. The difference was in her knowledge about the confidence in the capabilities and qualities that she brought to headship, and their refinement as a result of practice and fine tuning. (Hall, 1996, p. 73) While Heather sought a new challenge in a new school context, such a move in an Irish context, though not impossible, is also more difficult. Additionally, in Margaret’s case, a new challenge for her was to do something ‘different’, while also seeking continuity. Consequently, having spent ten years as principal, she has moved on to new challenges. On reading an earlier draft of this chapter she remarked that this ‘moving on’ was something practised by the religious when in control – they served as principals for a while and ‘they were right’. This is remarkably consistent with particular threads of her identity, particularly that of finding a new challenge. She is relatively unusual in an Irish context in resigning from the position of principal, but a recent study indicates that this is a growing phenomenon due to pressure and workload.11 The challenge in the next section of the book is to take these biographical threads of those in school leadership positions and to weave them into a more dense fabric that is richly contextualised – to transform these largely biographical portraits into a life-history narrative that provides another window into the lives and work of school leaders. The challenge in this instance is to retain the passions, to indicate the subjectivities, while re-fashioning understandings of leadership in the process. It is to recognise also that ‘we must come to terms with the ordinary and the everyday in

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order to destabilize it’ (Theobald, 1993, p. 21), and this is one of the benefits of bringing a life-history approach to bear on leadership.

Notes 1 Portraiture has much in common with life-story and life-history narratives. For an elaboration on this relationship and the nature of portraiture, its ‘origins, purposes, and features, [its] placing . . . within the larger discourse on social science inquiry and . . . the broader terrain of qualitative research’, see Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis, 1997, p. xv. 2 Language has significance for identity construction. In the Irish context, it is a requirement throughout compulsory schooling to learn the Irish language, thus providing a major continuity within schooling with more predictable and stable times, despite the influx of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers in recent time, in part a product of Ireland’s economic success, frequently lauded as the Celtic Tiger. 3 While recent statistics suggest that regular church attendance has declined to approximately 50 per cent, the vast majority of primary schools continue to be parish schools, with a local clergyman being a member of the Board of Management, while recent legislation provides protection for a school’s individual ethos (Ireland, 1998). However, very recent court rulings regarding matters of school enrolment policies have given precedence to equality legislation over aspects of the Education Bill. 4 It is evident from Margaret’s remarks that Domestic Science, now more commonly referred to as Home Economics, was positioned in a hierarchical relationship with other subjects and in the process distanced from female students who were ‘bright’. Goodson’s (1994) book provides a particularly insightful and compelling account of the status differentials created within teaching and schooling by indicating how ‘formal knowledge has superseded practical and utilitarian knowledge’ (p. 41) in the service of professionals, their status and remuneration. See also Goodson, 1983. 5 Two popular texts authored by Bowley that were common ‘required’ reading in teacher education programmes at that time were – Child-care and the Growth of Love, and Teaching Without Tears. 6 It is important to understand that, in the Irish system, each school has its own Board of Management, and there are no regional structures between the Department of Education and Science (DES) and individual school management. Consequently, principals and teachers are hired by individual boards while being paid by the state. The chairperson of the Board of Management, therefore, is key to the appointment of a school principal. In many schools, the local clergyman continues to be the chairperson of the Board, while it is no longer axiomatic that this be the case. 7 Prior to 1975, the local clergyman had sole responsibility for the management of the primary school(s) in his parish. Consequently, the appointment of a principal, subject to minimal rules specified by the Department of Education, was entirely at his discretion. 8 The college that her sister attended was closed by the state in the mid 1980s when projections suggested that the number of teachers required in the foreseeable future would decline precipitously. It has become part of the folklore in teacher education and in primary teaching circles nationally that when the Cabinet discussed various options for closure, the general feeling was that there were many female teachers around the country who would not ‘shed as much

Creating continuity through change 85 as a tear’ if the institution were closed, such was their negative experience of the place. 9 It is generally accepted that Irish society has changed rapidly and radically during the past twenty-five years. For a more comprehensive account of the impact of these changes on society and the education system, see Corcoran and Peilon (2002) and Sugrue (2004). 10 This change in direction has been repeatedly described as ‘radical’, a move away from a highly centralised, prescriptive teacher-centred programme to one imbued with the principles of progressivism. For a comprehensive analysis of this shift, see Sugrue (1997). 11 In a recent study completed by Ryan (2003) entitled ‘Giving Back the Keys’, almost 100 Irish primary principals participated, indicating their reasons for ‘stepping down’. Many of this group returned to classroom teaching.

References Bateson, M. C. (1990) Composing a Life, New York: Plume. Bourke, A. (1999) The Burning of Bridget Cleary, London: Pimlico. Bowley, R. L. (1965) Child Care and the Growth of Love, London: Centaur. Bowley, R. L. (1967) Teaching Withing Tears: a guide to teaching techniques; a compedium of practice, new and rev. edn, London: Centaur. Britzman, D. (1991) Practice Makes Practice: a critical study of learning to teach (with a foreword by Maxine Greene), New York: SUNY. Corcoran, M. P. and Peilon, M. (eds) (2002) Ireland Unbound: a turn of the century chronicle, Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. Cullen, M. (1987) Girls Don’t Do Honours: Irish women in education in the 19th and 20th centuries, Dublin: Women’s Education Bureau. Fink, D. (2000a) The Attrition of Educational Change over Time: the case of ‘innovative’, ‘model’, ‘lighthouse’ schools, in N. Bascia and A. Hargreaves (eds) The Sharp Edge of Educational Change, London: RoutledgeFalmer, pp. 29–51. Fink, D. (2000b) Good Schools/Real Schools: why school reform doesn’t last, New York and London: Teachers’ College Press. Fitzgerald, G. (1991) All in a Life: Garrett Fitzgerald, an autobiography, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: self and society in the late modern age, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Goodson, I. F. (1983) School Subjects and Curriculum Change, London, Sydney and Dover, NH: Croom Helm. Goodson, I. F. (1994). Studying Curriculum, New York and London: Teachers College, Columbia University. Government of Ireland (1998) Education (No. 2) bill, Dublin: Government Publications. Hall, V. (1996) Dancing on The Ceiling: a study of women managers in education, London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Heifetz, R. A. and Linsky, M. (2002) Leadership on the Line: staying alive through the dangers of leading, Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Huberman, M., Grounauer, M., Mati, J. and Huberman, A. (1993) The Lives of Teachers, New York: Teachers’ College Press.

86 Ciaran Sugrue Lawrence-Lightfoot, S. and Davis, J. H. (1997) The Art and Science of Portraiture, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Lynch, K. (1989) Equality and Power in Schools, London and New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Lynch, K. and Lodge, A. (2002) Equality and Power in Schools, London and New York: RoutledgeFalmer. MacMahon, B. (1992) The Master, Dublin: Poolbeg Press. McGahern, J. (1990) John McGahern: the personal experience of censorship, interview with Julia Carlson, in J. Carlson (ed.) Banned in Ireland: censorship and the Irish writer, London: Routledge, pp. 55–67. Ricoeur, P. (1992) Oneself as Another, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ryan, J. (2003) Handing Back the Keys: why some primary principals are stepping down from the role, unpublished MEd dissertation, St Patrick’s College, Dublin City University. Stock, B. (1990) Listening for the Text: on the uses of the past, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sugrue, C. (1997) Complexities of Teaching: child-centred perspectives, London: Falmer Press. Sugrue, C. (ed.) (2004) Curriculum and Ideology: Irish experiences, international perspecives, Dublin: The Liffey Press. Theobald, M. (1993) Teachers, Memory and oral history, in K. Weiler and S. Middleton (eds) Telling Women’s Lives, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, pp. 9–24. van Manen, M., and Levering, B. (1996) Childhood’s Secrets: intimacy, privacy, and the self reconsidered, New York and London: Teachers’ College Press. Walter, B. (2001) Outsiders Inside Whiteness: place and Irish women, London and New York: Routledge. Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wertsch, J. (2002) Voices of Collective Remembering, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Part III

Passionate principalship Learning from life histories

Chapter 6

Coping with accountability Tensions between reason and emotion Jorunn Møller

Introduction This chapter explores how school principals establish their accountability to themselves and to others, how their coping strategies may include contradictory feelings with consequences for their emotional labour. Reason and emotion in Western society are often dealt with as bipolar opposites that set up descriptors for rationality and emotionality. Rationality is seen as objective and orderly, while emotionality reflects subjective and chaotic forces. This set of values, which split reason from emotion, has influenced both the way research on organisation has been framed and the shaping of recommended models. Mainstream writers on organisations and management have to a large degree, until the early 1990s, ‘written out’ emotions (Fineman, 1993). Being accountable in a rational way is part of the manager’s job. Rationality has almost been considered sacred and holy, while emotions have been perceived as being more or less inappropriate to talk about and thus devalued in organisations. Nevertheless, it has been recognised that emotions serve essential needs in organisations because they contribute to the development of community, commitment and collective morality, something that writers within a human-resource tradition have underlined. However, they have tended to treat emotions as an instrumental means towards the goals set by the organisations (Putman and Mumby, 1993). In short, it is both timely and necessary to put passion back into principalship.

Theoretical framework The emotional labour of teaching and school leadership Despite the passion with which we know teachers usually talk about their work, there has until the early 1990s, been relatively little research into the significance of emotionality in teachers’ lives, careers and classroom behaviour (Nias, 1996). Becoming a caring teacher has been treated more

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as a matter of personal disposition or private virtue (Clark, 1995). But during the last ten years more attention has been paid to the understanding of teaching as an emotional practice (Hargreaves, 1994, 2002a and b; Jeffrey and Woods, 1996; Kelchtermans, 1996; Beatty, 2001). These writers take the view that teaching is a job which involves intensive personal interactions that are publicly displayed, and therefore inevitably has an emotional dimension. Further, they give emphasis to the fact that one cannot separate feeling from perception and judgment. In addition, neither cognition nor feeling can be separated from the social and cultural contexts which influence teachers and, which are, in turn, shaped by them. Reviewing research on school leadership until the early 1990s, there are, with the exception of Wolcott’s (1973) study, few studies on leadership, which focus on the significance of emotions in school leaders’ lives and careers. Instead, the research literature is rather normative and tends to focus on what school leaders could be and should be doing. However, in line with research on teachers’ work, more attention is now paid to looking at the emotional dimensions of leadership. Studies on primary principals in England (Hayes, 1996; Revell, 1996) have demonstrated heads’ commitment to children and the emotional nourishment gained from working with them. In particular, studies applying a feminist approach have set forth a way to position emotion as central to the process of organising and as integral to participation in organisational life (Blackmore, 1999, 2002; Brunner, 2000; Smulyan, 2000; Reynolds, 2002). Still, policy strategies designed to improve school leadership and learning rarely seem to acknowledge this vital dimension. In her work on the sociology of emotions Hochschild (1983) explores the tension that may occur when the person is in conflict about the role he or she plays, when there are questions about the performance one is giving, and the person one would like to be. She uses the expression emotional labour when an employee is in effect paid to smile, laugh, be polite, or be ‘caring’. In other words, emotional labour is characterised by a situation when one is required or expected to feel or to seem to feel an emotion different from what one is experiencing. An important feature of the job is to maintain the prescribed mask. Like an actor or actress one will have to construct emotions in oneself in order to induce them in others. Doing that can be fun, but it can also be stressful. Emotional labour includes knowing about and assessing as well as managing and regulating emotions, other people’s emotions as well as one’s own. A manager will have to learn the company’s ‘emotional map’ in order to succeed, and the established ‘company culture’ sets the social boundaries between the right and the wrong thing to do. Hochschild raises the question, what if the performance we are paid to give in our job is in conflict with anything we can become fully engaged with? The process that reduces emotion to a form of labour treats the body and the mind as

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separate entities. As a consequence, there is a risk of being alienated from the work one is doing. The schools function within a bureaucracy that to a large degree seems to marginalise emotional experiences. This is particularly the case when one is considering how top-down reforms are introduced and implemented in the schools. The emotional intensity of ‘exchange’ within the school community, and the emotional labour performed by principals seems particularly evident when documenting the substantive theme of accountability. Changing administrative ideologies constitute accountability in different ways, and how school principals locate themselves in relation to the mainstream discourse of accountability also reflects the socially sanctioned dominance of certain ideologies and subjugation of others. The purpose of this chapter is to show how the external school environment and policy context shapes and influences the emotional well-being of principals in particular as they navigate in these changing waters while negotiating a ‘new’ professional persona that either dilutes or re-invigorates their leadership passions. Amanda Sinclair’s (1995) refinement of different forms of accountability offers a lens through which we may more closely examine manifestations of accountability and school principals’ way of coping with and doing this emotional labour. Different forms of accountability Sinclair has made a distinction between five forms of accountability, which encompasses the political, public, managerial, professional and personal. Political and public accountability concerns being responsible to the mandate and function of that particular organisation in society, and being responsible towards the local community of which you are a part. Managerial accountability refers to a person’s position in a hierarchy and responsibility towards superiors concerning tasks that are delegated. It focuses mainly on monitoring inputs and outputs. There is also a professional accountability, where a person’s commitment to a community of professionals makes him/her perceive a duty to adhere to the standards of the profession. Finally, Sinclair includes the category personal accountability, the values that are sacred to a person. It concerns fidelity to personal conscience in basic values such as respect for human dignity and acting in a manner that accepts responsibility for affecting the lives of others. This kind of accountability is regarded as particularly powerful and binding. It is likely to expect that emotional labour will be stressful if personal values are in conflict with other kinds of accountability. It is in this context that the personal and professional worlds collide, where either congruence or conflict are the outcome of the personal tussle to retain passionate intensity, to re-create continuity despite changing demands. This chapter draws on data from a series of narrative interviews with

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school principals in Norway, Denmark, England and Ireland.1 Researchers are likely to be told stories in which school principals try to portray themselves as experts or present stories which fit within an acceptable range of the story of headship being lived in a national context. This way of talking is framed as a cover story by Connelly and Clandinin (1999) as opposed to a secret story,2 which provides a vehicle to admit fears and doubts. A cover story is the public way of talking, and the stories of accountability will possibly be stripped of negative feelings. Accountability is unproblematic, able to be ‘delivered’. In contrast, the language used within a more secret story allows for framing accountability in a more ambiguous way. Constructing a cover story will involve emotional labour. It has to do with maintaining a prescribed mask, explicit or implicit, within a bureaucracy like the school. Admitting negative emotions and frustrations in an interview may presuppose that the principals trust the researchers depending on the kind of socially accepted norms involved. In constructing their stories the principals are also negotiating who they are for others as well as for themselves (Wenger, 1998). An important issue to explore is the relationship between features of the current educational landscape in different national contexts that affect accountability, between how school principals establish accountability to themselves and to others and the emotional labour involved. Attention is also paid to potential gender differences and career-stage variations between beginning, mid-career and veteran school principals.

Coping with accountability – manifestations across four countries Interviews with English school principals reveal a complex interplay of concern about managerial accountability. Awareness of potential public affirmation through inspection reports and league tables, and in one case fear of public shaming, featured in all interviews. As one said: League tables are there in black and white, your Ofsted report is there in black and white – so there is a sort of stark statement in that kind of formal framework – when you talk about them, what people perceive is not some kind of absolute, this is good and this isn’t good . . . the formal isn’t necessarily more accurate than the informal – the informal is more important than the formal – you need a bit of both. (Biott, 2001, p. 14) As a school principal in England you simply cannot ignore Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education). The way of talking about this kind of accountability is rather rational and detached from emotional feelings. Dealing with Ofsted in a professional way will probably be part of the

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cover story. A mid-career school principal also believed that managerial accountability had improved things overall. Although he thought the government had been over-prescriptive, the general trend had been along the right lines. In 2000, he had received an excellent Ofsted report and expressed confidence in his way of dealing with a relentless succession of demands. Hence, feeling pride in receiving a positive report seems to be an accepted way of talking about emotions. A newly appointed school principal, whose school had serious weaknesses, got six months to improve things and felt that she was expecting too much of staff. However, she thought that what was being required was right and that external accountability was useful – ‘I can’t wallow in self pity’. This comment, however, reveals how she is trying to regulate and manage her emotions related to the report. It is not in line with socially accepted norms to ‘wallow in self-pity’ when you are a principal. It seems as if she struggles to live up to the ‘being strong’ script or the ‘being professional’ script (Blackmore, 2002). The school was inspected soon after she took over and the inspectors expected her to know the strengths and weaknesses of the school and have her finger on what as going on: It is my responsibility to move it forward and I feel very much that the political situation means that the buck stops with you. I mean, I have seen over the past year when I have been head, I have seen two other school principals being in their posts one week and then two weeks later not being there and basically it’s because when the crunch comes, you know if thing are moving too slowly then you are the one that holds the ultimate responsibility. (Biott, 2001, p. 8) In other words, coping with accountability may be stressful, but it is part of the job to keep the wheels turning. Despite the pressure created by Ofsted, it seems that many of the English principals consider themselves able to do the job and are feeling confident about their position. One principal with just three years’ experience had achieved ‘beacon’ status and he said he had ‘no problem’ with managerial accountability: ‘You are expressing what you are doing and you are sharing what you are doing with outside bodies.’ He was able to keep it manageable. He had known no other system than the current one, liked its clarity and believed it would be frightening to have no managerial accountability. In other words, public affirmation is emotionally important. It is difficult to know if he would have framed the last point differently if his school had not received ‘beacon’ status. As documented above, the managerial form of accountability creates both stress and opportunities for the school. The league tables seem to put pressure on the school system. At the same time concerns for high quality

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and standards develops out of long-term engagement in a school community, and the principals do talk about the affirmation they get from seeing positive things in the daily work of the school. It comes from having a personal vision of what makes a good school, of knowing that you are holding on to your core values and are being clear about your own priorities. Hence, they think it is important to establish professional accountability. Many of them also talked about aspects of their own dispositions, which enabled them to enjoy their work. They got a sense of personal affirmation from demonstrating that they could keep on going in the face of difficulties. Such stories fit well within an acceptable range of the stories of being a principal within an English context. Individual principals’ own stances seem also, to some extent, influenced by length of service, by how well their school has performed in inspection and by children’s attainment profiles. Running through the interviews, they all express an increasing sense of balance between external imposition and independence (Biott and Spindler, 2002). One explanation could be that they have learned to talk about their job in a new way. Their stories are situated in expectations about who could be in the audience (Eisenhart, 2000). The shaping of our identities includes our ability to shape the meanings that define our communities and our forms of belongings. The process through which the principals work themselves into positions in mainstream society as ‘a normal principal’ may entail silencing and ‘forgetting’ of experiences in their lives that do not fit the position they strive to maintain. Thus, emotional labour is unavoidable. The English way of talking about accountability can be contrasted with the way Norwegian principals establish accountability. Even though an analysis of the policy context in Norway demonstrates that the discourse of New Public Management seems to have a rather strong influence on how the municipalities organise and govern the schools (Karlsen, 2002), it is difficult to trace this discourse in the stories the principals tell.3 As a veteran principal, working in a rural area, said: I do not think being [managerially] accountable is problematic, because I do not find it so time consuming that it function as a barrier for the job I have to do. I think there is plenty of scope for action as a principal. Maybe, in a way I feel detached from my superiors [at municipal level]. I say to myself, take it or leave it. So far I have not received any reaction from them. I did get a feeling, when I had a personal talk with my superior, that they look upon me as a bit critical once in a while. They think I am a nice person, but a little too critical . . . However, I have no reason not to be loyal to the mandate of schooling. That is not the problem. (Møller, 2002, p. 9)

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He refers to his superiors at municipal level4 as ‘they’, a group from which he distances himself. This might be due to his position in late career and his feeling of confidence in his job. The managerial accountability requested by the CEO is less important than establishing personal accountability. Political and public accountability is, however, important. His loyalty to the national curriculum guidelines is in accordance with the way he frames his formal position. It is unproblematic. He feels he is responsible to the school’s mandate given by Parliament, and he underlines the importance of having good relations with parents. It is part of his role or contract. Territories are clear and demarcated. Political and public accountability is unproblematic and uncontested, able to be ‘delivered’. He puts it like this: When you get older and gain seniority as a school principal, you are not afraid of juggling around with the budget. No one asks what you are doing anyway. I am pretty relaxed about that kind of accountability. (Møller, 2002, p. 9) His stories about different forms of accountability can be read as an illustration of the fact that the focus on managerial accountability is something new in the Norwegian educational context.5 Up until the early 1990s it was taken for granted that schools lived up to their public mandate, and the authorities did not see any need to look into matters, other than organising a national final exam for students in core subjects. The teacher unions have also to a large degree played a powerful role in framing the ideology of teachers and principals. The phrase ‘stay in touch with the kids’ has been part of the ideology influencing the job both for teachers and principals. Professional accountability has been valued and encouraged, but standards of good teaching and leadership have been implicit. Hence, the distinction between professional and personal accountability is blurred. Both veteran and mid-career principals have an ironic tone when describing their relationship with superiors at municipal level. It is as if they distance themselves or blame the municipality for establishing managerial accountability in a way that harms the school. Their position can be related to the history of Norwegian education where the state has played a strong and authoritative role. However, those in early career seem to take managerial accountability for granted and relate their attitude to being professional. Like Norway, the discourse of New Public Management in Denmark seems to have a rather strong influence on how the municipalities organise and govern the schools (Moos, 2002). However, Danish veteran school leaders mentioned managerial accountability in off-hand ways in their individual stories. When the topic was brought up in a group discussion, it

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became evident that the principals do not think managerial accountability affects their way of framing their job. One mid-career, male principal, who was asked explicitly about managerial accountability, said: In my municipality schools are requested to make work plans every year. I find it reasonable that we prove our practice and, if we don’t, other people will come and do it and they may have a different, less reasonable agenda. (Moos, 2002, p. 7) Another mid-career, female principal said: I don’t see myself as a manager of an enterprise but as an educational leader and a personnel manager. I don’t see all those external accountability-ghosts. I think the danger in the evaluations and assessments lies in the fact that they displace the focus to a very small fraction of the schools’ efforts and neglect the rest. (Moos, 2002, p. 17) When managerial accountability was discussed, the principals reacted with composure: ‘It’s reasonable that authorities want to know what is going on in the schools. As long as schools can design the means themselves, nothing bad is happening’ (ibid., p. 18). When talking about the means that local authorities apply, most school leaders find that they are more like means of management and dialogue: the request made of schools is to work out annual plans and establish self-evaluation. The schools seem to transform those initiatives into developmental tools rather than seeing them as a means of external control. Thus, the managerial accountability is being transformed into professional accountability. However, the image or the reputation that the parents carry of their school is most important. As a newly appointed principal said: I become uncertain as a leader when a criticism is brought forward that I am unable to act on. It paralyses me. For instance, if a teacher is not doing his job properly and the parents take their child out of the school without consulting me. [. . .] Then people suddenly say that this school never acts on problems. (ibid., p. 19) In other words, public accountability appears to be more important within a Danish context than the managerial form, and it includes a lot of emotions. The Danish also underscore inconsistency and ambiguity between different forms of accountabilities. For instance, the professional accountability they feel towards pupils, teachers and parents often conflicts with

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the ‘new’ managerial accountability required by the local authorities. The newly appointed principal framed it like this: ‘You put your professional credibility at risk if you simply try to satisfy the politicians’ (ibid., p. 22). The manifestation of managerial accountability in Ireland is something in between England on the one hand and Norway and Denmark on the other. There is a strong tradition of school inspection dating back to the nineteenth century, and the traditional power of the dominant Catholic Church makes Ireland a distinctive case. Although schools are publicly funded, and there are no intermediate levels between the government’s Department of Education and Science and the individual schools, the Catholic Church owns the vast majority of schools. Each school has its own board where the principal serves as secretary. It is no longer obligatory that the chairperson of the board is the local cleric, but this continues to be the case in many instances, particularly in rural communities. As the individual board appoints both the teachers and the principals, it has a lot of influence on recruitment. Membership of the community can be protected by restricted access, and the penetration of religion appears to have been clearly evident on the life chances of the interviewees (Sugrue and Furlong, 2002). A traditional means of managerial accountability within the Irish context includes inspection of individual teachers’ work during their probationary year. Inspection of schools continues subsequently every four years, but results are not made public. Nevertheless, all the school principals interviewed in the study recall their own period of probation with the entire spectrum of emotions. It is talked about as ‘critical events’ in shaping identity as teachers, and it also seems to have influenced their own attitudes towards professional and managerial accountability to the school. Some met inspectors who were ‘very understanding’ while others framed it like being ‘haunted for two years’ or living through ‘an absolute nightmare’. The absence of criteria appears to leave the teachers more vulnerable to the individual interests of an individual inspector. They construct it as a ‘game of chance’ or a ‘guessing game’ in which you can be lucky with the inspectors or the opposite. Hence, one strategy is to keep ‘arm’s length’ relationships, which certainly will involve emotional labour. Preserving good relations with colleagues internally and with the local inspector externally seems to be an important strategy for principals in coping with accountability (Sugrue, 2002). A veteran school principal, working in a suburban disadvantaged area, found the whole process of inspection most unsatisfactory due to the passage of time between the actual inspection and the delivering of a report, as the following quote demonstrates: There was an attempt to cancel it again last year, but I insisted on it going ahead. As recently as December, [the inspector stated] ‘you

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have . . . oh yeah, you don’t know how busy I am, I haven’t got around to writing the report, so it’s not written. So you now say, how much of the feeling and the flavour will you have of last February . . . how can I take it seriously? (ibid., p. 20) The quotation is similar to the ironic tone towards superiors found within the Norwegian stories. He goes on to comment: ‘In terms of authority, you know the proverb that says nobody notices it when it is going right, and when it goes wrong, they know you are responsible’ (ibid., p. 11). Political and public accountability appear to be important within the Irish context, and these forms seem closely linked to personal accountability. This turns out to be particularly obvious when connected to a rather commonly held cultural belief in Ireland that fate is what separates leaders from followers (ibid., p. 198). With few exceptions, issues of gender are silenced in most of our principals’ stories. The participants underscore that they have achieved leadership either through their capacities as individuals, as in England, or through luck, except for early career principals, as in Norway and Denmark, or by being in the right place at the right time, as in Ireland. Being a woman or man was not the main point. Although male and female principals frequently have different expectations imposed on them, their understanding of leadership seems to be framed to a large degree by mainstream discourse of rationality, when they talk about accountability, and they maintain the prescribed mask. An explanation could be that if an organisation is to prove its worth, it must be seen to incorporate the latest administrative strategies. Both women’s and men’s understandings of leadership appear to be framed by this discourse. It is important to acknowledge also a consequence or homogenising tendency across all four sites as a consequence of more global rhetorics of reform, improvement and accountability. While these are played out differently within national borders due to different traditions as well as career trajectories, accountability generally is becoming more an integral element of principals’ professional identity, as a consequence of more market-oriented thinking on the part of parents and an imposed demand for systemic or bureaucratic control through a combination of rigorous inspection and the publication of test results.

Managing and regulating emotions related to accountability We do know both from research and from experience that leading schools in times of change is not primarily a technical-rational project guided by plans and procedures of implementation. Nevertheless, across the four

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countries we have found few expressions of negative emotions like anger and powerlessness despite the fact that they are middle-managers in a school system with a lot of pressure from above and are no longer assured of their previous high status. There seems to be a reluctance to talk about negative emotions. Most of them emphasise that they enjoy their job very much and feel confident. The perspective that ‘the buck stops’ with the principal is widely shared among the participants in the project, but, nevertheless, it seems to play out quite differently amidst biography and professional context. A newly appointed Irish school principal, working in an urban context, feels that she is vested with ‘a huge amount of authority’ that exposes her to pupils and their parents where she must declare her ‘stance’. At the same time she also recognises that this too may necessitate exposure as ‘being in authority in all kinds of areas which you may not be in authority at all’, without, what she terms, ‘a certain amount of experience and expertise that you bring to something and people rely on you for that’. Maybe it is necessary to ‘fake’ expertise because it is expected of you as a school principal. Hence, it takes a lot of emotional labour to succeed. It is also interesting to notice that she feels more accountable to the school’s lollipop ‘lady’ than to the minister of the day, as she is present on a daily basis and makes continuous observations of the school and those who are working there (Sugrue, 2002, p. 12). In this regard, being accountable is more locally determined than by centrally prescribed mandates and resonates more with the Norwegian and Danish contexts than the more negative climate created by external mandates in England. However, this newly appointed principal’s comments may be shaped primarily by her need to establish a ‘competent’ identity within and without the immediate school community as an urgent necessity rather than grapple with larger issues of accountability. To what extent are the principals’ stories cover stories which fit within an acceptable range of the story of headship in the four different countries? It is more likely that researchers are told cover stories in which school principals portray themselves as being on top of the job. Maintaining a prescribed mask probably implies a great deal of emotional labour. They talk about conflicting dilemmas and emotions, but they expose them in a rational way. More often they give cognitive and rational accounts or refer to positive emotions. This applies to males and females, veteran as well as the newly appointed. They do experience conflicts and dilemmas in their jobs, but these principals seem to have no problems in handling them. They talk about significant others who have impacted them emotionally by their actions and sentiments, but while doing this they reconstruct the influence as well. Talking about accountability in a rational and rather detached way seems part of what is recognised as acceptable. However, this desire to be perceived as being competent and in control

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hides vulnerabilities and in the process helps to perpetuate versions of the ‘super’ principal, both male and female. Only occasionally do they admit to having fears and doubts. The story of a newly appointed Norwegian principal illustrates this point. Like most Norwegian school principals she emphasises that coping with managerial accountability is not a problem. She feels the constraints of limited budgets, but she has great leeway regarding the pedagogy in her school, and that is what she sees as the most important part of her job. She describes herself as a ‘yes-person’, who becomes easily engaged in various activities. She has problems limiting her activities, as there is so much she wants to engage in. After her very first year as school principal she experienced burn-out which sent her on sick leave for a period: It came to a limit last autumn, and suddenly it was empty. Of course, I can see that over the years I have been engaged in several things to the extent that I again and again have agreed to take part in things. You can extend the elastic band so far, but in the end, there is a limit. It is important to be aware of this, but I wasn’t. In telling her story she makes burn-out her individual problem. An alternative view could be to connect burn-out with conditions of leadership. For instance, the way time is structured in the workplace, and the way work is organised, has a character that makes relations fluid. There is too little time for each other to give and receive care. The other becomes an abstraction and her emotional labour becomes too intense. As Blackmore (2002) has shown, it is not about being unemotional but rather controlling negative emotions such as frustration. This is called the ‘being strong’ script. One has to keep the wheels turning. The principals’ stories are also influenced by the interview situation (Møller and Spindler, 2002). For instance, a Norwegian school principal in her mid-career expressed a lot of frustration in the first interview, but she reconstructed the story after having read the first transcript. When the researcher arrived at the school for the second interview, she stated that the transcription of the first interview gave a wrong impression of the way she looked upon herself as a principal. She commented: What struck me is the way I make statements about my situation. In a way I use these big words ‘I want to throw up’ and so on. I don’t know how it is to listen to words like that in a conversation, but when you read it in a text, it gives a severe impression. Things are not as severe as that. The other thing that struck me when reading the first interview, is that I focussed on stories about what is enervating in my job as a school principal; small things that are enervating. . . . I wonder why the interview turned out to be like that. In one way I think it has

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something to do with modesty. I think I am afraid of boasting. Maybe it doesn’t have to do with modesty, but it is a form of securing. . . . Maybe you talk to some of the parents, and they will tell you another story. I do not want to be caught red-handed.... But why I mostly talked about the enervating things. . . . If I didn’t know me as a person and I read this first transcript, I would say, woo, she has a tough time at the job. But that is not true. In many ways I love my job. It is not untrue what I told you, but it struck me that it is important to be more easy-going. Her story as a principal is modified and almost created as a new one in the second interview. It is an example that shows how she is negotiating the meaning of her experiences, that the work of identity is ongoing and pervasive, and that she struggles to make her story fit within her understanding of an accepted story of leadership. She is regulating her emotions while telling her second story, while the first one probably revealed a more secret story. This interpretation is consistent with other principals’ comments on the transcripts. However, they did not reconstruct it in the same way. Sometimes the opposite was the case when they mentioned that everything was not always smooth and easy as told in the first interview.

Conclusion Viewed from the perspectives of principals themselves, different forms of accountability seem both multiple and inconsistent. It looks and feels differently depending on the context, national as well as local. It is obvious that managerial accountability of the Ofsted variety has a huge impact on the life of principals. At the same time, our interviews with the English principals revealed that most of them had managed to find a balance between external imposition and independence (Biott and Spindler, 2002). But although they appear to be on top of their job, interviews reveal the secret stories to a limited extent only. Principals from Norway and Denmark have so far had the ‘option’ of paying little attention to managerial accountability, and particularly the veteran principals seem to have a rather relaxed attitude. They do not run any risk by this approach. The Danish principals also try to convert the reality of the external control into a reality of internal professional support. To some degree the Danish and Norwegian principals struggle with the tensions between managerial demands from the outside and their own standards for acting as educational leaders. Relationships built on trust have been part of Scandinavian schools. The teacher unions have had a strong position, and principals know from their own experience as teachers that it is wise to listen to the voice of the local unions at school. The newly appointed school principals, on the other hand, do not know

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anything else but a climate of accountability. Even in Norway, where managerial accountability has more a status of ‘anticipated future’,6 they seem to take it for granted, they welcome it, and relate it to being a professional. In Ireland business appears to ‘continue as usual’. The principals continue to focus on preserving good relations with colleagues internally and with the local inspector externally as their main strategy. But leadership as an occupation has become much more complex and uncertain than it used to be, and their power position is shifting and less certain. As Sugrue (2002) has indicated, the principals seem to act ‘on borrowed time’ when they choose to retreat into a ‘protective cocoon’. In a context of neo-liberalism this low-risk approach by principals may in the long run turn out to be a high-risk strategy. Comparing different stages of career, the veterans, in contrast to newly appointed heads, appear less influenced by the obligations of administrative work. It looks like their basic beliefs drive their actions despite the turmoil generated by a plethora of policy mandates and changing contexts. This seems to be the case across all four countries, but particularly in Norway, Denmark and Ireland. It is as if they want to retain the kind of psychological rewards they have got as teachers. It could be framed as ‘keep in touch with the kids’. The mid-career and early career principals, on the other hand, tell stories about establishing professional accountability. Some are also welcoming managerial accountability, but they too want to retain the kind of psychological rewards they have got as teachers. This is consistent with the literature on teacher efficacy, and also other studies on headship (Hayes, 1996; Revell, 1996). What emerges from this analysis is a more complex understanding of how policy and school contexts interact with the individual lay theories of principals and the histories of schooling in different jurisdictions that create various kinds of trade-off that, depending on career stage, are more likely to be conformist and accommodating for the neophyte principals and transformed by experienced and veteran hands into something more consistent with their long-established commitments. Perhaps, therefore, it is not by accident that succession (and continuity) in principalship has recently emerged as a growing concern. One particular aspect of this issue is the growing trend towards early retirement by principals and deputies as a means of maintaining continuity and congruence with commitments. When this occurs systems tend to lurch towards the latest policy trend, as evidenced by newly appointed principals, when transformation of tradition and cultures of schooling, as well as individual identity, is an ongoing project, always work in progress, and not merely the implementation of the latest policy accessory. Evidence presented here points towards the need for some degree of continuity as well as healthy tension rather than outright conflict between the emotional investment of leaders and the professional identities they construct from the cosmic soup in which they rise to the top.

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Notes 1 For methodological considerations, see Chapter 1. 2 Connelly and Clandinin distinguish between sacred, cover and secret stories. For the purpose of this analysis only the distinction between cover and secret stories is used. In a similar way Sinclair (1995) distinguishes between a structural and a personal discourse. 3 The Norwegian government elected in 2001 introduced a new programme for the development of national tests in Norwegian, Maths and English, and began its implementation in August 2003. In addition they are working on establishing a web portal for the publication of all marks from individual schools. 4 The municipalities have the responsibility for the running of the primary and lower-secondary schools according to central laws and regulations. 5 Except for the newly appointed principals, this is the case for all Norwegian principals participating in the study. 6 ‘The anticipated future’ became a reality for schools in 2003.

References Beatty, B. (2001) The Emotional Aspects of Teachers’ Encounters with Administrators, paper presented at a symposium at the annual conference on the American Educational Research Association, Seattle, WA, 10–14 April. Biott, C. (2001) Analysis of the third interviews with English headteachers using dimensions, a paper presented at a workshop in Copenhagen, 23–24 February. Biott, C. and Spindler, J. (2002) A Life History of a Veteran Primary School Principal: embedded engagement and strategic accountability through changing times, paper presented at a symposium of the 15th International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement, ICSEI, Copenhagen, 3–7 January. Blackmore, J. (1999) Troubling Women: feminism, leadership and educational change, Philadelphia: Open University Press. Blackmore, J. (2002) Troubling Women: the upsides and downsides of leadership and the new managerialism, in C. Reynolds Women and School Leadership, Albany: State University of New York Press. Brunner, C. (2000) Principles of Power: women superintendents and the riddle of the heart, Albany: State University of New York Press. Clark, C. (1995) Thoughtful Teaching, London: Cassell. Connelly, F. M. and Clandinin, D. J. (1999) Shaping a Professional Identity: stories of educational practice, London: Teachers’ College Press. Eisenhart, M. (2000) Boundaries and Selves in the Making of ‘Science’, Research in Science Education, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 43–55. Fineman, S. (ed.) (1993) Emotion in Organizations, London: Sage. Hargreaves, A. (1994) Changing Teachers, Changing Times: teachers’ work and culture in the post-modern age, London: Cassell. Hargreaves, A. (2002a) Teaching in a Box: emotional geographies of teaching, in C. Sugrue, and C. Day (eds) Developing Teachers and Teaching Practice: international research perspectives, London: RoutledgeFalmer, pp. 3–26. Hargreaves, A. (2002b) Teaching and Betrayal, Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, Vol. 8, No. 374, pp. 393–408.

104 Jorunn Møller Hayes, D. (1996) Aspiration, Perspiration and Reputation: idealism and selfpreservation in small primary school headship, Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 379–390. Hochschild, A. R. (1983) The Managed Heart: commercialization of human feeling, Berkeley: University of California Press. Jeffrey, B. and Woods, P. (1996) Feeling Deprofessionalised: the social construction of emotions during an OFSTED inspection, Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 325–344. Karlsen, G. E. (2002) Utdanning, styring og marked. Norsk utdanningspolitikk i et internasjonalt perspektiv, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Kelchtermans, G. (1996) Teacher Vulnerability: understanding its moral and political roots, Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 307–324. Møller, J. (2002) Constructing Professional Identities as Norwegian School Principals, paper presented at a symposium of the 15th International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement, ICSEI, Copenhagen, 3–7 January. Møller, J. and Spindler, J. (2002) Language Games Played in the Processes of CoConstruction, Change. Transformations in Education, a Journal of Theory, Research, Policy and Practice, Vol. 5, No. 2, November, pp. 70–91. Moos, L. (2002) Danish School Leaders Constructing and Co-constructing their Professional Identity: focusing on accountability, paper presented at a symposium of the 15th International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement, ICSEI, Copenhagen, 3–7 January. Nias, J. (1996) Thinking about Feeling: the emotions in teaching, Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 293–307. Putnam, L. L. and Mumby, D. K. (1993) Organizations, Emotion and the Myth of Rationality, in Stephen Fineman (ed.) (1993) Emotion in Organizations, London: Sage. Revell, R. (1996) Realities and Feelings in the Work of Primary Heads, Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 391–400. Reynolds, C. (2002) Women and School Leadership, Albany: State University of New York Press. Sinclair, A. (1995) The Chameleon of Accountability: forms and discourses, Accounting Organizations and Society, Vol. 20, No. 2/3, pp. 219–237. Smulyan, L. (2000) Balancing Acts: women principals at work, Albany: State University of New York Press. Sugrue, C. (2002) Accountability, Power and Authority as Shaping Influences on the Identities, Lives and Work of Irish Primary School Principals, paper presented at a symposium of the 15th International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement, ICSEI, Copenhagen, 3–7 January. Sugrue, C. and Furlong C. (2002) The Cosmologies of Irish Primary Principals’ Identities: between the modern and the post modern?, International Journal of Leadership in Education: theory and practice, Vol. 5, No. 3, July–September, pp. 189–210. Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wolcott, H. (1973) The Man in the Principal’s Office, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Chapter 7

Regulation and trust Negotiating relationship Lejf Moos

Introduction The interdependence, dynamics and tensions between regulation and trust in the internal relations of schools are the focus of discussion in this chapter. It explores the emotional effort (Hargreaves, 1998) of principals – the sources of engagement – as they struggle to find their way in decisions in the school while simultaneously cognizant of, if not compliant with, the purposes of schooling and external demands. All of the participating principals in this project find themselves in a relatively new cross-fire. On the one hand, they need to be increasingly accountable for outcomes – there are financial and administrative demands from the political, administrative and parental sectors. On the other hand, they are required to build communities of trust in human relations that are at the core of schools. However, the extent of this pressure differs from one system to another; while global forces are tending towards increasing intensification across national borders, local circumstance and traditions ensure that they play out differently in national contexts. The perspective in this chapter – principals’ internal relations in schools – is Danish or Danish–Norwegian. The purpose of the whole project was to investigate how principals construct and co-construct their professional identities, to identify influences from their past and present that seem to them to be important in this ongoing endeavour. To English principals important influential factors seem to be the relations to parents and the accountability towards secular authorities (Biott et al., 2001; Biott and Spindler, 2001a), whereas internal staff relations and increasing parental demands, as well as religious conformity, exercise influence in the Irish context (Sugrue, 2002; Sugrue and Furlong, 2002). In Denmark and Norway the more important relations are not with external authorities but with staff (i.e. teachers and other staff with educational and pedagogical tasks) (Møller, 2002; Moos, 2002b). Principals emphasised these influences when talking to us. It is possible,

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however, that, as researchers, we are embedded in the same kind of culture and discourses as the principals (Moos, 2002a; Moos and Møller, 2003) and thus give more credence to the same tendencies. This is one of the reasons why we named this project ‘constructing and co-constructing’ professional identities.

A new cross-fire for principals Societal and cultural conditions have changed profoundly over the last 20–30 years. One way of interpreting these trends is to name them as contingency and risk of the hyper-complex society (Giddens, 1991; Kirkeby, 1998; Thyssen, 2001). Another is to describe them as neo-liberal interpretations and development of public-management strategies. There is a general global shift towards decentralisation and New Public Management-like public governance that is increasingly being brought to bear on public institutions like schools (Peters et al., 2000). These conditions create new situations for principals. Central and even local regulations have been abolished when it comes to administrative and financial management of schools. Simultaneously, central and local governance has increased in relation to curriculum and evaluation. The collision of these conflicting trends leaves schools and principals with an unclear basis for their praxis and decision-making. The neo-liberal technologies of governance (Peters et al., 2000) rely heavily on the market as the basis for, and the logic of, public policy, and builds on devolving management from the state to local levels, to local institutions (in the case of education to self-managing schools), to classrooms (classroom-management techniques) and to the individual level (self-managing students). It is, as Foucault (1991) notes, governmentalisation in a neo-liberal way. Such governance presupposes agencies of management but it also requires, and seeks to co-opt, the agency of the subjects involved. That is the case in every modern society according to Foucault. What makes the difference is the logic or the rationale as they play out in different fields. New Public Management has become the phrase or concept frequently used to describe these tendencies within those neo-liberal strategies. Common characteristics on a large scale are the decentralisation of administration and finances, the privatisation of public affairs, the focus on principal–agent kinds of leadership and the very important stress on accountability and regulation. These trends result in a state of affairs where leaders of institutions like schools have to be very loyal to authorities in managing their institutions according to the frames and goals/regulations that those authorities prescribe (MacBeath et al., 1998; Peters et al., 2000; Klausen, 2001). This seems to be one aspect of the tension or dilemma: the demand for regulation from the top. The other is the

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demand for schools to build communities and trust. Important arguments for the incontrovertibility of the second aspect are provided below. The demand for building communities and trust are a prerequisite for education and everyday life in schools. The purpose of schools is not solely to facilitate and encourage students to acquire skills and knowledge; it is much broader and deeper. It is about giving students the opportunity to grow and develop into independent, responsible and autonomous adults and citizens of their societies. Societies in our part of the world are envisaged as democratic communities with opportunities and responsibilities for their members. Schools must prepare students for that situation and they must, therefore, build on a democratic and enlightenment foundation (Moos, 2003). On a broader scale, one can find many sociological and structurational analyses of the living conditions in contemporary societies and cultures (Giddens, 1991; Kirkeby, 1998) indicating that a basic condition of our lives is the hyper complexity of societies (Thyssen, 2001) with the attendant risks (Beck, 1986) and contingency-experiences that follow (Starratt, 2001). The personal effect is that individuals can’t find their identity in the great stories, in tradition. There is no objective world to be experienced. We construct the meaning of the world that we experience through the language in which we recognise it. One effect of contingency seems to be that loyalty to the workplace is not at all an automatic starting position for schools; building and deepening it is a leadership duty and mission. Kirkeby (2001) argues that in order to have employees behave loyally to his/her workplace, leaders should make an effort to transform the organisation into a community. A prerequisite for that transformation is trust. There are various forms of trust as well as conditions that form foundations for trust that have been expressed by principals in the project. Another dimension of the need for building trust in organisations is described by Thyssen (2001), who suggests that total managerial control over staff and events is not possible in a hyper-complex society and that the social costs of such control would be far too great. The hyper-complex society and its systems and institutions are today basically marked by the notion of development. Innovation points to the future and not to the past or present. A management strategy therefore cannot be based on regulations that look to the past. Rather, such managerial strategies are based on visions and values that create imagined futures, thus leaving significant room for interpretation to the agents. This tendency is particularly visible in humanities and social relations. It is not possible to plan in any detail because the agents engage with such prescriptions out of their experiences, expectations, values and beliefs. As agents they can act autonomously. The societal contingency is being doubled in social relations because one has to relate to both the complexity of the system and to the possibilities for action and discretion that individuals bring to these situations. This

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tension represents itself in the everyday lives of principals as a number of dilemmas or paradoxes.

Confidence and trust In the interviews principals talked about different kinds of trust. Warren’s (1999) distinction between confidence and trust is a valuable vehicle for extending this discussion. Warren discriminates between two forms of trust. The first is particular trust – confidence that emerges in face-to-face situations between people who share interests or depend on the same things or are bound by culture. Confidence builds on affective sources. The second form is generalised trust that is developed when a society depersonalises functions. Trust, therefore, is built on cognitive sources. An example would be trust in abstract systems (Giddens, 1991). One can distinguish between confidence that is based on past experience, and trust that is not based on experiences but on the belief that the other person is not going to let you down. One Danish principal talked about the feeling of being loved at the beginning of her leadership career. As an inexperienced leader she wanted to be loved. Becoming more experienced, she replaced that expectation or hope with the need for being respected. In the beginning of her leadership career she said about her relations to teachers: You can’t be loved by everybody, but it’s possible to be respected for being a trustworthy person. In the beginning I said that without really understanding what it means because deep down you want to be loved by everybody. Only after 5–6 years you realise that you mean being respected. I feel an inward peace. I’m not so much observant on how they react to me. (experienced, female, Danish principal) When she was a newly appointed principal she based her expectations of relations with teachers on affective sources – friendship or even love – but as she grew more experienced, she found out that this wasn’t a solid foundation for these relations. She had to distance herself from them in order to be able to manage the emotional labour involved and to establish and maintain ‘professional’ relations. Other principals point to them being trusted as persons, like the following Danish principal: I think teachers find me tough but they have confidence in me nevertheless. I’m under the impression that they don’t agree with me always and they know that I don’t always agree with them but that doesn’t prevent us from collaborating. They trust that what I do, is done in order to help them. (recently appointed, female, Danish principal)

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Trust is built on having confidence in the expertise of the principal: we know him/her usually does things right. Building and sustaining this kind of confidence is often a costly effort that frequently requires significant amounts of emotional labour and is often spoken of in describing relations to staff that are collegial. The Irish principal quoted in the next extract found it hard to take up her post, and had to risk displaying her vulnerability as part of establishing a new basis of trust in her relations with colleagues. She says: What I found when I went into the first staff meeting was just freaky. I just went in and said, ‘Look I am terrified and bear with me.’ I think it was the human side. Everyone I believe related to that and therefore came up afterwards to tell me that it was fine. I got a lot of affirmation from the staff. I would then say to them, look if I am going wrong, come in and tell me. I don’t look at myself being up there. I look at myself as being the spokesperson or the co-ordinator in the place. (recently appointed female, Irish Principal) In her self-image she is a collegial kind of principal, working in the midst of colleagues and therefore almost on the same level. She is collegial, but she knows and the staff know that she is special so she has to put a lot of emotional effort into keeping this balance and live with the tension, made more complex by being appointed principal where, until then, she was a staff member. Consequently, she struggles initially with wanting to belong while negotiating new relations of trust and a principal’s identity. According to Warren (1999, p. 330) confidence seems to be out of place in schools and in relations between principals and staff, because generalised trust is more characteristic of public organisations: ‘In democratic relations, trust ought to have cognitive origins because individuals ought to be able to asses their vulnerabilities as one dimension of self-government.’ The individual who trusts needs to be able to judge the interests of the trusted without losing the advantages of trust: ‘The benefits of cooperation, the possibilities for new kinds of collective action, the securities of reduced complexity for the individual, and the advantages of increased complexity for society as a whole’ (ibid., p. 331). However, institutions rely on trust and they can, in communication with their contexts, by negotiating with the individuals and by being transparent and legitimate in their decisions, strengthen and give support to the development of trust. One Danish principal expresses his conviction about the need for dialogue while recognising the tension this creates for him as principal whereby he is both regulated and expected to regulate: You need to be in a dialogue with your fellow human beings and talk openly to them so they will place trust in things you undertake. I’m

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known to be a bit tough whenever I want to. I don’t find it necessary to discuss matters that I know beforehand must be like this. I don’t spend much time on those things. (recently appointed, male, Danish) Another Danish principal talks about his belief that human communities are about people meeting under certain conditions: ‘School is people meeting each other. Whenever a meeting occurs there is a dialogue which is about respect and responsibility towards others and about democracy’ (recently appointed, male, Danish). In this short statement he doesn’t mention the tension between the dialogue and the regulation. A Danish principal talked about the relations to the ‘Educational Committee’ (the teachers’ forum with advisory power only). She had a conversation with a male colleague who talked about his relations with his staff: He says I would like to listen to your advice on this subject that I have put on the agenda. You are not to decide. I shall decide subsequently, but I would like to listen to your advice. When he finds he has heard enough, he cuts short the debate and continues on the agenda. I don’t like to run an Educational Council meeting in that fashion. Everybody knows that the Educational Council is only advisory but thirty-three teachers in a school have got a very, very great impact and that’s why I find they should have a say, as far as we can agree at all. (experienced, female, Danish principal) This female principal doesn’t want to manage in a top-down fashion even if the structures of school governance make it possible and even preferable. However, she knows that she can be forced into regulating the staff: ‘as far as we can agree at all’ she says, knowing that if they can’t agree someone must make the decisions and this someone is herself. However, consistent with Danish and Norwegian traditions, many Danish and Norwegian principals look at the relations based on communication and trust in the motives and actions of the other party as pivotal in leadership. A Danish principal put it this way: ‘We take a long time discussing things thoroughly. Deep down I think that’s what really interests me in leadership, the psychological parts of it; developing human beings and processes’ (established, male, Danish principal). However, New Public Management, devolved decision-making and accountability measures are altering the dynamics of dialogue and how trust is negotiated within these newly prescribed conditions. These conditions, too, re-shape the identities of principals and tend to create a hierarchy as well as alter power relations within school communities where previously the principal as ‘primus inter pares’ was part of tradition and culture as well as capturing and shaping significant dimensions of principals’ identities.

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Tensions: regulation and trust Principals are vested with formal powers that include a range of means of coercion/compulsion/force as well as rewards such as economic and structural sanctions. Those means can be used to regulate the relations between the agents (teachers and leaders) in the school looked at as a field of forces (Bourdieu, 1977, 1990). But other means are much more important in principalship. They can be called informal power, based on the legitimacy of the leader. Leadership is a special relationship to other agents where all parties exercise power on the basis of the positions they occupy. The means by which agents position themselves are cultural and social capital, and these shape dispositions that are elements of the agents’ practice. The relations are determined by both structural power and by the meaning attributed to practice by the agents. The structures are open and hidden conditions that confront the agents when entering a field. These are financial, social and legal provisions, stipulations and regulations that are part of the dynamic within this field. The communal norm is consensus and universally approved within the group. This approval – the trust – is created on the basis of the cultural capital that all agents bring to the field and which they develop through relations in the field. There are rather clear distinctions between the ways in which Danish and Norwegian principals express their opinions and between the ways in which these are expressed by Irish and English principals. Therefore the analyses are split between these two groups. First, the Danish and Norwegian principals. A Danish principal talks about the balance between regulation and trust: I find there must be kind of control over things and as a leader you can’t base your leadership on trust. You have to have certain arrangements for control in a way. It is too simple saying that your leadership rests solely on trust. My leadership hasn’t been based on trust only. It has been based on control, as simple as that. I have told them: I supervise and control you. Teachers didn’t like listening to that. But I said: How else can I see to things? So you have to be accountable to me, you have to write to me or I have to come and look into things. I don’t like that because spying on teachers is not the way to do things, but you must account for the things you do and how you do them and whether it’s according to regulations. You have the freedom, the freedom of methods, you have the contact with parents but you are accountable to parents too. (experienced, male, Danish principal) Like other principals, he is struggling to find a balance between power and acceptance, between the use of coercive power and the effort to create consensus. The same principal continues:

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This is the role of the leader when thing come to it: to listen. If what teachers say isn’t good enough then you must come up with something yourself. That’s the problem I find being a leader, and you can’t make decisions when it’s in teaching matters unless it’s one hundred per cent necessary. In respect of teachers, you have to let them make the decisions. When you have listened to their analysis you can pose questions and have respect for the methods chosen by the teachers. The respect is based on the fact that it’s the teacher who collaborates with children, parents and colleagues and not me. (experienced, male, Danish principal) This principal is talking about a division of power fields: teachers are expected to manage in class and in relation to students, and the principal is supposed to manage the whole school and only interfere if he/she finds things are going wrong. This perspective seems consistent with the views expressed by Southworth (2003) that the principal’s influence is indirect only: I have been a teacher myself and know how things are and what they want. Teachers are very independent. They want to be on their own but you have to explain to them that they don’t need to abandon their autonomy. They have been given a professional autonomy with a number of demands from the outside and from above. That is the way we have to go. (recently appointed, male, Danish principal) There is a long tradition in Danish and Norwegian schools of leaders not interfering in teachers’ classroom activities. Individual teacher autonomy is part of the tradition in schools and related to the history of teaching. Therefore, principals chose to have trust in teachers’ work, thereby establishing acceptable and accepted zones of influence (Berg, 1996): In this place we believe that teachers know their business. Both principals and teachers believe that. We don’t follow hard on their heels. But there is a continuous dialogue between leaders and teachers where both parties are expected to argue their perspectives. It is important to me, that the parties trust one another. (established, male, Danish principal) Those established zones of control and influence are now challenged by more the recent demands of the so-called ‘Audit Society’ (GroundwaterSmith and Sachs, 2002) whereby national and regional authorities demand managerial accountability and parents question the autonomy of teachers in their classrooms. Consequently, the identity and influence of the prin-

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cipal is being reshaped by the external forces of self-managing school whereby a number of administrative and financial functions have been devolved to the school while simultaneously there are increasing demands for accountability to the national and local authorities and to the public. This new set of circumstances leaves principals with more formal power to regulate the work of teachers. A Danish principal expresses it in this way: Earlier on the leader was the ‘primus inter pares’. But the expectations towards leaders today, especially from society, is that you have to be a leader with a capital L. That’s why we have to let go the flat structure and the effort of making everybody equal, that teachers like. They say that we are all equals and we all do the same things. But being a leader you find yourself in situations where you have to tell people that what they are doing isn’t good enough. That is hard. That is how you were socialised as a teacher. (recently appointed principal, male, Danish principal) This way of looking at the problem is also discussed by Sørhaug (1996). Leadership is about developing and indicating a direction for the organization. It is about controlling the relationships between the inner and outer contexts and it is about creating trust through trustworthy use of power. For Sørhaug, the core concepts are power and trust, they both threaten and presuppose each other. Power without trust eats up its own basis and trust without power cannot survive as there is a tendency towards anarchy within groups in a particular field. Agents participating in a field have different interests and sometimes those are contrary to the communal norm so they are threatening the inner boundaries and they try to dissolve differences within the organisation for their own ends. Therefore, unequal distribution of power is a means of preventing anarchy. There is need for a leader who is endowed with appropriate means of power, and who is capable of restoring and maintaining trust through trustworthy exercise of power. One Danish principal says: It is helpful to take people by the scruff of their neck and make a contract. That is a sign of trust too. It’s a matter of honesty too. If you mistrust the other party you should disappear as quickly as possible. (veteran, male, Danish principal) A Norwegian principal agrees with him: You must give lots of positive feedback and at the same time challenge people. It is important to contribute to vigorous growth and the well being of your staff. You have to make sure that they continue to keep a positive self-identity. You have to give them support and

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challenges, and they need to know what I am requiring. This is what I think is important. I believe in giving people increased responsibility. At the same time, I have learned the hard way, that all people are not like that. There are people who act irresponsibly; who are not willing to invest their energy in their job. Not many, but there are a few. In such situations I need to be more competent in confronting people, conducting those difficult conversations, and be more demanding. (female, Norwegian principal) This Norwegian principal talks about being the steward of the authorities and in charge of the purposes of education at school. At the same time she is aware that she must drive staff hard in order to comply with demands, and the social norms of the community. It involves emotional labour to handle the tensions she feels between the social norm of autonomy, in which she believes, and the regulation and control she acknowledges as necessary. A veteran Norwegian principal describes his efforts to enter into the epoch of New Public Management and regulation, but without apparent success: The teachers do not want any involvement from me. They want to decide what kind of teaching they shall practise. And this is something they signal as well. They might say, OK, you can mean what you say, but we will do it our way anyway. But then I tell them that we have a leader! Then they accept it. But if it influences their practice in the classroom, I doubt very much. (veteran, male, Norwegian principal) This veteran, who was socialised into teaching in the days when autonomy was the norm, appears to be going through a ritual performance of minimum compliance, while the principal quoted immediately above appears to have ‘bought into’ the new management requirements in a much more rigorous manner. In both Denmark and Norway, therefore, the systems are in transition where principals, depending on their career stage and the extent to which the new requirements conflict with their professional identities, are either hesitant about re-negotiating power relations with their teaching colleagues or are using the increased powers invested in them to extract more compliance. However, without frequent classroom observation, or external inspection, teachers’ praxis is more likely to be determined by the more traditional norms of teaching, thus preserving teacher autonomy where conformity with the rhetoric rather than the realities of compliance are honoured, indirect surveillance by parents notwithstanding. The dynamics in the English and Irish contexts are considerably different. The Irish and English principals provide different pictures of their prac-

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tice and their relations with teachers, and illuminate the dynamics of power relations further and their implications for trust and regulation. An English principal talks about the tension between monitoring and being supportive: It is rare for me to just go into a class and sit down for ten minutes to talk to children, just to talk to children. And I think that support that you could give before all these changes was of value to the teacher. That you were going in to classrooms not in a threatening, monitoring role, if that’s how it’s seen and I think some teachers see it like that, but in a supportive role. But also they knew you were there keeping an eye on them but not in quite the same way. So I think the fact that the contact with children, I feel that my role has changed from a principal or a headmaster, or whatever you want to say, to a manager. (veteran, male, English principal, in Spindler and Biott, 2002) There are a number of features regarding these comments that bear some contextualisation and interpretation. Prior to the 1988 Education Act that heralded centralised prescription of curricula, targets and testing, as well as ‘heavy’ inspection by Ofsted, this principal visited classrooms regularly, chatted with children and through relatively informal observations provided positive feedback to teachers (see Southworth, 1995). This behaviour was consistent with the traditional role of the ‘Head’, while lack of prescription and a tradition also of teacher autonomy that was systemically embedded in the system during the 1960s and 1970s ensured that it was positive and benign. However, his interpretation of more recent external mandates has been to become managerial and to focus more on accountability, presumably to the detriment of his relationships with children, while creating more formal bureaucratic relations with teachers. This may also signal a career stage characterised by disengagement or disenchantment when passion is spent and the energy to re-engage in a more holistic way cannot be mustered. While this seems rather different to the transitional phase through which the Danish and Norweigan systems are current navigating, the following comments from a newly appointed principal in England paints a more complex picture of juggling with trust and regulation. He says: The steward role that I see, you are developing your staff, you’re caring, hopefully. Leading them in the way you want to go but also heavily influenced by innovation from outside. You do have a monitoring role but I don’t see my monitoring role as ‘big brother’. I see it very much as working with the teachers and developing them. My classroom observations are built on that principle. Making sure I make time to discuss with individual teachers what it is I’m looking at in

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their lesson but also to talk with them on how they are going to go forward, rather than saying this is absolute and this is what I want you to do. That’s not the way I see monitoring at all. Getting across that idea was quite a difficult thing with them. So that’s my idea of stewardship. (new, male, English principal, in Biott and Spindler, 2001b) While there is a rhetoric of care and collegiality, there is evidently also a degree of ‘heavy’ external pressure that translates into what he is ‘looking at’ in teachers’ lessons. In such circumstances, the principal internalises external requirements so that the process of monitoring may be little more than convincing teaching colleagues of the need to ‘get across’ and to internalise the requirements. It would be necessary to know more but what is abundantly clear is that when external prescriptions are legislated for, internal conversations around trust and accountability are heavily circumscribed and the power and control of the principal are increased. In the next extract, as the prospect of an Ofsted inspection looms large, the only response appears to be submissive compliance that also increases the power and control of the principal. This principal speaks of his relations with teachers in the following terms: When the Ofsted letter came we obviously had to step up a pace. That was when I took over the reins again and said: Right, we’ll do this, this, this and this. And they were very good. I mean, I didn‘t have any opposition at all. . . . there comes a time when you can’t just lead them. You have to drive the staff and that was what I ended up doing and they appreciated it. They knew what I was doing. They appreciated it. They are a super staff, they really are. (Spindler and Biott, 2002) While a lot of the New Public Management pressure on principals for exerting a more regulating leadership comes from the local authorities in Denmark and Norway, it emanates from the centre with the imprimatur of government in England, within a tradition of education also where the principal was vested with more authority. The DFEE/Ministry of Education issue strict regulations directly to schools where principals and teachers have to act as agents for the government: This Government would certainly appear to be funding schools better, but there is another aspect where they are treating schools as like little branch offices of the DFEE so that if we have a numeracy strategy everybody must do it, and your orders of the day will appear in the next mailing. So I think schools were never totally dependent on Local Authority, there is also always some degree of independence but it

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went too far the other way. I think you are now reaching a kind of situation where the balance is nearly right. (veteran, male, English principal, in Spindler and Biott, 2002) The import of these comments is that even branch offices require some autonomy, and striking a balance between trust and regulation is necessary unless principals are to be reduced to being ‘enforcers’ and teachers to being technicians where identities are fashioned entirely elsewhere, cloned for deployment anywhere anytime. In the Irish context, the dynamics of trust and regulation are rather different. The evaluation of principals’ and teachers’ work traditionally has been conducted by the primary inspectorate and they continue to have this function, including the probation of newly qualified teachers. Consequently, despite the fact that ministerial circulars indicate that principals have responsibility for the quality of teaching and learning in their schools, and this has recently been supported by legislation, principals prefer to see the evaluative role as one that resides with the inspector, and are reluctant to wear that mantle despite recent legislation (Education Act, 1998). There is ongoing dialogue between teachers’ unions and the Ministry of Education about whole-school evaluation and the roles of internal and external agents in this regard. However, rather like the Danish and Norweigan principals, there is both reluctance and resistance to inscribing accountability into principals’ identities (see Sugrue, 1999). Negotiating trust and power relations, therefore, resides very much within the dynamics of individual schools, and where there is little teacher or principal mobility, creating and maintaining good relations tends to be privileged over demands for accountability, while recognising also that the dynamics are increasingly unstable and more volatile. Nevertheless, the future is increasingly uncertain in this regard, and the words of this newly appointed principal finds immediate resonance with the views of many principals in the Irish context. He says: One thing that would make me afraid is the possibility of having to evaluate teachers. I think that’s a road I would hate to have to go down because after working with them for so many years and building up a trust with them I think the relationship would become a bit like the old inspector, you know, everytime you walk into the room you know they’d be clamouring to tidy up the table or whatever and especially since having worked with them they would know my weaknesses in a great many regards as well, including a cluttered table or whatever or a noisy classroom! You know, so that would be a big big worry and I would be afraid of anything that would come to upset that equilibrium, you know. (newly appointed male, Irish principal)

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Changing tradition is never easy, and established norms of practice have a habit of being reinvented. However, a recently revamped inspectorate with its own identity needs may well begin to insist that principals comply with legislation. In such circumstances, the struggles with maintaining trust in internal relations while conforming with external demands for accountability being wrestled with by Danish and Norweigan principals may also become more visible in the Irish setting with consequences for principals’ identities, their relations with teachers and the power they exercise within schools. Neo-liberal market forces are at work across national boundaries and are playing out in various ways as they are refracted within school communities. The evidence presented here reinforces the necessity to pay attention to context, culture and tradition while attempting to gain insight into the impact on principals’ identities and their leadership styles when buffeted by international social movements.

Conclusions One of the motivations for undertaking this project was to identity ways in which principals constructed their professional identities. Identity construction, according to Wenger (1998), involves a dual process – our investment in various forms of belonging and our ability to negotiate meanings that matter in different contexts. The production of identity, therefore, is partly identification (investing the self in relations) and partly negotiability (negotiating meaning). The focus here has been on how principals, in getting to be and remaining as members of different communities of practice, form their identities. The identities are shaped in those interplays, not as a passive formation, but as an active interaction between leader and community. In gaining insight into the process, it is necessary to pay attention to both aspects of the interplay and interaction between member/leader and community. Members are shaped by the interplay and the community is shaped by the same interaction. Looked at from the collective perspective, constructing identities also entails building communities. Sergiovanni (1994) identifies four different kinds of communities in schools: the classroom as democratic community, professional community, community of learners and community of leaders. The last type of community is based on this notion of shared leadership where ‘leadership as power over events and people is redefined to become leadership as power to accomplish shared goals’ (p. 170). This approach is consistent with the need to build communities and trust in schools because of the humanistic and educational purpose of schooling. While this tradition is deeply held in both Denmark and Norway, the evidence here indicates what happens when the ground rules shift and demand greater accountability – school communities become the ground on which power relations and identities

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of principals and teachers are renegotiated and trust and regulation are the rules by which the new game is played. Evidence from England suggests that when external forces become power coercive, negotiation of trust becomes much more difficult and there is a tendency for all concerned to capitulate to compliance and to put energies into that rather than resistance. The long-term consequences may be a shortage of teachers and principals, and there is evidence that this is already an unspecified, and one assumes undesirable, outcome. Looking at the stories that principals from four countries chose to tell us, and the histories we have constructed on that basis, through the lenses of regulations and trust in internal relations, a number of differences emerge. At this time of history there continues to be cultural and societal differences across the North Sea and the Irish Sea, between English and Irish educational culture and the educational cultures of Norway and Denmark, but with Ireland closer to the latter (though for different historical reasons) than the praxis of their nearest neighbours. These differences should be celebrated rather than decried, on the basis that there is no perfect system, while the unrelenting nature of global forces seem to suggest that there is increasing convergence with predictable alienation and disengagement as a consequence of imposed homogenisation. However, there was some evidence also that even in prescribed and controlled circumstances, principals (and teachers) are willing to invest considerable emotional effort to create trust as well as spaces for professional judgment and autonomy. There is growing acceptance internationally that one size fits all is doomed to dullness (Cuban, 2003) and that centralised prescription only gets you so far (Fullan, 2003). Thereafter, it is necessary to replace coercive prescriptions with professional breathing space. The analysis points to more hierarchy and state regulation in England while, at the moment, there is more collaboration, participation and trust in Denmark and Norway. This is most likely to be a consequense of New Public Management having been introduced ten to fifteen years earlier in England when compared with Denmark and Norway, with Ireland following a somewhat different trajectory. However, newly appointed Danish and Norweigan principals are more apt to applying a top-down managerial leadership style than their veteran colleagues, with Irish principals growing fearful of being called to account. The importance and need to build communities and trust within schools and with interested parties around them seems to be recognised equally in all cultures, but conditions for that quest are different. Neo-liberal, New Public Management regulation and low-trust management seem to constrain and, in certain circumstances, may even eliminate the possibility of building trust and community. One of the more obvious manifestations of the struggle created by these new requirements is in the investment of emotional labour by principals and teachers in maintaining trust while

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negotiating spaces for learning within school communities. Others, drained by the effort, or drained by a career that has increasingly demanded more energy and commitment, have given up the ghost, and become compliant or bureaucratic and perhaps silently subversive (Troman and Woods, 2001). The evidence here clearly points to the need for balance between these competing tendencies, while what is optimal is also culturally determined and rooted within school traditions which, in their turn, shape and circumscribe the identities and leadership styles of principals. Prolonging this tension between trust and control, and the power forces that accompany the various struggles that ensue, may have very serious longer-term consequences for the quality of teaching and learning, particularly if the aspiration for a liberal education/‘Bildung’ continues to be advocated (Moos, 2003).

References Beck, U. (1986) Risikogesellschaft, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Berg, G. (1996) Steering School Leadership and the Invisible Contract, in J. Kalous, and F. van Wieringen (eds) Improving Educational Management, Educational Policy and Administration Series: De Lier Akademisch Boeken Centrum, ABC. Biott, C and Spindler, J. (2001a) Towards a Contemporary History of School Leadership. Headteacher as witness: witting and unwitting testimony, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Seattle, 10–14 April. Biott, C. and Spindler, J. (2001b) Analysis of the Third Interviews with English Headteachers Using Dimensions, unpublished. Biott, C., Moos, L. and Møller, J. (2001) Studying School Leaders’ Lives, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 45, No. 4, December, pp. 395–410. Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1990) The Logic of Practice, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Cuban, L. (2003) Why Is It So Hard to Get GOOD Schools?, New York and London: Teachers’ College Press. Foucault, M. (1991) Power/Knowledge: selected interviews and other writings, New York: Pantheon. Fullan, M., (2003) The Moral Imperative of School Leadership, with a foreword by J. Goodlad, Toronto and Thousand Oaks: Ontario Principals’ Council and Corwin Press. Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-identity, Cambridge: Polity Press. Groundwater-Smith, J. and Sachs, J. (2002) The Activist Professional and the Reinstatement of Trust, Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 341–358. Hargreaves, A. (1998) The Emotional Politics of Teaching and Teacher Development: with implications for educational leadership, Leadership in Education, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 315–336.

Regulation and trust 121 Kirkeby, O. F. (1998) Ledelsesfilosofi: et radikalt normativt perspektiv [Leadership: a radical, normative perspective], Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur. Kirkeby, O. F. (2001) Ledelse og loyalitet [Leadership and Loyalty], Vera, No. 17, pp. 6–16. Klausen, K.K. (2001) Skulle det være noget særligt? [Is that supposed to be special?], Copenhagen: Børsen. MacBeath, J., Moos, L. and Riley, K. (1998) Time for a Change, in J. MacBeath (ed.) Effective School Leadership: responding to change, Chapman: London. Møller. J. (2002) Constructing Professional Identities as Norwegian School Principals, paper presented at a symposium of the 15th International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement, ICSEI, Copenhagen, 3–7 January. Moos, L. (2002a) Cultural Isomorphs in Theories and Practice of School Leadership, in K. Leithwood and P. Hallinger (eds) Second International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 359–427. Moos, L. (2002b) Danish School Leaders Constructing and Co-constructing their Professional Identity: focusing on accountability, paper for ICSEI Conference, Copenhagen, 3–7 January. Moos, L. (2003) Educational Leadership: leading for/as ‘Dannelse’?, in L. Moos (ed.) Educational Leadership, Copenhagen: Danish University of Education Press. Moos, L. and Møller, J. (2003) Schools and Leadership in Transition – the Case of Scandinavia. Cambridge Journal of Education (Forthcoming). Peters, M., Marshall, J. and Fitzsimons, P. (2000) Managerialism and Educational Policy in a Global Context: Foucault, neoliberalism, and the doctrine of selfmanagement, in N. C. Burbules and C. A. Torres (eds) Globalization and Education: critical perspectives, New York: Routledge, pp. 109–132. Sergiovanni, T. (1994) Building Communities in Schools, San Francisco: JosseyBass. Sørhaug, T. (1996) Om ledelse: magt og tillid i moderne organisering [On Leadership: power and trust in modern organisations], Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Southworth, G. (1995) Looking into Primary Headship, London: Falmer Press. Southworth, G. (2003) Learning-centred Leadership in Schools, in L. Moos (ed.) Educational Leadership, Copenhagen: Danish University of Education Press, pp. 33–52. Spindler, J. and Biott, C. (2002) Inter-Generational Learning in School Leadership: beyond a training paper, presented at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, April. Starratt, R. J. (2001) Democratic Leadership Theory in Late Modernity: an oxymoron or ironic possibility?, in International Journal of Leadership in Education, Vol. 4, No. 4, October–December, pp. 333–354. Sugrue, C. (1999) Primary Principals’ Perspectives on Whole-School Evaluation, Irish Journal of Education, pp. 189–210. Sugrue, C. (2002) Accountability, Power and Authority as Shaping Influences on the Identities, Lives and Work of Irish Primary School Principals, paper for ICSEI Conference, 3–6 January. Sugrue, C and Furlong, C. (2002) The Cosmologies of Irish Primary Principals’

122 Lejf Moos Identities: between the modern and the postmodern?, International Journal of Leadership in Education, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 189–210. Thyssen, O. (2001) Tillid [Trust], in A. Bordum and S. B. Wenneberg (eds) Det handler om tillid [It’s About Trust], Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur. Troman, G. and Woods, P. (2001) Primary Teachers’ Stress, London and New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Warren, M. E. (1999) Democratic Theory and Trust, in M. E. Warren (ed.) Democracy and Trust, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 8

Immediacy and Distance Inter-generational professional learning John Spindler and Colin Biott

Introduction This chapter draws on an analysis of the structure and form of school leaders’ life stories. The transcripts of the interviews revealed diversities in the form and structure of the stories, and, as Lieblich and Tuval-Mashiach Zilber (1998) have observed: in comparison with the quest for identity through contents of the life story, the structural aspects of a narrative are more attuned to deeper levels of personality, less easy to manipulate, and perhaps more revealing. (p. 168) It seemed important to discern the characteristic ‘signatures’ of school leaders, and to see what is unique about each case as well as to work towards a broader picture of contemporary school leadership. The concepts of ‘immediacy’ and ‘distance’ emerged as a useful way to compare stories. Some tellers were embedded in and central to their tales, but others used narrative devices to separate themselves from the stories they were telling. This comparison yielded insights into the identities of school leaders. It showed how identity has many layers, is fluid, unstable and influenced by context, and that interrelationships between narrative and identity are full of ambiguity, and not readily apparent in interview content. The analysis of form in the interviews highlights the emotions of the work. This is an important theme for a book on passionate principalship. Blackmore (1996), for example, has shown how women principals’ personal engagement in their work leads to a form of ‘emotional labour’. Passionate principals are likely to invest what Hargreaves (1998) has called ‘discretionary commitment’, which is a predominantly emotional phenomenon that means they are prepared to go beyond what is expected in the call of duty. For Hargreaves, this means, amongst other things, that

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supportive measures for school leaders need to attend to the contexts in which their emotional labour is performed, and that emotions should be lifted out of private knowledge, ‘so that they take pride of place in the public domain as being central to the outcomes of educational reform and to ways that it is, and should be, implemented’ (p. 333). In reaching towards these meanings embedded in form and structures we drew on Barthes’ (1993) interpretation of photographs. Barthes illustrates how a photograph may catch essence and meaning, but he also points to the contingent banality of many photographs that are numbingly familiar and inconsequential. This resonates with our experience of finding, often unexpectedly, parts of interviews which did lay bare meanings amongst parts that contained familiar rhetorics of school leadership. We also wanted to avoid being held back by our own limitations as interviewers, and to be open to possibilities of seeing details that could fill a whole picture with meaning. The first part of the chapter outlines what we mean by ‘immediacy’ and ‘distance’. The second part discusses school leaders’ learning in terms of how they negotiate their membership in communities of practice. Wenger (1998) has compared different kinds of learning trajectories associated with sustaining and developing professional identities, highlighting, for example, differences between ‘inbound’ and ‘insider’ trajectories. In the third section, we argue for a ‘learning perspective’, rather than a ‘training perspective’, because it links principals’ biographies, personal agency and local contexts with broader discourses and structures of school leadership. A ‘learning perspective’ focuses on the importance of day-to-day engagement in local communities and emphasises what is being learned from the challenges of the work itself. It contrasts with training that is based on generalised notions of ‘best practice’ that may not take into account lived experience in particular places.

Immediacy and distance: reflecting an emotional dimension of school leadership Immediacy and distance is related to notions of focus, time and form in the interviews. Focus refers to what the participants chose to talk about. Sometimes participants concentrated on events, issues or problems that were of immediate, practical concern. These included both professional issues and also personal matters, such as arrangements for childcare, which helped to shape their professional lives. Some principals distanced themselves from the narrative by emphasising broader issues and questions, providing accounts of the changing times through which they have lived. There were also differences in the periods of time that participants covered in the interviews. Sometimes ‘immediacy’ was evident in the way principals focused on the present, on the dilemmas and issues they were

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currently addressing, even if descriptions of past events were sometimes used to contextualise or illuminate current issues. At other times the stories were distanced in the way they described past events that were not explicitly connected to current concerns or, occasionally, offered images of how things might be in the future. The form of the narratives, the language and structures that were used, also conveyed immediacy and distance. Sometimes direct speech and the pace of the story kept the narrator ‘close’ to her/his narrative so that the story was unmistakably a story of ‘me’. At other times the narrative structure of the stories distanced the teller from the tale so that the stories were about ‘us’ and sometimes even about ‘them’. Focusing on ‘immediacy’ and ‘distance’ in the participants’ narratives has enabled us better to appreciate different ways in which school leaders are engaging with their work and it has illuminated ways in which professional identities are being constructed and sustained. There was a tendency for the veterans’ stories to be more distanced than those of their new colleagues, but we found that being a ‘passionate principal’ was not simply associated with immediacy. Passionate principalship was also represented in more distanced narratives. To illustrate this we have juxtaposed extracts from interviews with a new and a veteran school leader from England (see next page). Both of them referred to ‘fighting’ as a key part of their work. What is different is not relative degrees of passion but different forms of engagement. In this example the veteran locates his concerns within a national policy debate, whilst the new school leader focuses on specific matters related to her own school. There are some similarities between the narratives. Both are concerned with the present time, both use the first person and both use direct speech to recapture and communicate specific incidents. There are also, however, some distinctive features. Whilst the veteran adopts a measured tone the new school leader’s use of language conveys a sense of anger and frustration. Her use of repetition (e.g. ‘he was fighting in the yard, he was fighting . . .’), her use of metaphor (e.g. ‘he was just thrust upon us’, ‘most people were blasted’), together with the way sentences are sometimes run into each other (e.g. ‘He needed, on his statement, it’s a legally binding document, and I had to bring in support and I had nothing in my budget’), give pace and immediacy to the account which catches a sense of this school leader’s engagement with her work. In terms of focus the two extracts are quite different. The veteran’s comments centre on a debate about national policy and there is no explicit reference to his own school. Instead he talks about the policy being ‘the kiss of death in a school’ and describes his own experience of it by highlighting challenges it presented to principals in general. In contrast, the new school leader is focused on her own school. Although her description of the incident can be seen as a synecdoche, providing insight into wider underlying policy issues, the link was not made

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New School Leader

I’m seen as a bit of a loud mouth at the [Local Education] Authority. I would like to think I’m not a loud mouth just for opening my mouth and letting my tongue blow in the wind, but because I feel quite strongly about things and I’m quite happy to stand up and be counted. Trouble is when you stand up and be counted, you turn round and nobody’s beside you. So I think you learn that as well. I’ve also said publicly about performance-related pay for teachers. It’s the kiss of death in a school because it’s going to be so divisive, and I just don’t want anything to do with it and I’ve said – I know David Hart [The General Secretary of the National Association of Headteachers] quite well, I had discussions with him when we were in a bar one night and we were talking about what we should do – and I said, ‘You should tell head teachers to have nothing to do with it.’ He said, ‘We can’t do this, we can advise them.’ So I said, ‘Well you’ve got to say it in strong terms. Advise them that if they don’t have anything to do with it then you will support them.’ And of course I think there is an element there who think performancerelated pay may be useful but then they said, ‘Because as Heads we have it, so why shouldn’t the teachers have it?’ But we haven’t had it through choice; we’ve had it because it’s been imposed on us. And then the question is asked, ‘Well supposing the teachers say to you, “You know you are preventing us from having performance-related pay, you know it’s unfair?” ’ And I think you have to say, ‘Well our association’s telling us we’re going to have nothing to do with it.’ On the same score they would say to us, ‘Our unions are saying we can’t help dinners, or we can’t do this or we can’t do that.’

I fight with people, I fight, not my staff. I’m not happy when things are not going according to plan and it’s out of my control, people force things on us, I’m not happy with that. For instance, we had, the first December I was here, a letter arrived on my desk to say that there was a boy being excluded from another school and he would be admitted here on the Monday. This was on the Thursday and I rang and said, ‘Well should there not be some consultation?’ ‘Well, no because it’s the next school and you’ve got a place and you have to have him.’ ‘Well I would like some information first.’ ‘Well, look, just admit him and we’ll get the information to you.’ So we got this person in December. End of January they eventually came up with his statement,* which he’d had for quite some time. Didn’t tell us this was a statemented child and that he really should be in a behaviour unit for his aggression. And that impacted on us. He was fighting in the yard, he was fighting in the street, he was fighting on the bus. He had a fabulous classroom teacher but she had to be on his case every second. And I didn’t like that. I didn’t like the fact that there was no consultation at all, we had no background about this child. He was just thrust upon us. So I wasn’t happy about that and most people were blasted. Anybody that would listen to me when I rang them up: Ed Psyches, the person who had written the statement, the Deputy Director for Special Needs who had said that I needed to put in input for this child. He needed, on his statement, it’s a legally binding document, and I had to bring in support and I had nothing in my budget. And so I went to anybody who would listen and eventually we managed to get some support into school, because I said I wouldn’t keep him if they weren’t prepared to . . . I mean I hadn’t written the statement so why should I abide by it?

*An official statement that identifies a child’s special educational needs and identifies how those needs should be addressed.

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explicit and she concentrates solely on the specific event. Despite the immediacy and distance embedded in both stories, there is obvious passion also where the struggle with the issue touches and arouses strongly held beliefs and values that matter to the identities of both principals. It would be tempting to argue that the immediacy of the new school leader’s story provides a clearer picture of the way in which she engages passionately with her professional work and that the relatively distanced story of the veteran signifies detachment. The distance is in itself revealing. The inherent distance of the story itself conveys the meaning this school leader attaches to his work and communicates something about the way in which he is constructing his identity. Also tempting is the argument that the distance of the veteran’s story indicates lack of passion, but that would not be consistent with commitment and personal risk that is indicated by his claim, ‘I feel quite strongly about things and I’m quite happy to stand up and be counted.’ Elsewhere in his first interview this veteran talked, with more immediacy of form, about how he has needed to come to terms with educational change during his career, and in particular because of the radical changes introduced by the Conservative government in England from 1988: Well, I think I’ve come to terms with things [that] philosophically I don’t agree with, and perhaps I’ve been long [enough] in the job to not to let them bother [me]. So the things that I get satisfaction from are still seeing the children when I’m able, talking to the teachers when I’m able, taking the children away on visits. Twice a year I take them away for two weeks because that to me is therapy to take the children away. I think there’s more camaraderie amongst Heads than there used to be. It was always there but I think we now need to support each other, and I think that keeps you going, you know. I always like challenges so I mean there’s plenty challenges. I think I’m in a position now, we’ve got a document from the [government] and I feel strong enough to say, ‘Look stick that, if we want it we’ll come back to it. I’m not doing somebody else’s work.’ This perhaps, suggests, that by adopting a perspective that distances himself from the work he is able to sustain his identity and to ‘keep the narrative going’ (Giddens, 1991) in a way which provides some continuity with his past and confirms values and beliefs that are important to him.

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Learning trajectories of veteran and new principals Wenger has drawn attention to how learning transforms who we are and what we can do, it is an experience of identity. It is not just an accumulation of skills and information, but a process of becoming . . . . . . We accumulate skills and information, not in the abstract as ends in themselves, but in the service of an identity. It is in that formation of an identity that learning can become a source of meaningfulness and of personal and social energy. (1998, p. 215) The idea of connecting learning and identity has helped us to understand the ways in which school leaders constructed their stories and to appreciate how immediacy and distance within the narratives reflect different meanings of work. For Wenger, identities are constructed within ‘communities of practice’, which provide a locus for the negotiation of meaning and create possibilities for transformation and learning. In this sense, communities of practice are not stable; their structures are both resilient and perturbable, they must be constantly reinvented and both newcomers and old hands continue to negotiate their identities within them. The principals who took part in our project were developing their understandings of their work through their interactions with other school leaders, the teaching staff within their own schools, the local community and the local education authority. The stories of individuals also revealed ways in which other communities, particular to themselves, such as sports clubs or churches, provided resources they drew upon in professional arenas. Negotiating an identity often proved to be challenging for new school leaders and required them to address tensions arising from their new status and from competing expectations. One new principal in England, for example, found that being promoted in her own school created particular difficulties: I would say, and while I was Deputy Head here, perhaps I felt that it might be quite smooth running to take over as Head but it really hasn’t been, that the boat has been quite firmly rocked and as a result of that I have lost one member of staff to long-term sickness and I have upset one or two others. Not intentionally I don’t think, because I’ve been quite insistent about the things that I wanted and about the way that I wanted the school to move on. I think perhaps they felt that because they knew me that things wouldn’t change, and I think it’s

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been quite a shock to see that in some way they have quite clearly changed and there has been a greater demand, shall we say, on team work and a greater demand on things that we were talking about before about the paperwork and the drawing together, the pulling together of things. She also talked about how competing demands were making it difficult for her to construct a clear and coherent identity as a school leader: I feel that one of the hardest things, one of the hardest things that I find of the job is that so many people make demands on you and it’s, you’re expected to sort of jump from one mode to another one quite quickly but still retain what you had going sort of five minutes ago to go back to, so that you’re almost stepping in and out of lots of different characters, right. So I feel that that’s a sort of bitty nature of the job. At the same time it’s also I feel bitty because of the circumstances that I’m in at the moment, in that I’m trying to do the role of Head and I’m also trying to do a class teacher job as well which is making it very difficult and somewhere at the back of my mind I’m thinking well I would like this situation to be resolved and then I could get on and do the job that I want to do. Contact with other school leaders has helped her to understand the job better and to feel more in control: I mean, the head teachers’ meeting, the meetings that you have to go to, to make sure that you’re up on all you know, what the government are imposing and the LEA wants you to do, I’m kind of at the moment because I’m a new Head, I’m frightened to miss them in case I miss something. I feel as though I’m just in that, I’m still naive and still need to go because something’s come into school and quite honestly I don’t understand them. I mean really some of them are gobbledy gook because the way that they’re written it’s all, you know, technical language for one thing and technical language for the building stuff and sometimes I think, well I think I know what that means but I’ll go and have a listen and see what everybody else says and then I might know or I might think, oh well yeah that might be right, that was what I thought it was anyway. This new school leader is trying to understand symbols, tools, concepts and procedures at the same time as she is trying to locate herself and to negotiate an identity that will allow her to do the job as she wants to do it. Learning, in this context, is both about coming to understand the ways that school leaders do things and discovering a way of being a member in the

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community of practice that is consistent with her values and beliefs. Wenger suggests that newcomers may have an ‘inbound trajectory’: Newcomers are joining the community with the prospect of becoming full participants in its practice. Their identities are invested in their future participation, even though their present participation may be peripheral. (Wenger, 1998, p. 154) Wenger also refers to ‘outbound’ trajectories where the emphasis is on learning to participate in a way that enables what comes next. Although some of the veterans who participated in our project told us that retirement was getting close, their stories seemed mainly to reflect an ‘insider’ rather than an ‘outbound’ trajectory. Insiders have long-standing membership and they have seen many changes come and go. As Wenger says, however: The formation of an identity does not end with full membership. The evolution of practice continues – new events, new demands, new inventions and new generations all create occasions for renegotiating one’s identity. (Ibid.) The stories of veteran school leaders reflect this continuing need to renegotiate identities. They approach new national policies from an established position within the community of practice, on an insider’s learning trajectory. Chapter 2, for example, is about how one veteran school leader from England mediated national policies, reflecting interplay between his enduring core values and strategic attention to accountability. The examples discussed here also illustrate that, regardless of time in post, maintaining passionate commitment while reconstructing identity is a continuous struggle, at times more intense than others depending on the gradient of one’s learning trajectory, frequently shaped by externally imposed conditions.

Towards inter-generational learning This section of the chapter links our discussion of professional learning with notions of immediacy and distance, and it highlights implications for supporting school leaders’ professional learning and development. New principals need, but have little, time to adjust to their role and the responsibilities it carries. As we have seen above, even for those who were promoted within their own schools, relationships with other teachers were being renegotiated, and this was not always easy. For example, the stories

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relate how they developed new kinds of relationships with parents, the local community and LEA officers. Some new responsibilities also demand new knowledge such as how to manage budgets and buildings. Newcomers are often weighed down by a plethora of forms to complete and procedures to follow. At one level these are mere technicalities, but the interplay between obligations, duties and personal values shapes participation and affects how learning and identity are negotiated. Furthermore, schooling in all of the countries involved in this project, and in most countries in the developed world, has been subject to significant and rapid change in national policy. This means that new school leaders have had a lot to do, in a short time, within unstable contexts. The immediacy of new school leaders’ stories reflects their inbound trajectories. They convey the uncertainty and instability inherent in their hurry to negotiate professional identities and to learn to be school leaders at a time when their existing membership in other communities of practice are being destabilised. Their learning (the negotiation of meaning and identity) engages the intellect but it is mainly a matter of feelings. This is not just about managing stress, although new school leaders’ stories do indicate that the pressures upon them are considerable. Their learning both draws upon and transforms the strong feelings school leaders have about things such as children, learning, educational standards and community. The immediacy of their stories captures the emotional dimension of their learning. Veteran principals are in a different position. Firmly embedded in communities of practice, it is easier for them, than for newcomers, to locate themselves in its history and to feel confident about how to relate with others. One English veteran, for example, explained how the position he had negotiated over many years within both his school and its local community provided him with options that would not be available to a new school leader. A child had been given a ‘ridiculous mohican hair-cut’ by his father: So I rang him [the father] up and got him in and said, ‘Look, take that boy home and shave . . . cut the rest of this off, shave his head so he gets one of those hair cuts you know some of them have.’ And he did, brought him back within half an hour. Now that is a solution to a problem which really there should have been all sorts of meetings with God knows who – but my prime objective was to cut out the humiliation this little boy was having to go through, through this fool of a man. Now when various people found out, some of them were quite terrified of what could have happened. Now I knew he wouldn’t, the father. I knew he would do it if I ordered him to. Now in one sense you can’t order anybody to do anything but I see no harm in bluff if it is for a good end. Now I don’t think somebody who had been a head

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for a year would have done that. They would have probably called the social services in . . . . . . but that is something that only somebody that had been around a bit would do. I knew the family, I knew the bloke. A veteran, then, is likely to have a wide repertoire upon which to draw. This provides a range of options and the confidence to prioritise and create space, so that particular incidents and challenges are set within broader frameworks. The sense of distance we found in the life stories of veterans seems to capture the more measured and confident qualities of ‘insider’ trajectories. This does not mean, however, that their professional identities were static. ‘Distance’ in their stories captures the veterans’ sense of the changing history of their community of practice. Stories such as this may sometimes be construed as illustrative of less passionate commitment, of passion dimmed or spent. However, it was this veteran’s commitment to care in the first instance that drove him to aleviate this pupil’s humiliation. It was his accumulated ‘capital’ as principal, rooted in school and community that enabled him to ‘reach’ for a particular course of action that derived from his accumulated capital. This extensive repertoire tends to ‘mask’ the underlying passion and commitment that may be more immediately apparent when commitment rather than capital is the primary route to resolution of dilemmas. But there is evidence also that commitment and capital are overlaid also on a more elaborate plane of continuity and change so that learning and identity are multi-layered realities. The data show that the veterans had lived through a time during which the job has changed significantly. One experienced school leader communicated changing times in how she talked about her predecessor: I mean there were traditions here that I mean were embedded in stone, and there was practice going on that I knew that wasn’t right, that I knew I would have to do something about but following on from Ronald I didn’t know that the people would see that whatever I did was the right thing to do or the right way to go. Because people thought, people thought Ronald was like a god, you know, and he could do no wrong. Well, of course, we both know subsequently that he was wonderful and in certain aspects you know I couldn’t begin to follow him but there were other aspects of what was going on that I knew things needed to be done . . . . . . I think because certain members of staff realised that Ronald’s days had gone, that things were different now. The pressures were different, the accountability is different and Ronald was of his day. And was, of his day, fabulous but they’d gone. And they [the teaching staff] realised, the ones that have the nous, realised that they had to move

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on. And I mean that’s not . . . I mean any head coming in would see that it had to go on, that this accountability side of it, that . . . I don’t think . . . Ronald was only accountable to Ronald, you know, and he did it very well. He did it beautifully, you know, but that day had gone. As we have shown, in Part II of the book, some school leaders have learned to mediate change and sustain professional identities that are congruent with their values, but it is something that they have had to work at. The veterans felt no less passionately than new school leaders about how the job should be done. The distance in their stories, far from suggesting an absence of an emotional dimension to their learning, gives insights into their feelings about the changes they have experienced through their careers. Sometimes distance seems to separate the teller from the pain of the story they are telling and it communicates a sense of deep regret. It also shows the veterans’ need to feel in control in challenging circumstances. At other times distance in the stories conveys a determination to make a difference through a measured response, founded on years of experience. The veterans, then, are also continuing to learn to be school leaders and it is no less demanding for them than for their new colleagues. Their stories convey confidence rooted in experience but, ironically, they also highlight vulnerability in times of rapid and far-reaching change.

Conclusions The importance many governments have attached to school leadership as a way of improving schools and raising standards has led to an emphasis on training for principals. The prevailing ‘training perspective’ views professional learning in terms of instruction and activities designed to develop specified competencies or standards. In England, for example, national standards ‘define expertise in headship and are designed to serve as the basis for planning the professional development of both aspiring and serving headteachers’ (NCSL, 2002). These standards provide the basis for programmes, such as the National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH), that are designed to assess trainees against required standards. This approach assumes there is an uncontested ‘best practice’ in school leadership. It gives insufficient emphasis to learning that is embedded in the day-to-day engagement of school leaders with their work, and fails to recognise that professional learning is inevitably entwined with professional identity. We are not arguing against opportunities for school leaders to participate in formal training activities. Indeed, some of the veterans said that more training would have been helpful when they started out.

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Training is likely to have positive outcomes where it is seen as only a small part of a broader framework of support that takes into account the different perspectives of school leaders at different career stages. Reformers must acknowledge that it is the resilience and emotional engagement of principals and teachers rather than training programmes, which helps them to go beyond the call of duty when they are being subjected to relentless imposed change and to the ratcheting-up of targets. Instead of emphasising accountability measures and common sets of technical competences for all principals, the focus should be on how to engender and support inter-generational learning in local districts. New principals have to learn to do the job in a hurry, with performance measures breathing down their necks, and veterans are trying to maintain enthusiasm over the long haul. This means that old hands are no less needy than new principals. Opportunities for inter-generational learning would allow veterans to connect with the concerns of new principals, not in order to tell them how to do things, but to help to bring perspective to current issues. Inter-generational learning would involve interplay of ‘immediacy’ and ‘distance’. It would embrace emotional dimensions of starting out and keeping going in demanding circumstances. It would make connections also between repertoires of accumulated capital as part of the reservoir from which all principals could derive sustenance in the struggle to sustain passionate commitments and professional identities for as well as in changing times.

References Barthes, R. (1993) Camera Lucida, Reading: Vintage. Blackmore, J. (1996) Doing Emotional Labour in the Education Market Place: stories from the field of women in management, Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 337–349. Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity, Cambridge: Polity Press. Hargreaves, A. (1998) The Emotional Politics of Teaching and Teacher Development: with implications for educational leadership, International Journal of Leadership in Education, Vo1. 1, No. 4, pp. 315–336. Lieblich, A. and Tuval-Mashiach Zilber, T. (1998) Narrative Research: reading analysis and interpretation, Thousand Oaks: Sage. NCSL (2002) National Standards for Headteachers, http://www.ncsl.org.uk/ Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: learning, meaning and identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 9

Being principal Leadership inside out Ciaran Sugrue

Introduction Within the Anglo-American axis of domination in the research literature on leadership, research tends to be undertaken in large urban centres in large schools where career advancement and mobility are the norm; where large research grants fan the flames of reform efforts for new insights into leading change that policy-makers frequently transform into generic policy prescriptions. These conditions give rise to particular career trajectories for principals where ‘moving on’, advancing to the top of the leadership chain, in many respects becomes it own reward, the measure of ‘success’ rather than sustained stewardship or more deeply embedded reforms that actually transform school communities whereby capacity for learning and building development incrementally in a sustained and sustaining manner is the legacy rather than personal advancement. In such circumstances, continuity of career trajectory, of the individual, tends to be privileged over more collective learning. Consequently, new ideas, the ‘latest thinking’, tends to be superficially adopted by individuals for whom such embodiment becomes a badge of advancement, an important identifier as forward looking, dynamic, reform oriented. In such circumstances, it is school leaders who become ‘superficially adorned’ (Bryk et al., 1999) with the ‘decorations’ of reform initiatives by speaking the ‘rhetoric of reform’, while these efforts ‘wither on the vine’ and seldom bear fruit due to their ‘shallow roots’ (Cuban, 2003; Hargreaves et al., 2003). When this occurs, these are the school leaders most likely to seek early retirement, or the calmer waters of an administrative position where the uncertainty of daily life in schools is distanced in favour of policy formulation and bureaucratic accountability. There is increasing evidence that succession and continuity are becoming more problematic in such systems, with less individuals from ‘the ranks’ prepared to risk the exposure inherent in positions of high visibility, to make the ‘leap of faith’ necessary to take on the high-wire act of leading a school community in a climate of high-stakes accountability, where frequently also the ‘rewards’

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are regarded as inadequate given the high-risk nature of the role (Hargreaves et al., 2003). However, in smaller systems, such as the majority of those represented in this study, lack of mobility may also stifle reform and privilege continuity if not stasis at the expense of more dynamic interventions. At least, in such circumstances, there is a greater tendency towards caution, a more careful weighing of options where maintaining the delicate and fragile ecology of the multiple and complex set of relationships that characterise school communities is frequently to the fore in such calculations. An important consideration in such circumstances is the calculation of which ‘decorations’ to choose, to determine from the increasing plethora of initiatives those that have greatest possibility of taking root, of being successfully grafted to existing routines. But this too may be characterised as ‘tinkering’ (Tyack and Cuban, 1995) more than ‘transformation’ of the kind frequently advocated by researchers as being essential (Leithwood et al., 1999). It may also be the case, depending on circumstance and the career stage of the incumbent principal, that the dead hand of tradition and routine come to dominate to the point where ‘cruising’ or ‘automatic pilot’ are apt descriptive terms (Stoll and Fink, 1996). In more turbulent, insecure and restless times, cultivating a context in which reforms are likely to take hold requires careful and thoughtful orchestration of work and life, and the room for manoeuvre at the disposal of the principal is shaped significantly by the policy context as well as the particulars of local circumstance. It is necessary for school leaders in particular to have a ‘nose’ for the general climate as well as an intimate knowledge of the ‘personality of change’ (Goodson, 2003, pp. 69–75). Goodson argues vehemently that it ‘is irrefutable that there has been little work on the personality of change’, on the impact of change on the lives and work of teachers in general. This is also the case regarding principals. He says: ‘in very few instances have school reforms or change theories been promulgated which place personal development and change as central “building blocks” in the process’ (ibid.). Rather, he suggests that ‘the “personality of change” has been seen as the “stumbling block” of real reform, rather than as a crucial “building block’’ ’ (ibid.). For this reason, it is appropriate and timely to look at leadership from an insider perspective, and to indicate the personalities of change and how these are shaped by biography and local contexts, thus providing insight into the nature of leadership and how newly appointed and incumbent leaders might be prepared more adequately for such complex and uncertain roles, as well as indicating more permanent and changing aspects of their respective leadership styles, whether new, experienced or veteran. A life-history approach has potential to illuminate how principals’ identities and leadership capacity are re-constructed over time. In Denmark, Norway and Ireland, it continues to be possible to be pro-

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moted to the position of principal without any additional qualifications beyond those necessary for entry to the teaching profession, while in each jurisdiction various initiatives have been taken since the commencement of this study, to provide training and support for newly appointed and established principals. However, as Hargreaves and his colleagues (2003, p. 40) point out, there is considerable risk with such initiatives that ‘standardized leadership templates of managerial monotony’ are imposed on all role incumbents regardless of issues about succession and sustainability at the level of the school. Succession in the Irish context is even more serendipitous than the other jurisdictions as there are no district or regional educational structures. Consequently, succession is a matter for the individual school, and compared with their colleagues in the other countries in the study, Irish principals are much less likely to have served as a deputy principal (see Appendices 1–4). The vast majority of principals, therefore, move directly from the classroom to the principal’s office.

Constructing life histories: some theoretical considerations Previous studies have endeavoured to describe the life-cycle of school principals by identifying various career stages in the lives of leaders. One such study conducted in England identified four stages (Day and Bakioglu, 1996), while an international comparative study involving Scotland, Denmark and England (Reeves et al., 1998) elaborated an eight-stage career pattern. These are summarised below: Table 9.1 Leadership – career stages Day and Bakioglu, 1996

Reeves et al., 1998

1 2 3 4

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Initiation Development Autonomy/Maintenance Disenchantment

Pre-entry Entry (0–6 months) Digging the foundations (first year) Taking action (first two years) Getting above the floor level (first three years) The crunch (up to five years) Reaching the summit (up to 10 years) Time for change (beyond the first five years)

In the more recent study, the time periods for each ‘stage’ deliberately overlap to indicate that the process of learning leadership is more messy and dynamic than abstracted frameworks typically indicate. Wenger’s articulation of the notion of ‘trajectories’ is helpful in seeking to capture this dynamic, while the very notion of trajectory, he argues, indicates that our ‘identities incorporate the past and the future in the very process of

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negotiating the present’ (1998, p. 155). He also argues that a trajectory does not ‘imply a fixed course or a fixed destination’ (p. 154) so that its very open-endedness leaves room for agency. For this reason also he distinguishes between training and education, a distinction that is particularly pertinent to the present discussion. He says: Education in its deepest sense and at whatever age it takes place, concerns the opening of identities – exploring new ways of being that lie beyond our current state. Whereas training aims to create an inbound trajectory targeted at competence in a specific practice, education must strive to open new dimensions for the negotiation of the self. (p. 263) Various trajectories can be identified that hinder or help in this ongoing project of negotiated identity. These are summarised in the following table: Table 9.2 Learning trajectories: learning to construct identity Peripheral

Inbound

Insider

Boundary

Outbound

How an individual is positioned, peripherally or centrally within a (school) community has implications for identity construction

A new member of a community struggles to become a ‘full’ member of that community

When insider status has been achieved, the process of negotiated identity continues – it is ongoing

Multiplemembership of communities challenges individual capacity to sustain an identity across boundaries

Looking beyond a particular community to new horizons enables individuals to see themselves differently

The descriptors provided here are adapted from Wenger, 1998, pp. 154–155]

Through an amalgam of these trajectories, identity construction is ongoing and dynamic, a process of negotiation that is individual and collective, as well as being rooted in the past, present and future. These very ingredients or trajectories are the stuff of life history. While Wenger’s trajectory framework suggests that identity is constantly open to re-negotiation, earlier chapters in this text provide ample evidence of the existence of a ‘substantial’ self, an inner core that ‘is persistently defended and highly resistant to change. It comprises the most highly prized aspects of our self concept and the attitudes and values which are salient to them’ (Southworth, 1995, p. 166). These are the fossil fuels of principals’ passionate commitments that also sustain them over time. Southworth argues that these fossil fuels are a product of biography and experience as classroom teacher, and since principals are former class-

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room teachers, they are likely to ‘superimpose’ a principal’s identity onto that of classroom teacher, thus finding continuity in the new role. This creates a layered identity where biography is at the core and various roles provide additional outer crusts with some permeability between the substantial self and the situational or occupational identities as these are both re-formed and trans-formed over time. The intention in this chapter is to use these various lenses as a means of penetrating the occupational identities of principals and to indicate the manner in which the substantial self continues to be manifest, how it shapes a leader’s identity, as well as how various trajectories impact on this ongoing process over time. This analysis provides insight into the manner in which leadership is learned or negotiated over time also, as well as indicating that boundary and outbound trajectories become more significant after insider status has been secured. The chapter builds a composite picture through constructing three life histories – of a new, an experienced and a veteran principal – but the account is intended to be cumulative also where leaders’ identities over time, how they evolve and the trajectories they take on are important for the illumination of understanding leaders’ educational needs.

A new principal: identity in transition Given the manner in which assent to principalship is achieved in the Irish context, it is not surprising that the ‘entry’ period is spent keeping afloat. However, even with some professional preparation, this ‘initiation’ period has a steep learning trajectory. Denise, the youngest of our interviewees with the shortest period as principal (less than two years at the time of interviews), felt that the principalship in her school became available too soon for her. She had vaguely thought that, in her mid-thirties, she would be ready for such a role. However, the opportunity arrived almost a decade too soon, and she was unwilling to pass up the opportunity. Her initiation was akin to being thrown in at the deep end, and as she was until then – ‘one of the girls’ – she was particularly self-conscious of her emerging identity. She says of her identity as leader: I think that it is evolving. I haven’t even established it yet. Last year, as I have said, was keeping my head above water and continuing with a lot of what was here. The structure in the school was very good and it was a well-run school. I would say I am a little bit more personal and a little more open with the children. That is very important to me that I don’t lose contact with the kids. So I make sure that I go into classrooms, that I do yard duty and that there is interaction. I don’t want them to feel that I am the baddie in the office and that the only reason that they talk to me is when they are in trouble. That is a personal

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input into the job. In terms of changing things in structures, I don’t think that I have done a huge amount of that last year. She is content to leave established routines in place, thus emphasising continuity. Although maintaining and cultivating good relations with pupils may be an important element of Denise’s emerging identity while putting some distance also between herself and the previous incumbent, a more ‘authoritarian’ male of an older generation, it meets a more personal need also to maintain continuity between classroom teacher and administrative principal. As Southworth (1995, p. 170) suggests, ‘many primary heads see themselves as individuals who were promoted to headship because they were good class teachers’. As a young teacher, Denise prided herself on her relationship with pupils as well as her insider status with her teaching colleagues, of being the life and soul of the party on social outings and when being away with pupils and teachers also. From having enjoyed an insider trajectory as an established member of the school’s teaching staff, she is now positioned with a peripheral trajectory as the new principal where her inbound trajectory circumscribes her exercise of power while she navigates these trajectories and negotiates a new identity. She says: I made a conscious decision of not coming in as the principal and giving out or saying would you get to the classrooms, because I was the very one three months previously who would be grabbing the extra five minutes in the staffroom. Consistent with the comments of other newly appointed principals, she avoids possible confrontation, thus avoiding also a ‘them’ and me scenario that would be more likely to sustain a peripheral trajectory. While this was a common experience for newly appointed principals even when they were not previously members of the school community, in their cases their sense of peripherality may have been greater than hers. She quickly realised, however, that she now had additional responsibilities: at fund-raising or school occasions, she was obliged to ‘work the room’, to meet as many parents as possible and initially this felt like ‘things dragging off me’, while another too felt this soon after appointment particularly in relation to being seen as an authority figure by parents, and whose views on a range of matters counted. For Denise, however, ‘there is change and it does take time’. She admits that the ‘first lap’ in the role is particularly trying: Last year was very demanding. I was only learning. I am still only learning. I think I will still be learning in 5–6 years time. It is a changing role and there are new demands but I do find that this year is an awful lot easier because I know my way around. Very simple tasks that people do after a while very quickly but they just took so much

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time to make sure that they were correct and that you were doing them correctly. These comments clearly signal that much time and energy is expended on routine tasks in the initial year, and this has to be more acute in systems where there is no prior training, no formal mentoring system, and it is possible to be promoted from classroom teacher to the principal’s office in one leap. In the absence of any formal or informal structures at the time to support newly appointed principals, her partner was her primary support and sounding board. In the Irish context, the appointment of principals is permanent until retirement, unless principals ‘step down’ or seek early retirement, something that is becoming more common (Ryan, 2003). Consequently, there is probably an expectation that principals have plenty of time to find their feet, to learn leadership on the job, but what they may master is the administration and put systems and procedures in place, while providing leadership may or may not become part of the identity at a later stage. Her experience indicates, and is consistent with the accounts provided by other newly appointed principals, that there is an initial if understandable preoccupation with and tension between peripheral, inbound and insider trajectories in ways that may set subsequent limits to the leadership identity that it is possible to construct. In other systems, where leadership training and career opportunities may prepare newly appointed principals more adequately for the role, they may be over-eager to impress and thus bring about superficial reforms, what Hargreaves et al. (2003, p. 85) describe as ‘brief flurries of improvement that disappear once the leadership storm has moved elsewhere’. The Irish experience appears to place too much emphasis on continuity, with leadership a more discretionary option for the principal, while the practice in other jurisdictions of regularly moving ‘heads’ has tended to turn principalship ‘into an accelerating carousel of principal rotation in which the principals go round and round while the schools just go up and down’ (p. 81). In both approaches, there seems to be a lack of appreciation of the complexity of the change process, and lack of commitment to sustainable leadership and sustaining principals. By reconstructing the life histories of an experienced and a veteran principal, the manner in which the dynamics of the various trajectories alter over time are examined in detail, while also continuing to pay attention to school and policy contexts, between the substantial self and professional identity; the manner in which personal passions sustain professional commitments and shape identities.

An experienced principal: a campaigning leader? Michelle is a quietly spoken but determined individual who goes about her responsibilities in a purposeful manner. Ten years into her role as prin-

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cipal, her reflective bent enables her to give perspective to how she has constructed her identity during that decade. At the time of her appointment to principalship of a junior school (4–8-year-olds) she was a member of staff in the senior school (9–12-year-olds) on the same campus. However, the short distance that she had to walk was a very lonely journey. As the newly appointed principal she was on an inbound trajectory and assigned a peripheral place in her new community. This peripheral space was complicated by the fact that there were disappointed candidates in both schools so that her success was greeted with some hostility throughout the campus. She recalls: I have to say I felt very alone, I felt incredibly alone for a long time even though one of the teachers on the staff was one of our crowd in college and that relationship was even strained I suppose – as I had to respect, from her point of view, she was one of the staff, and I was the principal – people were finding their feet – I suppose. I spoke to the previous principal. It is evident in Michelle’s case, and the one above, that each inbound trajectory is unique and idiosyncratic, and has to be navigated by the individual concerned, while some preparation and support would be an obvious advantage. Apart from speaking privately and individually with the disappointed candidates in her ‘new’ school, there was an immediacy about getting on with the job and Michelle became immersed in the vicissitudes of allocating classes and setting about the enrolment of new pupils. During this period also, she was extremely fortunate that her husband was a member of the parents’ committee, and was very supportive. He knew the internal workings of the school and some of the personalities also, but, more importantly from Michelle’s perspective, he was: ‘someone safe to lay it all on and it wasn’t going to go back anywhere.’ Her inbound and peripheral status are emphasised when she comments that, in the beginning, ‘things like board meetings and staff meetings made me ill . . . in the beginning, I used to break out into a cold sweat at the thought of a . . . meeting . . .’. When faced with a problem, she’d ‘buy a book’ as a means of addressing the issue, and this was a well-honed practice from her earliest days in teaching. This coping strategy may be indicative also of Irish teachers’ ‘legendary autonomy’ (OECD, 1991), a trajectory signalling isolation and lack of community: ‘I was on my own, there were very few people I could talk to in fact.’ Some colleagues, whom she had known from college days, were ‘basically marking time . . . and watching what I was doing’. However, she invested in her own learning also by auditing some university courses, and she describes the benefits in the following terms: ‘I never wrote anything, but I went and listened . . . basically did the course and it was great, because actually it gave me a place to talk about

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things and a reading list.’ She created her own learning community, her own support group, where talking about things became a form of rehearsal and learning that she could transfer to the school community. In addition, simultaneously, she became a member of a principals’ support group, and the two leading lights who were practising principals were ‘extremely supportive and full of horse sense’. Michelle was learning that ‘participation is a source of identity’ (Wenger, 1998, p. 56), and through her participation in a variety of learning communities she was already beginning to forge a more complex leadership identity by traversing boundaries. However, the apparent lack of clarity as to role and responsibilities for newly appointed principals has potential also to retard identity formation and thus also leadership potential within school communities. A decade later, Michelle has a rather different story to tell, so that we can begin to understand how biography and location, how person and context influence each other. As Wenger (1998, p. 215) suggests, ‘an identity must incorporate a past and a future’ so that ‘our identities must absorb our new perspectives and make them part of who we are’. Knowing Michelle begins with key aspects of her family history. Both her parents attended a special school and she is one of eight children, all of whom have benefited from a university education. As an undergraduate, she was active in the students’ union where she learned to run successful campaigns. While these are by no means the only influences in Michelle’s past life, the former provides the passion in pursuit of an individual’s right to an education, regardless of circumstances, while the latter provides the strategies very often as a means of vindicating such rights. Additionally, membership of a relatively stable school community for a decade is both a ‘resource and a cost’ (Wenger, 1998, p. 207). Michelle’s inbound trajectory into this particular school community suggests that ‘it is the vulnerability of belonging to, identifying with and being part of some communities that contribute to defining who we are’ but in the process such communities in their turn ‘have a hold on us’ (ibid.). Exercising power in a leadership role, therefore, has both conflictual and coalescing aspects, and tends to cast the school leader as both insider and outsider simultaneously with potential also to marginalise, to place the principal on the periphery. Even when an insider trajectory is firmly established, the next ‘campaign’ in Michelle’s community starts the ball rolling all over again whereby trust is reestablished and the support of other communities is harnessed towards the achievement of newly minted goals that continue to emerge. When Michelle was appointed, teacher morale was low and student numbers were declining – ‘on a downward slope’ – a situation exacerbated by the previous principal whose attitude was: ‘if this school is going to become a disadvantaged school then, I’m getting out. He actually said that to them . . . .’ While the social context and demographics warranted disadvantaged status for this school, this image did not fit with the principal’s

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identity. It may be the case also that at his particular career stage he was disengaging and did not have the inclination or energy to ‘battle’ for the kids in his school. Furthermore, autocratic leaders whose trajectory is rendered peripheral may exercise power negatively – a power of veto, rather than being for particular initiatives. Once Michelle found her feet, her first ‘campaign’ was to gain the school disadvantaged status as certain resources followed from this. This also established a pattern in terms of her modus operandi with colleagues, to build trust through working on collaborative agendas, by creating common ground and by working towards attainable goals. Her leadership has been a series of such campaigns, central to which is the living out of her family history where, regardless of need, the right to an appropriate education for an individual is paramount. In the process she became an insider in a situation that was initially hostile, while she managed also to add boundary and outbound strings to her bow. She says of her perspective on appointment, ‘I was aware that there was a huge difficulty in a lot of the classes where children were failing academically’ and these pupils ‘were causing huge disruption by the time they got to second class [grade]’. The local Health Board was persuaded of the extent of the problem, because, in her words, ‘we started a campaign to get assessments’ and a psychologist identified ‘eleven children who needed special education’. Making special educational provision became an additional means of securing disadvantaged status, as well as creating special classes within the school. Michelle recognises too that part of the success of successive campaigns is her tenacity. She says, ‘I certainly would be good at not leaving an issue, staying with an issue’, but in her understated manner she states, ‘maybe it’s the role’ when more likely it is her passion to vindicate the rights of individual learners. It is important to capture some sense of this while indicating also that this is not a solo performance, but rather a means of galvanising the school community, of moving it in a particular direction, while there are consequences too for her in a more diverse and changing role. Her campaigning style of leadership is evident from the retrospective summary of a rolling agenda that is evident in the following and so too are the intersecting trajectories and how these shift and weave over time. She says: Well, I would say certainly getting the school into the disadvantaged areas, getting the early start. We were given initially a half unit and then we hassled them and we got a full unit. Then the whole area of special needs and trying to drive through the idea of children being integrated in the mainstream class with support rather than being in a special class and I would say I could take a bit of credit about how the school liaison has gone because the teacher would have said that the support is very important, that it does not just happen on your own. I

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would say that certainly when I came first it was a very good staff from the point of view of communication and working together but I think I could take credit for moving that along also. I would say certainly within the context of school development planning service and the revised curriculum that we have actually been able to take it up as a goal that was set and we are moving along. I would say it is not just something that was just me but I went for it. The conditions were there and the people were there and I was able to go for it. I would also say there was a history before I came so I think that the relationship that I would have with the vice-principal particularly, it would be excellent, and I find her to be a great support to me. I think we work very well together. Though self-effacing, Michelle is prepared to take credit in particular for making major efforts regarding the mainstreaming of ‘special needs’ children, as this is a deeply held commitment rooted in family history, but she recognises that such achievements are communal and shared also, the result of shared effort and commitment. Such successes too come at a cost; as in the process, the nature of the role changes exponentially. Again, she provides a sense of how her identity has changed over time, partly due to the school community’s collective campaigning, but also due to a rapidly altering social landscape that is beyond the control of the school community, yet impacts in profound and unanticipated ways. Consequently, it is necessary to be scanning the horizons in a proactive manner to maintain a dynamic learning community in changing times. She puts these changes in perspective when describing how her identity and the role has changed, become more demanding and complex, while signalling too that increasingly principals are being called upon to have secure insider trajectories but also urged to ‘go wider and deeper’, of building relations with other communities and constituencies (Hargreaves and Fullan, 1998), thus being able to combine insider, boundary and outbound trajectories in sophisticated ways that increase visibility and vulnerability: It is incredible how demanding it is. I would say when I came in first I was an administrative principal, I did everything by the book and I had the time to do this. I still do it but it takes an awful lot more time. You would be in a situation where you could write letters during the day, you could fill the roll book, you do questionnaires during the day, I would say now those are the kind of things that are done when everybody is gone. I do not begrudge it in one sense, I think actually going around, maybe it is me, but I would spend an awful lot more time now going around the classrooms. I think from the children’s point of view it is important to encourage a spirit that we are all in it together. It is part of the deal in getting children to come to school.

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It is part of getting them to take a bit of pride in what they are doing. Even it can be sometimes going around to the little ones, we would give them a cert at the end of the week for effort. We would stick them up on the doors. They are told how great they are. Those kind of things. Then when you are popping into the classroom, just to check out writing and tell them how good they are, it takes time. Equally, for instance, a lot of afternoons I would probably pop in and out to infant teachers and talk to them about what is going on and there is always messages about different things so you are constantly on the go. I get here in the morning at 8.10 and there is always at least one teacher here at that stage so it starts then. They know I am there. We could be discussing a child. People would stop me and say come in and see how well they are doing. Michelle, too, in other parts of her interviews, conveys the multidimensionality of the role and its increasing complexity. She indicates the necessity to be a manager, to know the rules, to ‘watch the money’, to be ‘good with people’ and to be much more ‘open with parents’, while also providing opportunities for colleagues to attend courses and to share their learning with other teachers, but in a structured manner. All of these concerns are added to ongoing campaigns, while the evolving community of learning throws up additional challenges too, such as providing childcare for parents to enable them to invest in their own learning, both for the benefit of their children and to enhance the possibility of their return to the workforce. Arising from this decade of experience, Michelle is convinced that schools do not merely require good managers. Rather, she says: For a long time I wondered, you know, the way they used to say the best teachers are taken out of the class, I think you do need to be a very good teacher because I do not think you can lose that sense of being a teacher because it is almost as if you are teaching your staff as well as being responsible for them. You have to . . . throw yourself into the job, you need an awful lot of energy. Maybe it is just that times have changed. What comes across repeatedly in these extracts is a commitment to care, of being an advocate for children, and that the socialisation into teaching and classroom experience reinforces, refines and develops this commitment which is extremely important as part of the principal’s role. However, in systems where centralised reform prescriptions focus narrowly on achievement, often determined solely on the basis of test scores, such concerns get squeezed to the margins. Some readers may simply shrug their shoulders and suggest that teachers in Norway, Denmark and Ireland, are merely lagging behind and that market forces will soon reduce

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their discretionary judgment and erode professional autonomy, but this too would be an over-simplification and mis-reading of the dynamics of Michelle’s school community and the system more generally. There is greater diversity to the role, there is greater emotional labour, but there is capacity building also, and as she talks about this, there is a sense of collective learning, of relishing the experience. A revised curriculum was introduced into the primary system in 1999 and this was followed by provision of six curriculum inservice days for all teachers, a combination of two days away from school, followed by a planning day within the school community. Michelle’s comments reveal the manner in which they are being challenged by these initiatives, while they continue to retain a sense of control. She says: I find myself of late spending more time talking to social workers and nurses so that is a huge draw and I think in an area like this that has a lot of problems, it does not have the resources to meet them. I know that social workers and health workers who have moved here from elsewhere are appalled at the level of provision for families at risk. That would be a big change. I find myself having to face people’s situations and that is very new and you have to respect where they are coming from. It is nothing shocking. That is the way their lives are at the moment. I find that takes a lot out of me and it is a big change. I would say the sense in the staff, I think the result of all this planning and inservice has changed the atmosphere in the staff. A couple of us were talking at the end of school planning day and we chose to use it to bring our oral-language programme planning to something that you could actually see happening in the classrooms, so we did quite a bit of work on it. It was very hard work and it came two weeks after the visual arts day. We were talking about it afterwards and people were exhausted going home, somebody was saying that this time last year we would never have done that kind of work. We would never have got that much work done. It has changed. It makes it more exciting. You get a buzz and you develop new energy and I think that is good. . . . I think my role as principal, from the children’s point of view, is very different from what I would have characterised principals long ago. Throughout, one of the continuities is care for learners, particularly those with special needs and a vindication of their right to resources and appropriate learning. Michelle too, towards the end of her decade as leader of this campaigning and changing community, managed to find the time to complete a Master’s in Education, further evidence of her boundary trajectory, that commits her also to seeking out appropriate learning opportunities for her colleagues. However, Michelle too recognises that

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there is need for balance, for time out for ‘me’, if commitment and energy are to be renewed and leadership sustained. She says: Gardening is good for the mind and the spirit, and I have been trying to go to the gym more often, but I find time is the problem and I feel the lack of that [I] haven’t been able to get near the place since Christmas – so that signals to me that I’ve had no time to myself and I know I am exhausted and I know why and I think that has an effect on what goes on at work, and I don’t think it’s a luxury to have leisure activities – I think it’s very important that it is built into your life generally and that is a problem at the moment . . . . Michelle’s account of her identity re-construction as work in progress indicates that it is dynamic, changing and constantly throwing up new challenges, and there is evidence also that the capacity of the community to deal with change has been enhanced. Internally, there is trust and collaboration, outside support is garnered from other professionals and agencies while additional learning opportunities are sought for colleagues. Her account certainly seems to suggest that, even if she has reached a plateau, there continues to be a dynamism, a continuing emphasis on learning, and, despite the quickening pace of change, and changing social circumstances, there is a degree of professional autonomy also that enables her and her colleagues to inscribe their passions into their endeavours, while this is a delicate ecology that could easily become corrosive rather than sustaining. After a decade, Michelle conveys a sense of a thriving learning community, a secure identity, a shared sense of leadership that benefits from the perspectives of others. Along with the principal of the adjoining school, improving the fabric of the building is an immediate priority, as well providing further opportunities for colleagues to learn. She is optimistic rather than apprehensive about the immediate future, and confident that the progress made and the accumulated learning can be sustained into the future. In this limited and partial account, she appears to continue to harness various learning trajectories and to build trusting relations with colleagues that render her secure in her professional identity in ways that have positive benefits for the school community and beyond. She is also optimistic that, despite relenting pressures, it will be possible to sustain this learning trajectory into the future; that her passions shaped by various trajectories will be sufficient fuel for the next element of the journey into the future. Can this learning be sustained indefinitely, or are plateau, decline, disengagement, disillusionment even, inevitable parts of the cycle of leadership?

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A veteran’s tale: long-life leadership? By using the term ‘long-life leadership’ I do not wish to convey any sense that this is homogenised leadership, like milk that has been ‘sanitised’ to last longer. Rather, my quest is to ask: what does leadership look like over the ‘long haul’, and what can be gleaned from this tale that increases insight into leadership and how it is understood, as well as how it is fostered and sustained in others? Jack is our veteran, in-post for more than twenty years and in the same school, where he began in a pioneering way with a handful of colleagues and a few temporary dwellings in a new urban context that some years later was designated disadvantaged. In those heady, pioneering days, Jack admits that because new residents as well as new pupils were moving onto a building site, it felt more like a ‘hedge school’. Nevertheless, along with his newly hired experienced colleagues, he was on a ‘mission’. This mission was bred in the bone, part of his own urban working-class origins, part of his substantial self, and he puts this passion in the following terms: So my kind of thing was, . . . I wanted to make sure that these kids in disadvantaged areas, that they deserved whatever and I was very fired up with this notion that all the kids in [names community] came from a bigger and better house than I was born and reared in. . . . So if I could do it, there is no reason why they couldn’t do it. This passion was further fuelled by a critical incident in his own childhood when, as he says, ‘I had the shit beaten out of me’ just because his picture appeared in a local newspaper to celebrate success in a music examination. His passion was that they too could rise above ‘class ceilings’ and, in a sense, he was going to be the one to lead them to the promised land. This was his inbound trajectory fuelled by biography and social-class positioning. This commitment continues to sustain his leadership exodus despite the many winding turns. He says: ‘I was very fired up with this notion of pulling ourselves up.’ However, rather like Michelle, there was an immediacy about the daily challenges, new children arriving, constant enrolment, dealing with issues about a school to be built, so that he admits also: ‘I was probably just obsessed with surviving.’ In his previous school, he had served as unofficial deputy and then as deputy principal and was in awe of and admired his rather authoritarian and autocratic mentor. He was socialised into a world where respect for authority was pervasive, and briefly also became a member of a religious community where obedience would have been further reinforced. Consequently, he feels that ‘I was kind of a bit traditional and probably still am’. It becomes evident as his tale unfolds that one of the enduring dilemmas of his leadership is a tension between leading and driving the agenda. While Michelle too sought to drive the leadership agenda, her campaigning

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self tended to build community momentum in the process thus creating a more collective endeavour. When recruiting the initial pioneers, he indicates also that the language of leadership and whole-school planning had yet to be invented, so consistent with his passion and experience of leadership, he recruited like-minded colleagues, people ‘in my mode of thinking’ so there was a missionary spirit that ‘we are all in this together’ and, while it was challenging, it was exciting too. Around 1980 or thereabouts, the system was still more predictable – ‘solid, fixed and set’. Part of the spirit of the first wave of pioneers was camaraderie whereby, over cups of tea, ideas were shared and agendas set in a spirit of informal collaboration. There was a collective inbound trajectory that made the early experience somewhat euphoric, and their green-field status propelled the initial group of teachers towards building a collective insider trajectory. Soon, as new and younger teacher were hired, and the school population grew exponentially, there were ‘warning signs’ (Fink, 2000) that this early missionary zeal might flounder. As the pool of teachers grew, the early pioneers began to feel that they no longer had the same influence on Jack, and resented the influence of fledgling teachers and members of the school community, and so the first signs of ‘balkanisation’ began to appear also (Hargreaves and Fullan, 1992; Hargreaves, 1994; Hargreaves et al., 2003). But awareness of this emerging reality came with the benefit of hindsight. He says: So . . . by year three we were getting younger people. And, you know, you got people coming directly out of the training college who were confident and you started to take them on board, so they were starting to have an influence. Some of the others were feeling their noses out of joint . . . , but that’s only something that evolved, it’s not something that I reflected on even at that time, it would only be in hindsight . . . This extract indicates that when community membership is altered so too are the dynamics and the learning, while it further suggests that each community is unique and idiosyncratic, whether a fledgling or wellestablished school community. Apart from loss of influence, manoeuvring was going on also concerning promotion, and in addition there were school inspectors seeking to solve other problems in the locality by soliciting his ‘cooperation’, as a result of which some of Jack’s missionary passion had to be tempered by ‘find[ing] myself having to grow up’ while simultaneously coming to the realisation that not all of those ‘out there are honest brokers’, outbound trajectories are a double-edged sword with potential to disrupt insider trajectories to the detriment of the school community and the principal’s capacity to lead. He was learning that navigating boundary trajectories has significance for his own identity and the health of the school community.

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Throughout the decade of the 1980s, as the school expanded Jack persisted with his commitment and enthusiasm despite a harsh economic climate, and as the school population peaked and stablised, there was a little more time for reflection, and ‘the reflection that I was doing began to grow me a small bit . . .’. However, the ghost of his mentor seemed to persist in looking over his shoulder as he struggled with the dilemma of leading and driving. He says: ‘I began to say [to colleagues], probably to some extent, I am the boss here and I am responsible for what is going on and I have at least as much right as anyone else to insist on my say, and possibly a bit more.’ While he does not think he is a ‘power junkie’, he does ‘find myself pushing particular things’. This perspective resonates with the views expressed by Southworth (1995, p. 170) that ‘a headteacher’s approach to leadership is based upon personal history and the power of modelling . . .’. He suggests also that characteristics of more traditional forms of school leadership in the English system include ‘individualism, moralism, acceptance of hierarchy; and control’ (p. 172). Consequently, there is a tendency also towards ‘stronger feelings of loneliness’ than when in the isolation of the classroom, something described vividly by Michelle, while there is also a sense of ‘self confronting a group’ (p. 175). In such circumstances, there is a tendency to become ‘more self-referential’ while it becomes crucial as a consequence to develop boundary and outbound trajectories so that over time a leader does not become repositioned on the periphery rather than maintaining and re-negotiating an insider trajectory. Elsewhere in the interviews Jack comments on being frustrated by teachers when they respond to his overtures sometimes with comments such as ‘well, Jack, tell us what to do and we’ll do it’. Now he recognises that this may be a coping strategy deployed by teachers who are stretched if not overloaded, but it may also be a behaviour learned within the community that they follow his lead, or should that be drive? Pushing particular issues is an integral element of the school leader’s role, which in Stoll and Fink’s (1996) perspective may still be regarded as ‘invitational’, while driving moves beyond invitation, to rule out discretion, and tends towards coercion. When external mandates are imposed with the force of legislation, then principals are more likely to become coercive rather than invitational and they are less likely to be leading a ‘coalition of the willing’, so that control and compliance squeeze out professional judgment and autonomy. When this occurs, teachers, as has been happening in the Anglo–American context in particular, vote with their feet. As Hargreaves (1990, p. 1) suggests: ‘If missions develop loyalty among the faithful and confidence among the committed, they also create heresy among those who question, those who differ, those who doubt.’ It would be misleading to describe Jack’s leadership identity in a onedimensional manner as a tension between leading/pushing and driving.

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There are other aspects of his work that he highlights as significant, a source of satisfaction, as well as being faithful to his original ‘mission’, while providing evidence also of conscious efforts to alter style and substance; terrain on which his substantial self and professional self compete for position. The world into which Jack was socialised had a very traditional view of children – they were to be seen and not heard, while both at home and school, the sentiment behind the adage ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ would have been much in evidence. Consequently, Jack and his generation tend to have difficulty either receiving or giving positive feedback, accepting or providing compliments. This, too, not surprisingly, is an aspect of his leadership that he has wrestled with and sought to change. He says: I would be much more conscious now, in acknowledging the good work or the creative practice or whatever that I would see. Now I was not very good at that, now I’m still not very good at it, but I was very poor at complimenting people. I was always fearful of patronising them and to some extent it would be that way [still], but I would find ways of doing it now, that would be more indirect as opposed to coming up and saying, Ciaran, you’re doing a great job. I spend the time inside the class, working it around and that sort of thing, and also I would find myself now insisting on questioning practices that we had done. This may be understood as a genuine struggle for authenticity, but side by side with this more personable style is a greater readiness also to take issue with behaviour that might be construed as unprofessional or a lowering of standards. He says: ‘I’m driving the place in a more proactive way, so I’m still conscious of trying to keep people on board and that sort of thing.’ His views appear to resonate with Southworth’s (1995, p. 174) analysis that ‘Although teachers may be powerful in their individual classrooms, they are also subordinate to the power of their heads because, generally, they accept that heads should determine school policy and staff should acquiesce’, that ‘power over pervades teaching and percolates into headship’. At the beginning of the 1990s, Jack became involved in a principals’ support group, and while this encouraged him both to read and reflect, its major influence was to create boundary and outbound trajectories, to begin to ask in a more sustained manner ‘why’ he was doing leadership in a particular way, and he continues to grapple with this while that mission and his mentor continue also to inhabit his day if not his dreams! These new communities of learning create further tensions between his substantial and professional self. A new generation of staff who have had a radically different socialisa-

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tion, as well as less traditional initial teacher education, has brought new thinking to the school; and this, in turn, in addition to his own post-graduate pursuits, has enabled him also ‘to think differently’. Visits to schools in Norway, England and Scotland, too, have broadened his horizons, where he feels in some instances collaboration has been reduced to a solidarity to meet external demands for accountability. In the Irish system, he suggests, we need to be accountable while avoiding the scourge of ‘form filling’, as he sees this as capitulation to bureaucracy with negative consequences for the profession. One of the things that helps him to avoid this trap is an abiding interest in music and a persistent commitment, given the disadvantaged context of the school and his own biography, to a broadly based curriculum, to developing the social as well as the academic. He says: It is a long-established school, whether it is well established is another question. How would I describe the ethos? Well, I think there is a caring atmosphere in a sense. I think the teachers are very driven by the notion of trying to do the best they can for the kids. You might say how different is that from any other school? I would have a theory that the more adverse the conditions are in school that very often it seems to bring out the best in children and I certainly wouldn’t claim it as being a perfect place, but people here do work hard. That would be one thing. The teachers would be concerned about the welfare of the children and at the same time trying to balance that against trying to insist on a fairly structured academic thing. We are very conscious of the fact that teaching goes beyond what you deliver on the academic level, we would be conscious of the need for social education programmes. I would claim we probably have always done that but what we are not actually good at is putting a particular structure on it, that structures have become more necessary. Any of the attempts that we have done we would recognise it as being genuinely something that we have to a very large extent always been doing. Within his own career cycle, while he acknowledges that ‘when you reach a certain stage you get more relaxed’ (or more ‘self-referential’), his enthusiasm has not dimmed, and he continues to have concerns about the most able in the school as well as the most vulnerable in terms of meeting their needs. However, he continues to be a powerful presence and nowhere is this more evident than as ‘instructional leader’. He says, ‘I have a particularly good secretary which is absolutely vital’ and that takes care of ‘most of the administrative stuff’. Consequently, he says: I spend most of my day out and about around the school, dealing with kids, dealing with teachers. I do genuinely believe your presence in the school and meeting with the kids and supporting teachers would be

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the biggest single most important job that I do. It is very hard to describe. I think all of that supports the running of the school. Southworth (1995, p. 177) argues that ‘the shift . . . to mentor marks only a shift in the process of influencing colleagues . . . the intention to control others remains’. The tension here is between a mission fuelled by biography, the substantial self, and how that is mediated in communities of practice. Apart from being a continuous presence and support, and despite national economic progress, much of Jack’s time is spent in keeping violence in the community from invading the classrooms, thus maintaining an atmosphere of calm, care and challenge, and this is an important dimension of his boundary trajectory; an indication of the high esteem he enjoys among parents where he successfully maintains both intimacy and distance. The commitment of teachers and his capacity to get back on good terms with kids even after ‘flaming rows’ are two things that sustain him. Nevertheless, he feels that he’s been in the position too long, and is frustrated by the lack of progress on embedding middle-management structures and routines within the school to the extent that he questions whether or not it is feasible for an old dog like himself to learn new tricks. Nevertheless, he indicates that he would be ‘saddened to think of a majority ending in disillusionment’, thus both rejecting1 this categorisation for himself as well as disputing it as an inevitable career stage (Day and Bakioglu, 1996). While he is steadfastly committed to professional development, his own and that of his colleagues, and has sought out opportunities in this regard, implicit in his comments is the suggestion that it is impossible to be everything that the leadership literature advocates as part of a principal’s identity, so that despite passion, commitment and sustained effort he can never match the complexity of the role. He says: Part of my culture in relation to how I arrived to [this school] and how I arrived to here is about being the foot soldier, if you like, a doing person. I enjoy the sitting around thing, thinking about and talking about, but I’m still kind of into the doing. And increasingly I find that everybody not just in teaching wants to be the executive, who gives the orders and gets someone else to do. The kind of collaboration and people working together is not, I think, a notion that people are actually committed to it. Now that may be again as much a statement about me and it may be the reasons why I failed in that aspects of principalship . . . . Committed to doing principalship, he communicates a sense that, in a more turbulent and volatile educational landscape, the struggle between substantial and professional self takes its toll. Yet, his identity signature

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includes indomitable spirit, enthusiasm and energy, without a hint of disillusionment, though he is beginning to think about succession and his legacy. Without this raw material, there is no foundation on which to build a leader’s identity, but this life history of long-life leadership also suggests that sustaining learning, as an insider with boundary and outbound trajectories, is difficult, hazardous, pleasurable and painful to varying degrees. Leaving the learning to the discretion of the principal only is no longer an option due to more complex, changing and challenging times. There is a need to step back from the fray, to begin to set a new agenda for leadership learning.

Conclusions Concluding comments will be brief – the issues that emerge from this and earlier chapters are taken up and discussed in more detail in the concluding chapter. However, it is important to identify salient aspects of the foregoing life-history accounts as a summary of emergent issues that contribute also to a more open-ended discussion in the concluding chapter. Leadership learning and identity construction is messier and more dynamic than more linear career-stage models suggest. Nevertheless, there is evidence from the partial case histories constructed above that when an insider trajectory is established, leaders are more likely to establish boundary and outbound trajectories as a means of sustaining their own learning and identity construction as well as becoming a means of revitalising colleagues and school community. Changing times, too, with greater emphasis on more ongoing contact with the wider community, are pushing principals into forging new alliances and relationships with a greater number of individuals and agencies, thus altering the role in fairly fundamental ways that further tax the capacities of school leaders to re-shape their identities more in tune with the vicissitudes of contemporary society, while changing conceptions of leadership in the process. There is an initial period of isolation, of increased visibility and vulnerability that is idiosyncratic to each school community. Yet, this very idiosyncrasy, in dynamic interplay between the passions of the principal, his or her substantial and professional self, colour the school community in important ways, and collectively contribute to the ongoing project of identity construction. There is no escaping ‘the personality of change’. General economic and educational policy contexts may circumscribe these dynamics or become catalysts that shape and give direction to collective endeavours that tend to build learning capacities in a more broadly based manner. The positioning of school leaders, and their insider and boundary trajectories, become crucially important ingredients in the leadership mix, where shifting alliances and allegiances are constantly negotiated and renegotiated while seeking to maintain a positive rather than corrosive

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climate for both teachers and learners. The relative longevity of leaders’ tenure is important in itself, and so too are the stability or attrition of teachers. In a context where ‘whole school’ approaches are increasingly advocated by policy-makers, these are all factors worthy of greater attention particularly if legacy and succession are additional considerations within the leadership domain. In an international context where life-long learning is advocated, learning is continuous and ongoing across the lifespan. While there is evidence of teachers and principals seeking early retirement or alternative careers with less turbulence, there is optimism in these life histories too that learning may be sustained, that is it not inevitable that principals end in ‘failure’ or disillusionment. However, to maintain a focus on learning, on ongoing meaningful identity construction, there is a greater need than ever before to create a variety of professional learning opportunities and supports that challenge established routines and orthodoxies and create spaces with time to forge continuities, as well as imagine futures that are coloured but not held hostage by past traditions and trajectories. These legacies represent considerable challenges to the leadership field, how leadership is conceptualised and how leadership learning is supported and challenged. While passion is clearly important, and significance for substantial self is likely to remain pivotal, it is no longer enough. It is time to move beyond passion to forge new leadership horizons.

Note 1 These comments were provided in private correspondence as a response to an earlier draft of this chapter. The comment continues: ‘In my own case, while I feel a need for change (and I think it would be good for the school if properly managed), I cannot think of any other job that would give me the level of fulfilment and satisfaction I get in [name of community].’

References Bryk, A., Camburn, E. and Seashore Louis, K. (1999) Professional Community in Chicago Elementary Schools: facilitating factors and organizational consequences, Educational Administration Quarterly, Vol. 35 (Speical Issue), pp. 751–781. Cuban, L. (2003) Why Is It So Hard to Get GOOD Schools?, New York and London: Teachers’ College Press. Day, C. and Bakioglu, A. (1996) Development and Disenchantment in the Professional Lives of Headteachers, in I. F. Goodson and A. Hargreaves (eds) Teachers’ Professional Lives, London and Washington: Falmer Press. Fink, D. (2000) Good Schools/Real Schools, New York and London: Teachers’ College Press. Goodson, I. F. (2003) Professional Knowledge, Professional Lives, Maidenhead and Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Being principal 157 Hargeaves, A. (1990). Individualism and Individuality: Reinterpreting the teacher culture, paper presented at the symposium ‘Tension in Teachers’ Culture, Career and Context, at AERA, Boston, MA, 5–9 April. Hargreaves, A. (1994) Changing Teachers, Changing Times, London: Cassell. Hargeaves, A. and Fullan, M. (eds) (1992) Understanding Teacher Development, New York: Teachers College Press. Hargreaves, A. and Fullan, M. (1998) What’s Worth Fighting for Out There?, New York: Teachers’ College Press. Hargreaves, A., Moore, S., Fink, D., Brayman, C., and White, R. (2003) Succeeding Leaders? A study of principal succession and sustainability, Toronto: OISEUT (funded by the Ontario Principals’ Council). Leithwood, K., Jantzi, D. and Steinbach, R. (1999) Changing Leadership for Changing Times, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press. OECD (1991) Reviews of National Education Policies for Education: Ireland, Paris: OECD. Reeves, J., Moos, L. and Riley, K. (1998) The School Leader’s View, in J. MacBeath (ed.) Effective School Leadership: responding to change, London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Ryan, J. (2003) Handing Back the Keys: why some primary principals are stepping down, unpublished MEd thesis, St Patrick’s College, Dublin City University. Southworth, G. (1995) Looking into Primary Headship, London: Falmer Press. Stoll, L. and Fink, D. (1996) Changing Our Schools, Buckingham: Open Univeristy Press. Tyack, D. and Cuban, L. (1995) Tinkering Toward Utopia: a century of public school reform, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Part IV

Beyond passion in principalship

Chapter 10

Principalship Beyond pleasure, pain and passion Ciaran Sugrue

Speed is a defence against depth and meaning. Nothing important happens quickly. Choose quality of experience over speed. The world changes from dept of commitment and capacity to learn. (Block et al., 2000, p. 52)

Introduction The quotation immediately above is an import and salutary reminder that in the fast-paced world that increasingly is our habitat it is difficult to ‘disappear’, even temporarily, to create space and time to reflect and learn. Educational leadership literature too has been afflicted by the ‘reform bug’ so that quick-fix remedies are constantly being conjured up that may briefly decorate the school table, the lemsip of leadership, sipped at tentatively before another oven-ready recipe that appears more tempting is proferred as the fast-lane to reform. In a world where food has never been so plentiful (for some), life and work require that we eat on the hoof so that there is constant undernourishment of our learning capacity because the time and space, the necessary digestive aids, are a scarce resource. We are all on ‘crash’ (learning) diets to the future, we want to be the first to arrive; global competitiveness has made learning a race to construct the highway to the future. However, if it’s ‘a journey and not a competition’, we need to slow down, take stock, enjoy the journey and pay attention to our fellow travellers. Even if we never reach the promised land, the journey will have been a ‘real’ adventure. This chapter, then, is a tentative backpack for leaders and others interested in the field, but inevitably you will put your own stamp on things by including additional items with particular significance for you. You can walk in silence if you wish for some of the journey, inhabiting your own thoughts, but don’t venture on this journey alone – you will both miss the company and the learning opportunities presented by dialogue, the opportunity to be both leader and led.

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Passion sustains the ‘substantial self’. That is one of the messages of the foregoing chapters, and provides the ‘magma’ that continues to seep into and shape the situational/professional self in ways that both sustain and circumscribe leaders, their leadership, and their capacity to deepen their conceptual understanding of, and skills in, leading school communities. School leadership is increasingly tending towards homogenisation, and in such circumstances there results a balkanisation of selves. If separation of passion from purpose, of essential from professional self continues, educational change and school reform are almost certain to be inadequate, have shallow roots, be relatively surface and superficial, with passions ‘spent’ in frustrated attempts to find accommodation rather than reconciliation with prescriptive, market-driven reform agendas that tend to offend those passionately held commitments. When this occurs (and there is considerable evidence of this internationally in terms of attrition from teaching, and lack of interest in the position of principalship), the lack of congruence between the prescriptions of the role and the identities of leaders, seems to be a bridge too far, and teachers walk the other way, while others shy away from leadership positions. Some aspects of the dilemma are already evident and documented: too onerous, too demanding, impossible, lack of job satisfaction and appropriate remuneration are frequently cited. Teachers see the mounting volume of paper to be generated in order to meet bureaucratic requirements as alienating as well as taking time away from engagement with learners. There is evidence that, in Ireland, Norway and Denmark, the demands on teachers and principals continue to be more benign than the forces unleashed by the Education Act of 1988 in England, and the rugged individualism of the Reagan administration in the US, which, more recently has been transformed into a rhetoric of ‘no child left behind’. Nevertheless, in these jurisdictions, as the decade of the 1990s advanced, the forces of globalisation became more manifest and creeping prescription, stealth reforms couched in somewhat more neutral and less authoritarian language, became much more evident in restructuring efforts and policy documents (Sugrue, 2004). There is mounting evidence that this marketisation and privatisation of the public sphere generally and education more particularly is not a panacea, and this realisation is gaining credence and status too within the economic community (see, for example, Stiglitz, 2003). As Stiglitz argues, it is time to ‘get the balance back’ (p. xiii) between the public and private spheres. His analysis of ‘The Roaring Nineties’ (2003) points up the glaring contradiction that while the private sphere was increasingly deregulated and private greed unfettered, thus enabling some corporate leaders to become ‘raiders’ who feathered their financial nests, under the guise of a similar and equally shrill call for private ‘norms’ in public schooling there has been unprecedented prescription of targets and outcomes – a reduction of education to a herding of all

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children through the corral of standardised tests in the mistaken belief that passing through this eye of the educational needle is the surest way to the salvation of a secure job and civic contentment. Cuban’s (2003, p. 38) analysis of this ‘one good school’ approach is particularly revealing. He says: Until present-day reformers openly recognize that parents, principals and teachers have already made many kinds of ‘good’ schools, and until they develop explicit criteria that go beyond the single-minded training of students for the workplace to include the nourishing of civic virtue, the current official orthodoxy will prevail. The tyranny of a one-best school model . . . Sennett (1996, p. 118) concurs when he says: ‘the winner-take-all market is a competitive structure which disposes large numbers of educated people to fail.’ These lessons are particularly apposite also to school leaders and the re-conceptualisation of the field of school leadership. He concludes that ‘if change occurs it happens on the ground, between persons speaking out of inner need, rather than through mass uprisings’ (p. 148). What are the legacies of the life stories and life histories constructed in earlier chapters that are worthy of inclusion in a backpack for re-thinking of the field? In response to this question, this concluding chapter is in three sections. As each section is discussed, aspects for further research and theorising are identified also. Section one, revisits aspects of life history as a means of harvesting some of the ‘situated certainties’ (Hargreaves, 1994) that are grounded in the lives and work of principals partially portrayed in the text. Consistent with the concept of ‘the personality of change’, the legacies of leadership are discussed both in terms of leaders’ identities as well as their impact on the leadership learning of school communities. Section two connects these legacies with national-policy perspectives while this discussion is broadened and deepened by indicating the connections between the cycles of national policy reform agendas and the shaping influences of global forces and their homogenising tendencies. Section three indicates how these various legacies may be taken up in ways that re-shape conceptualisation of leadership and shift and re-shape research agendas in the field intended to re-fashion leaders and leadership studies.

Re-visiting life history: disjuncture and conjuncture in leaders’ lives and work It is timely to revisit the strengths and limitations of a life-history approach to the study of school leaders’ lives and work. Along with Munro (1998, p. 13) we ‘remain committed to the potential of life history research to enlarge . . . [our] understanding of the complex ways in which we make

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meaning’. It is important also to recognise the layered interpretations involved in constructing life stories, in moving beyond these in the process of constructing life histories, and in this chapter there is the further interpretative move of situating stories and life histories of leadership and relocating them in a grounded manner within international discourses on leadership. Inevitably, there are trade-offs and risks involved in such interpretative moves; Goodson and Sikes (2001, p. 17) describe these in the following terms: Moving from life story to life history involves a move to account for historical context – a dangerous move, for it offers the researcher considerable ‘colonizing’ power, to ‘locate’ the life story with all its inevitable selections, shifts and silences. . . . without contextual commentary on issues of time and space, life stories remain uncoupled from the conditions of their social construction. Despite the inevitable hazards involved, this chapter undertakes a broader contextualisation of these stories and life histories by connecting them more overtly with wider discourses of educational change, the positioning of school leaders on this larger canvas, the shaping of their identities and the learning opportunities afforded them in the process of re-shaping school leaders’ conceptions of leadership while reforming schools. In making these interpretative shifts, the potential for conjuncture and disjuncture increases, while disrupting narratives has potential also to signal new insights and understandings into the ‘personality of change’. Legacies of leaders’ life histories There are several dimensions to the legacies these life histories provide. The word legacy is used in two senses in the present context. First, the identities of leaders are their own legacies in terms of the leadership identities they have been constructing and continue to negotiate through time and space while rooted in specific school communities and policy contexts. Second, their stewardship of school communities, whether brief or prolonged, also creates legacies of leadership that impact on and leave indelible, superficial or entirely invisible ‘marks’ on the waft and weave of those communities at individual and collective levels. In the first instance, the focus is on the legacy of leadership from the perspective of leaders’ identities. Despite increasing emphasis on leadership as a field of research during the past two decades in particular, such research is still at a relatively immature stage in its evolution and trajectory. Nevertheless, Leithwood and his colleagues ask, ‘why . . . do we need another book on leadership?’

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(1999, p. 3), and justify their contribution on the grounds that ‘ “Times Change”, and productive leadership depends heavily on its fit with the social and organizational context in which it is exercised. So as times change, what works for leaders changes also.’ However, they are quick to qualify this assertion when they continue: ‘This is not to deny that there are relatively enduring leadership qualities – qualities that travel well through time and across organizational contexts. But this is because some features of our times are a lot like features of earlier times.’ (p. 3) Tensions between continuity and change, between conjuncture and disjuncture are vividly apparent in the lives and work of contemporary school leaders, with no apparent diminution in turbulence as individuals cut their teeth and gain experience in the role. However, leadership literature itself may be complicit in fuelling disjuncture and deflating leaders’ identities and capacity to keep a particular narrative going, by talking up increasing complexity, something that is definitely the case, while simultaneously making several more additions to a job description that is commonly accepted to be already over-subscribed (Copland, 2001). In such circumstances, school leaders dig deeper and deeper into their substantial selves to find the necessary ballast to sustain the re-shaping of their emergent identities as school leaders. They strive to perpetuate the ‘myth’ of the super hero, either male or female, when it has ceased to capture the imagination of principals or those aspiring to the role. It is frequently only after they have assumed the role that the enormity of the challenge and complexity is revealed, when retreat is no longer an option for many. A recent study by Walker et al. (2003) conducted in rural Canada confirms the extent to which newly appointed principals under-estimate the amount of time needed to complete aspects of the role and their unpreparedness for several others, while they are also surprised by the factors that appear to determine their initial success, including ‘mentorship through a vice-principalship’ (p. 208). The absence of more clearly enunciated career paths to principalship, with attendant lack of traditions and processes of mentoring, means that it is more likely that classroom teachers will find themselves in the principal’s office to a large extent ‘clueless’. While longer-term classroom experience may be invaluable in all kinds of ways, initially it does not appear to be of much assistance as new principals get to grips with the myriad responsibilities that confront them on immediately assuming the role. The less preparation they have, the more likely they are to fall back on their lay theories of leadership that are often premised on a very narrow experiential base of having prior experience of a very limited number of principals during their teaching careers; lay theories that, due to the rapidity of change, are likely to perpetuate outmoded concepts of leadership of a heroic rather than a sustainable kind. They are immediately reliant on the force of their own personality, and whatever informal

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support systems they can manage to put in place to enable them to keep their heads above water while initially navigating from peripheral and inbound trajectories to a more central insider identity within the school community. It is not surprising that feelings of isolation, of vulnerability and of being overwhelmed to varying degrees are dominant emotions that are draining on passionate commitments. There are inevitable risks and anxieties associated with career moves, but the greater visibility and exposure experienced by newly appointed principals seems to lend heightened significance and legitimacy to these early preoccupations. Being cast in the role of leader appears to carry significant expectations from the community itself, and it would be a brave incumbent that would risk admitting openly to being ‘at sea’ in such circumstances. Clearly, therefore, there is a need to pay much more attention to career paths to principalship, and an important part of this mapping exercise is to put in place appropriate opportunities to learn, as well as learning support structures to minimise initial feelings of being overwhelmed, but also to prepare appointees more adequately for the complexity of the role. Research is needed also of a comparative kind to identify the extent to which adequate prior preparation has a significant influence on principals’ learning trajectories, their emerging identities, and leadership styles in terms of continuity or discontinuity, depending on which form of leadership is considered most appropriate within the life cycle of the particular school. Leaders’ identities: learning from idiosyncrasy Another important issue to emerge from the various portraits provided is of the personality of change, of the idiosyncratic nature of leaders’ identities that are shaped significantly by biography and the particularities of the school communities that they were appointed to lead. Negotiation of identity is both immediate and ongoing, with learning trajectories buffeted and constrained by shifting power relations within communities of practice. Context and biography are clearly crucial: ‘the central “building blocks” in the process’ (Goodson, 2003, p. 1). As Wenger (1998, p. 263) suggests: ‘identity formation is a lifelong process whose phases and rhythms change as the world changes.’ His perspective is a timely reminder also that individual careers have rhythms and cycles so that learning leadership over time emerges as an increasingly important issue. There is a very definite tension between individual learning and changing contexts, the rhythms of which are affected by the pace of change. A major tendency in leadership literature to date is to seek generalisations that will traverse individual identities and local circumstance. Wenger insists that this positivistic tendency sets limits to leadership learning and the negotiation of identity. He states:

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. . . there is a problem with this approach. It confuses abstraction with generality. The ability to apply learning flexibly depends not on abstraction of formulation but on deepening the negotiation of meaning. This in turn depends on engaging identities in the complexity of lived situations. I would argue that the problem of generality is not just an informational question; it is more fundamentally a question of identity, because identity is the vehicle that carries our experiences from context to context. (1998, p. 268) From this perspective, biography and local circumstance are not construed as barriers to learning; rather they are keys to it that cannot be ignored. Hargreaves and Goodson concur with this perspective while arguing additionally that such an approach has potential to shape an emergent postmodern professionalism where ‘a self-directed search and struggle for continuous learning related to one’s own expertise and standards of practice, rather than compliance with the enervating obligations of endless change demanded by others’ (1996, p. 21). Living as a leader of a school community while simultaneously learning about leaderships is significantly different from merely fulfilling a role or implementing a mandate, a set of abstracted prescriptions. Finding the ‘fit’, keeping the narrative going, is a continuous struggle, facilitated or exacerbated by the policy context in which principals are obliged to live and work. Being and becoming a leader is not a matter of acquiring particular skill sets to complete the tasks, solve the problems or do the fire-fighting, though such skills are extremely useful. What is much more evident from the portraits above is that the beliefs, values and commitments that shape and give substance to the passions of principals are the primary forces that are always present regardless of the nature of the immediate task. For this reason, Southworth (1995, p. 213) argues that ‘Headteacher development [at least in the British context] is driven by a bureaucratic rationale which values only effectiveness and technical training’. There is little room for artistry. By contrast, Fried indicates ‘passionate people are the ones who make a difference in our lives’ and this is achieved by ‘the intensity of their beliefs and actions’ (1995, p. 17). Despite the importance of passion, its essential viscosity to the ongoing construction of identity, inherent in it also are potential seeds of destruction, for, pushed too far, it becomes ‘messianic leadership’ where teaching colleagues are obliged to become passive ‘disciples’ or face marginalisation or worse by disagreeing and being labelled as ‘heretics’ (Southworth, 1995, p. 176). While passion is essential, it must not become essentialist. Passions are no longer sufficient; they must remain open to change. In modern and more stable times, they were the life forces that sustained. It is necessary in postmodern times to educate these same passions so that

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values, beliefs and attitudes, while continuing to be fundamental, are not merely the fossil fuels providing endless supplies of passionate commitment to fuel the system. Rather, they must be understood as a renewable energy for sustaining leadership through learning. They too must be renewed by critical engagement, in reflective isolation and in communities of practice. As indicated in Chapter 1, passion must also be compassionate, while recognising that ‘there is a whole host of problems that are not amenable to authoritative expertise or standard operating procedure’ (Heifetz and Linsky, 2002, p. 13). These authors argue, consistent with the evidence of the life histories presented here, that part and parcel of adaptation necessitates continuous learning rather than slavish implementation of old recipes, or indeed new recipes that are without meaning in specific contexts. They express their views in the following terms: ‘Without learning new ways – changing attitudes, values, and behaviours – people cannot make the adaptive leap necessary to thrive in the new environment. The sustainability of change depends on having the people with the problem internalize the change itself’ (2002, p. 13). Although passion provides commitment, it is necessary to commit to learning rather than rely exclusively on (blind) passion. Learning leadership therefore necessitates moving beyond passion also, where passions can be renewed, revitalised and sustained in the ongoing process of identity construction. However, busy-ness, the fast-paced nature of the role, long hours, visibility and vulnerability all contrive to fill the spaces and opportunities necessary for such learning to take place on a regular and ongoing basis. The learning trajectories of individual school leaders are complicated significantly and shaped by the fact that school communities too have rhythms and cycles that may resonate or be dissonant with their own identities. The life cycles of schools are another important legacy of school leadership with significant consequences for succession, and for learning and practising the art of leadership. The leadership legacies embedded in the life cycles of school communities also challenge decontextualised notions of leadership (Walker and Dimmock, 2002). Life cycles of school communities The life stories and life histories constructed in this text indicate that ascent to the position of principalship was largely a matter of individual choice and career trajectory, of opportunity – being in the right place at the right time – and appointments appear to be made without any real concern for or reference to the life cycles of schools, and whether continuity or discontinuity of leadership would suit its particular needs most adequately. Consequently, for example, Denise (Chapter 9) decided to apply for the principalship in the school in which she was still a young staff member, not because she felt ready for the role, but for fear of passing up

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an opportunity that might not be available again for the foreseeable future. Margaret (Chapter 5), too, wanted to take on the challenge at a particular career stage and out of a sense of growing confidence having invested significantly in her own learning, as well as being motivated to redress gender imbalances in the role, and to vindicate her female cohort, many of whom had been denied principalship opportunities. Kari, the Norwegian principal portrayed in Chapter 3, was at a career stage where she wanted to ‘move on’ while simultaneously returning to her rural roots. They share a common desire to make a difference. What these and other cases suggest is that the appointment of principals is quite serendipitous. Where principals are appointed to established schools they inherit a legacy, both in terms of the leadership identity of the previous incumbent, as well as the more general legacy that leaders have imprinted (or failed to impact) on the school community; the community has been ‘marked’ in various ways by that presence whether brief or extensive, in a surface and superficial or significant and sustained manner. In England, since the impact of Ofsted inspections and a focus on standards and national testing have become new orthodoxies over the past fifteen years, and where ‘failing schools’ have been identified, principals are more likely to be sought out, ‘head hunted’ to turn a particular school around, to get it moving in an unrelenting drive for continuous improvement increasingly determined by test results. In such circumstances, there is an attempt to have planned discontinuity, to appoint a new leader to make a fresh start. In Ireland, Norway and Denmark, by comparison, when principalship vacancies become available, it is much more likely that conversations within the wider education community focus on likely candidates, particularly the level of interest among the actual school staff, and predictions about who is likely to be successful and why; a kind of turf-club approach to succession where there is little or no concern for the life cycle of the school, the leadership legacy of the ‘retiring’ leader, or its particular needs and circumstances. Rather, it is a promotional opportunity that has become available and the more ambitious among the profession, who are within commuting distance or seek to relocate for lifestyle or career-stage reasons, declare themselves as runners in the race. Focus is very much on individuals and their career trajectories rather than the evolutionary stage of the school community. The approaches adopted in both instances have deeply embedded views on the nature of school leaders and leadership that need to be questioned and scrutinised. In such circumstances, principalship is seen in many instances as a prize, a promotion, as career advancement, while the needs of school communities are largely secondary considerations. The legacy of a previous leader, and the manner in which that community has been marked by the period of stewardship, is downplayed while the personalities of the prospective principals are put on ‘show’ through the process of interviewing. Given the increasing

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unattractiveness of the role to many teachers, the leadership pool is diminishing and this does not augur well for the future (Renihan, 1999; Copland, 2001; Hargreaves et al., 2003). Sustainable leadership, beyond passionate commitments, needs to be given a more prominent focus. This necessitates bringing the life cycles of school leaders into more productive tension with the life cycles and trajectories of school communities. Hargreaves and his colleagues (2003, p. 33) recognise this challenge in their recent study of succession and sustainability in Ontario secondary schools. In order to advance their thesis, they distinguish between planned and unplanned continuity and discontinuity. Consequently, the lottery of leadership becomes something of a gamble, a wheel of fortune where the learning trajectories of prospective principals are more likely to be significantly different from the leadership legacies of school communities. Additionally, as the pace of change accelerated during the past decade and policy-makers grew more anxious to improve schools with a plethora of interventionist and prescriptive policies, rapid rotation of principals frequently became the norm. However, their analysis leads them to conclude that ‘the rapid rotation of principals has created a revolving door syndrome . . . which has resulted in staff members going along with reform initiatives but withholding total commitment to whole school improvement’ (2003, p. 59). They argue persuasively that the merry-go-round has to stop. There needs to be greater cognizance taken of school community cycles as well as the individual career trajectories of principals so that continuity or discontinuity may be chosen deliberately for a school community. They conclude that ‘principals who intend to sustain improvement over the long term need sufficient time to negotiate their identity within the school’s community so they can move from the periphery to become insiders’ (ibid.). While rotating principalship may be ineffective, Chapter 9 clearly indicated that allowing leaders to remain in post for the long haul is not necessarily a panacea either. It has become a received orthodoxy within research literature that school leaders should be appointed for fixed periods, perhaps 7–10 years (see Mortimore et al. 1988), but such thinking seems premised on change in less rapid and turbulent times, and seems to focus more on the leadership capacities of individual principals rather than the time it takes to embed reforms within the identities of community members and school cultures. This approach also presupposes a more rational-linear view of policy to practise where the identity of the school leader is secondary to successful implementation strategies, whereas the life histories reveal leaders’ identities as a much more dynamic, fluid process. There needs to be a move to more contextualised understandings of school leaders’ identities in communion with their school communities; the rhythms of the school year, the life cycle of the principal – the personality of change – as well as the history and traditions of school communities, their socio-economic and cultural contexts.

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Another area of research, therefore, that emerges from a life-history approach to school leadership is a recognition that there is a need to bring together what is now evident – that school leaders have career trajectories and identities that continue to be shaped and reformed in communities of practice, and that schools as communities of practice go through periods from initial pioneers, to period of growth through stability. What happens subsequently is influenced to a significant extent by demographics, stability or instability of teaching staff, external pressures for reform, as well as the personality of leadership as embodied in the principal and the length of a principal’s stewardship. The appointment of principals, as well as their learning, therefore needs to become much more situated, and this represents a significant challenge to the literature and to the manner in which the field is re-conceptualised. Aspiring leaders, current leaders, their mentors, teachers and those who research the field, need to hold together leaders’ learning and identity construction while also getting to grips more with the dynamics of school communities. There needs to be greater awareness of continuity and discontinuity, whether planned or unplanned, leading to more sophisticated conceptualisations of the dynamics of sustainable leadership, so that more appropriate appointments may be made, and for periods that are apposite rather than administratively convenient. In order to achieve this, more longitudinal studies of leadership in a variety of school communities need to be undertaken so that these concerns may be more adequately understood and more appropriate strategies deployed to build more self-sustaining communities of learning and leadership. Undoubtedly, passion will continue to be an important ingredient in creating such sustainable communities, although it is becoming increasingly apparent that in more turbulent and less certain times, passions become dissipated or thwarted and in double-quick time, but neither does technical competence provide adequate answers. As Homer-Dixon indicates: Our modern approach to solving our problems tends to be rational and analytic – and thus starkly impoverished. I believe that reason by itself is not – cannot be – our ultimate salvation, and that we must instead call on our uniquely human capacity to integrate emotion and reason: to mobilize our moral sensibilities, create within ourselves a sense of the ineffable, and achieve a measured awareness of our place in the universe. (2001, p. 399) This approach acknowledges the significance of passionate commitment while indicating also a means to renew passions by moving beyond them. Significantly in this regard, he recognises that there is a need to question the taken-for-granted that leaders have used to sustain themselves until

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very recently, in a modern world where there continued to be certainties and end points. He says, ‘one fundamental change that . . . gets far too little attention: change in our values and in our perceptions of ourselves’ (p. 398) necessitates that we take on the more painful process of interrogating our own substantial self – its beliefs, values and commitments – whereas a largely technical-rational approach to leadership learning has tended to ignore this ballast and focus on problem solving. His insights are a timely reminder that passions too have to be questioned and re-invented as part of a more comprehensive approach to leadership learning and identity (re-)formation. In the world we inhabit, his perspective supports the evidence in previous chapters that having boundary and outbound learning trajectories are important dimensions of leadership learning in school communities, but this too is complicated and disrupted by large-scale policy reform initiatives that have their own cycles that are frequently on a different frequency, a different wavelength to the leadership trajectories of individual leaders as well as the life cycles of school communities. It is necessary to focus on these broader and more encompassing policy perspectives prior to putting the various pieces of this legacy into possible configurations within the field of leadership learning.

Cycles of leadership: national policies and global forces It was evident in earlier chapters that national policies, shaped by global forces, had implications at school-community level in terms of how principals negotiated their leadership identities. What school leaders are requested to do and to be is shaped significantly by a combination of politics and policies. While global forces may be at the outer limits of the field of forces that roam the world in an unbridled manner, national elites that comprise politicians and policy-makers harness those forces in various ways to frame reforms in an effort to give direction to educational agendas. The manner in which this occurs is shaped significantly by their own political positioning, party affiliation, the fickleness of electorates, the power of media to shape and thwart agendas, their own biographies, identities and career trajectories, as well as the life cycles of national governments and their large entourage of ‘specialist’ advisors and policy-makers. Considerably different and frequently shorter time frames are envisaged by policy-makers and reform-minded mandarins when enunciating their most recent school-reform initiative when compared with the life cycles of school leaders and school communities. In short, policy initiatives all too frequently arrive on the heels of their predecessors before principals and school communities have come up for air having lost their professional footing, temporarily ‘submerged’ by the previous reform wave. Such dis-

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equilibrium frequently leads to superficial adoption as a coping mechanism while reforms remain surface only; reforms become buoyancy aids that ‘bob’ on the surface while the real drama is played out less visibly. There is evidence in earlier chapters of market forces ideology being at an advanced stage of making its presence felt in the English education system. In Denmark, for example, despite an established tradition of ‘Folkeskoler’, of local participation and an emphasis on Bildung (character formation, education for citizenship), a characteristic shared with Norway, there was evidence too of market forces having an impact on the internal dynamics of school communities as school leaders struggle to forge new identities in the face of external demands for greater accountability, with consequences for dialogue, relationships and trust, a process that has intensified since fieldwork for this study was completed (see Appendices 1 and 4). In the Irish context, fear was expressed about the impact of leaders’ identities in a climate where demands for external accountability too are increasing (See Chapter 7). Although being played out very differently, at different stages in a policy-reform cycle, it is difficult to escape the general impression of a tendency towards creeping homogenisation across systems. Despite a general trend towards imposition of private-sector norms of the market and management in public-sector schools, with an increasing tendency also towards the privatisation of education, it is necessary to decipher what is at stake in such circumstances as a means of gaining additional insight into the challenges to the field of leadership and leaders’ identities in education. Stone (2002, p. 18) sets out the agenda thus: Because politics and policy can happen only in communities, community must be the starting point of our polis. Public policy is about communities trying to achieve something as communities. This is true even though there is almost always conflict within a community over what its goals should be and who its members are, and even though every communal goal ultimately must be achieved through the behavior of individuals. Unlike the market, which starts with individuals and assumes no goals, preferences, or intentions other than those held by individuals, a mode of the polis assumes both collective will and collective effort. Stone’s polis is Wenger’s community of practice. When policy-makers become preoccupied with efficiency, standards and accountability measures, and impose rigid regimes of regulation through national testing, and add additional pressures to conform to these external prescriptions through high-stakes inspection of school communities, leaders become enforcers of national or state policies, leaving less space and opportunity for disagreement, professional judgment and autonomy, not to mention dissent or

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principled disagreement. Principals, in particular, as gatekeepers between policy mandates externally imposed and the dynamics of the school community in which they serve, are operating along with their colleagues on what Stone describes as the ‘influence–coercion’ continuum (p. 24). The deregulation of education by the imposition of policies that are consistent with neo-liberal economic policies, poses considerable challenge to the notion of schools as communities, for the former gives primacy to choice and competition, the possibility of individual gain, while the latter retains a sense of collective, of communitas, of common goals and actions. On this basis, Stone concludes: ‘The major dilemma of policy . . . is how to get people to give primacy to these broader consequences in their private calculus of choice, especially in an era when the dominant culture celebrates private consumption and personal gain’ (2002, p. 25). Personal gain, in an educational context, is usually achieved at the expense of someone else, particularly if educational benefits are rationed on a winner-takes-all basis. More importantly, as the pace of change accelerates, and competition for advantage in global markets increase, and intensifies, there is increasing pressure on schools, and their leaders, to become more competitive, to reduce complexity to a set of prescriptions, to treat learners as ‘fodder’ for low-wage work so that jobs are not ‘lost’ to the bottomline considerations of multi-national companies that seek out the cheapest labour pool, whether in ‘new’ EU countries, India, Asia or, as the song says, ‘south of the border, down Mexico way’. The growing homogenisation evident particularly in Denmark, Norway and Ireland is indicative of the influence of global forces, thus shaping a pervasive orthodoxy: . . . of placing the full burden on schools and schools alone––the orthodoxy of a one-best-school for all students––. . . is at best inadequate and, at worst, willfully blind to a history filled with examples of reform-minded elites expecting schools to solve severe social problems and then blaming students, teachers and administrators for failing to remedy those very same problems. (Cuban, 2003, p. 59) Cuban suggests that there is an ongoing tension between ‘experience produced knowledge’ and ‘research produced knowledge’ and that it is important to hold these in productive tension, while simultaneously recognising that frequently policy-reform initiatives are redolent of ‘values embedded in these proposals’ that are ‘a matter of faith, not scientific findings’ (p. 59). What is clearly evident from the foregoing chapters is that global rhetorics have become matters of faith, particularly since we are moving in uncharted waters, and where these are applied with coercive power through agencies and agents, the passions of principals are often blunted and dimmed, while others have found creative ways in which to

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retain, protect and facilitate spaces where professional judgment and autonomy are respected and understood as important tools in the process of identity formation. Otherwise, teachers and principals can be cloned and distributed at will purely on a supply-and-demand basis, without reference to biography or the institutional histories and traditions of school communities. From a market perspective, this may be highly efficient; from a human perspective, from a learning and identity perspective, this is catastrophic. However, there remains a need to find balance between giving direction and prescription, between policies that promote learning rather than prescribe leaders’ and teachers’ identities. Policy-makers and politicians as elected representatives tend to privilege short-wave cycles of reform, and frequently seek (superficial) evidence of adoption and success. This cycle of policy intervention confuses wave motion with energy generation, with conservation and efficient distribution, as well as with sustainable and renewable use. However, increasingly, policies are not just national agendas set by prominent politicians, they are subject to irresistible global forces that are more difficult to control. The dynamics of leadership learning and identity construction evident in the earlier chapters point to a homogenising tendency in school reform due to global forces. Schools are no longer nineteenth-century institutions impervious to outside influences. Rather, they are communities with porous boundaries where they are buffeted by more immediate and distant forces. Stiglitz (2002, p. 270) expresses this new reality in the following terms: ‘Globalization has meant that what is said in one place becomes known quickly around the world and policies in one country can have enormous implications for another.’ There are, he argues, ‘underlying forces at work’ (p. 271), and this was particularly apparent in various guises in the foregoing chapters – the necessity to become more accountable and the struggles created to find continuity in leaders’ identities when imposed reforms that run counter to passions constrict the spaces and opportunities for negotiation, autonomy and professional judgments. Goodson (2004, p. 5) situates this scenario within a ‘change forces’ framework when he states: In historical terms, it is not at all surprising that ‘change forces’ and pervasive restructuring initiatives should be sweeping the world at the moment. Since 1989, we have seen a seismic shift in the world in terms of the dominant political ideologies. Beyond the triumphalist ‘end of history’ line peddled by camp followers, lies the belief that American democratic and business values have now vanquished all alternative political and economic systems. Principals who grapple with external pressures for accountability and standards have to work much harder at creating trust and stability within

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their respective communities of practice. There was evidence that, fighting the perceived common enemy of imposed standards by Ofsted in the English context, or district demands in the Danish and Norwegian contexts, and even in the more benign context of the Irish system, evidence of a general homogenising tendency is apparent, while these fields of forces are refracted differently within national and local contexts due to differing historical traditions of education, the agency, idiosyncrasy and learning trajectories of individual principals. The dogma of the ‘free market’ is poorly equipped to bring about sustainable reforms because ‘reforming schools is essentially a series of political acts, not technical solutions to problems’ (Cuban, 2003, p. 59). From a common-sense perspective, it does not seem sensible that schools in these various jurisdictions, urban, surburban and rural, disadvantaged and economically and socially privileged, should put all students through the same wine press, in an identical fashion regardless of their route to the school-house door. As Cuban suggests: ‘the very core of the contemporary educational orthodoxy that calls for colorblind, class-blind equal treatment places the entire burden for achieving success on the individual student and the school while ignoring structural inequalities’ (2003, pp. 54–55). The influence of global forces has resulted in this orthodoxy being implemented on an international scale; there is a growing awareness of our increasing interdependence (Homer-Dixon, 2001; Stiglitz, 2002). It is necessary for school principals to grapple with this ‘bigger picture’, to be able to locate themselves individually and collectively within this larger canvas as a means of re-shaping passions with purpose (Fullan, 2003). The recent meeting of the World Social Forum in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) provides concrete evidence that the ‘glocalisation’ (Beck, 2000) of these forces is already advanced, and the voices of those drowned out and silenced by the power of market forces are beginning to find common cause (Shaw, 2004). As Stiglitz (2002, p. 273) suggests, ‘with interdependence comes a need for collective action’. Research on school leaders’ lives and work, and on reconceptualisation of the field, needs also to grapple with this growing interdependence, to find common cause while seeking to celebrate difference and ingenuity, rather than seeking international mantras for training leaders. More elaborate means of conducting comparative studies on a longitudinal basis are needed. While Wolcott’s admonition about the dominance of survey research in the field of administration may be dated, it is probably worth repeating. If the complexity of leaders’ roles and the contexts in which they toil are considered adequately so that leadership studies are appropriately socio-politically and socio-historically situated, then his advice continues to have resonance: Human beings get lost in masses of figures which bury the very subject of study. The surveys tell us too little about too many, and they tell us

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more about how the subjects acted during the filling out of a questionnaire than about how they act in their ‘real’ life. (1973, p. xiv) As Hargreaves and his colleagues suggest, research has tended to focus too much on ‘transformational leadership’ rather than ‘transformational leaders’ (2003, p. 2). It is necessary to get to know much more about the lives and work of successful (and unsuccessful) school leaders, while paying attention to context, idiosyncracy and biography, to build the knowledge-base of leaders and leadership out of the vicissitudes of their increasingly complex worlds. While life history is labour intensive and time consuming, and particularly challenging for purposes of international comparison, this study suggests that it has potential to make a ‘telling’ contribution to the field. There is a need to come full circle, to recognise that globalisation, despite its apparent unrelenting force, is dependent on individuals: local and international are interdependent. This interdependence calls for a new vision that extends particularly to teachers and school leaders. For, as Stiglitz states: Like it or not, the policies that we adopt today do shape our society. They are a reflection of our values, and they send important messages to our youth about what we value. . . . Globalization affects the kinds of societies that are being created throughout the world. And it is precisely because those in the rest of the world are aware of this that emotions about globalization run so high: we have been pushing a set of policies that is increasing inequality abroad, and in some cases, undermining traditional institutions. (2003, p. 319) Schools as traditional institutions have been undermined, and the challenge of leading such institutions has become increasingly unattractive if not untenable. But there is an alternative: to begin to harness the passions of teachers and leaders anew, to transform individual passions into collective action, into ‘an alternative vision, one based on global social justice, and a balanced role for the government and the market. It is a vision that we should be striving for’ (Stiglitz, 2003, p. 319). What would such a vision for school leadership look like, and what tentative first steps might be indicated here, or what ideas gleaned from the life stories and life histories of flesh-and-blood school principals might be used to set up base-camp for such a journey?

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Beyond passionate principalship: learning to rekindle passions with purpose •

The personality of change is a fundamental building block of sustainable leadership, where passions continue to play a vital role in the lives and work of principals

Earlier chapters indicate convincingly that creating identity is an incremental learning process that is ongoing. Kingwell (2000, p. 221) reminds the reader that ‘we are in danger of losing the idea that a future is created, bit by bit, out of our political desires and choices’. Consequently, he says: ‘That’s why we need positive visions to balance the fashionably cynical ones, need them now more than ever . . . without them we are unmoored, cut loose from ourselves.’ Such visions, though perhaps utopian, have a crucially important function: ‘they are . . . expressions of unreal possibility, meant to arouse hope and focus action’ (p. 220). We need a new politics of school leadership with passion, purpose and possibility. Teachers are leaders in their respective classrooms; thus there is an untapped reservoir of leadership potential that needs to be recognised, cultivated and harvested for the benefit of school communities. This is the gene pool from which school principals of the future are to be selected (Fullan, 2003; Hargreaves et al., 2003). Consequently, much greater attention must be paid to the leadership potential of teachers from the beginning of their teaching careers if not in initial teacher education. The more teachers voice their leadership desires and express alternative visions for leadership in school communities, the richer the possibilities. Lack of connection between school leaders and the pool of leadership potential among teachers has led to the perpetuation of the myth of the superprincipal. According to Sennett (1996, pp. 80–81), myth allows ‘telling a tale while disclaiming responsibility’ for it. In modern times, when beliefs, values and commitments were more secure and anchored within culture and tradition, when the purposes of schooling were more widely shared, and in the absence of global competitive forces that appear to necessitate constant intervention on the part of policy-makers, it was possible to indulge in the myth of the superprincipal. This myth encouraged principals to commit passionately to making a difference despite the demands on their lives. In postmodern times with attendant complexity of the role and responsibilities, the necessity to ‘go wider and deeper’ (Hargreaves and Fullan, 1998), and the need to be aware of the ‘big picture’ (Fullan, 2003), the myth is no longer sustaining; belief in the myth has been successively shattered, leading to an identity crisis among school leaders. There is a need for a new myth. The rituals attached to the practice of principalship are no longer sufficient and when this occurs ‘the repertoire of past . . . practices lack a sufficient explanatory scope to make

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sense of crises in the present’ (Sennett, 1996, p. 85). The basis of this new myth is to understand leadership as a creative act that combines passion with reason and purpose (Starratt, 1993). Myths and their attendant rituals have the capacity to bond together and to build trust, and provide mutual affirmation, capacities that isolated principals need to cultivate within school communities and within the various formal and informal networks of learning that are emerging. However, as Sennett points out, ‘reason has cause to suspect ritual, for ritual contains its own fatal defect in binding people together’ (1996, p. 82). The rites of leadership need to be open constantly to being altered and re-shaped by reason so that learning leadership is a continuous struggle to create identity, to recognise and hold in productive tension the necessity for risk and security, continuity and discontinuity. It is necessary to recognise that the art of learning leadership is anchored in the personality of change, its attendant lay theories, passionate commitments and career trajectories. The continuities of ritual and the discontinuities of reason are the fault-lines along which the art of leadership learning is practised and shaped. These lines of learning leadership need to be situated within the life cycles of school communities. •

School communities have life cycles and trajectories that have a ‘life of their own’, that leave a particular legacy, while that legacy is influenced though not determined by the legacy of particular leaders

In re-shaping the field of leadership learning, therefore, it is necessary to recognise the issue of succession, of continuity and discontinuity as a major concern in the appointment of principals, as well as for their ongoing education. Sergiovanni suggests that in the process of holding rite and reason in productive tension, it is necessary to ‘think amoeba’ (2001, p. 7). The rite and reason of thinking amoeba he describes in the following terms: Running a school is like trying to get a giant amoeba to move from one side of the street to another. As the ‘glob’ slips off the curb onto the street and begins its meandering journey, the job of the leaders is to figure out how to keep it together, while trying to move it in the general direction of the other side. This involves pulling here, pushing there, patching holes, supporting thin parts and breaking up logjams. Schools’ lumbering legacies of leadership are part of the context of learning leadership. It is necessary to study both at once and in different contexts to gain greater insight into their mutual shaping; to learn more about the need for continuity and discontinuity in succession. It is necessary also to increase understanding of the dynamics of leaders’ learning trajectories and how these impact on school communities at different times during the

180 Ciaran Sugrue

life cycles of schools. These foci have potential to provide important information also about the relative success of forms of leadership, of the personality of change and its potential to influence, re-shape or reverse the life cycles of schools, and in the process also provide indication of the time needed to create sustainable forms of leadership and thus move away from revolving-door approaches to principalship. It is only when such evidence is generated that we will know if leadership is genuinely transformative rather than transient, and be better equipped to determine the need for continuity or discontinuity in terms of the appointment of principals. This is a major research agenda that requires attention, that has potential also to build international collaboration in ways that seek to respect the personality of change, and the contexts of schooling, while being mindful also of the homogenising tendencies of global forces. •

Reform initiatives are becoming more frequent, and often also more demanding in terms of early evidence of impact and/or adoption. When combined with revolving-door approaches to principalship, there is an increasing tendency also towards prescription, demands for accountability that are inimical to trust, relationships and agency of principals and teachers and frequently unaware of the particular needs of school communities and their life cycles

Building sustainable leadership, and enabling principals to negotiate their identities in communities of practice has become increasingly impossible and certainly unattractive due to these unrelenting (and unrealistic) demands. Building sustainable leadership from the ground up will necessitate a much more selective approach to reform initiatives than heretofore. However, existing and emerging power relations, and the influence of global forces towards greater coercion, prescription and demands for accountability, are increasingly squeezing the life blood out of leaders and teachers. There is neither rhyme nor reason to this unrelenting pressure. However, the challenge to the research community is to provide evidence that reconfiguring relationships across the personality of change, the life cycles of school communities and policy contexts enables principals to build leadership identities and the leadership capacities of others in sustainable ways that actually increase the pool of leadership. Fullan argues that ‘there is no more important journey for society over the next decade than the one on which the public school system has embarked’ (2003, p. 80). While clearly the mission of public schooling, locally and internationally, is being held up for critical scrutiny, and its future remains uncertain, it is easier to agree with his perspective when he says that ‘it’s time for school leadership to come of age’ (p. 80). In coming of age, passionate commitment of school leaders will be no less important than in the past. Rather, these personal forces will need to

Principalship 181

be harnessed by a commitment to learning, and an ongoing commitment to identity construction. The professional learning provided for principals and the more formal and informal peer and intergenerational learning opportunities they create for themselves, more than ever, will need to reflect this necessity for a marriage between rite and reason, between commitment to learning that extends where appropriate to collective action (Sachs, 2003). Sustainable leadership learning needs to include passionate commitment to: •

•

•

•

Know thyself: to interrogate values, beliefs and commitments so that we know who we are and what we are for in a personal and educational sense Know the context: to be familiar with and have understanding of the strengths and limitations of school communities as well as cultivating the thinking tools that enable community members to both celebrate and criticise, to act individually or collectively Know ideas: to be committed to life-long learning by being connected with ideas on leadership, where they originate and the invisible hands that shape them, and to refract them in productive ways within their own learning communities Develop skills: recognise that particular skills are more important than others, depending on leadership priorities, the life cycles of schools and policy contexts, and to hone and acquire appropriate skills on a needs basis rather than thinking that all skills must be developed at once

Of course, in order that leadership identities become more secure and more sustainable, and leadership roles more attractive to teachers, this commitment to learning, and its attendant opportunities to learn, must be much more widely accessible both within and without school communities, combining the benefits of peer and intergenerational learning. The passions necessary for sustainable leadership in more uncertain times need these more elaborate learning opportunities. While individual agency, idiosyncrasy and the personality of change remain central to sustainable leadership, they need to be connected more systematically with their various contexts so that leadership remains grounded in life and work, and not reified in abstractions. We must not lose sight of the flesh-and-blood realities of principals as schools of the future are created. Rather, their voices must be heard above the cacophony of policy prescriptions. If the chapters in this book enable some of those voices to be heard and their distinctive contributions have a ‘telling’ effect as they resonate with principals and researchers, then their lives and work will live on in the learning of others, their passions renewed and imbued with new purpose, and more sustainable leadership identities secured through individual agency and collective endeavour.

182 Ciaran Sugrue

References Beck, U. (2000) What Is Globalization?, Cambridge: Polity Press. Block, P. and 30 Flawless Consultants, assisted by Markovik, A. M. (2000) The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook Companion: a guide to understanding your expertise, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer. Copland, M. A. (2001) The Myth of the Superprincipal, Phi Delta KAPPAN, Vol. 82, No. 7, pp. 528–533. Cuban, L. (2003) Why Is It So hard to get GOOD Schools?, New York and London: Teachers’ College Press. Fullan, M. (2003) The Moral Imperative of School Leadership, with a foreword by J. Goodlad, Toronto and Thousand Oaks: Ontario Principals’ Council and Corwin Press. Goodson, I. F. (2003) The Personality of Change: personal missions and professional development, draft paper, unpublished. Goodson, I. F. (2004) Change Processes and Historical Periods: an international perspective, in C. Sugrue (ed.) Curriculum and Ideology: Irish experiences, internatonal experiences, Dublin: The Liffey Press, pp. 19–34. Goodson, I. F. and Sikes, P. (eds) (2001) Life History Research In Educational Settings, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press. Hargreaves, A. (1994) Changing Teachers, Changing Times, London: Cassell. Hargreaves, A. and Fullan, M. (1998) What’s Worth Fighting for Out There?, New York: Teachers’ College Press. Hargreaves, A. and Goodson, I. F. (1996) Teachers’ Professional Lives: Aspirations and Actualities, in I. F. Goodson and A. Hargreaves (eds) Teachers’ Professional Lives, London: Falmer Press, pp. 1–27. Hargreaves, A., Moore, S., Fink, D., Brayman, C. and White, R. (2003) Succeeding Leaders? A study of principal succession and sustainability, Toronto: OISEUT (funded by the Ontario Principals’ Council). Heifetz, R. A. and Linsky, M. (2002) Leadership on the Line: staying alive through the dangers of leading, Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Homer-Dixon, T. (2001) The Ingenuity Gap, Toronto: Vintage Canada. Kingwell, M. (2000) The World We Want: virtue, vice and the good citizen, Toronto: Penguin. Leithwood, K., Jantzi, D. and Steinbach, R. (1999) Changing Leadership for Changing Times, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press. Mortimore, P., Sammons, P., Stoll, L., Lewis, D. and Ecob, R. (1988) School Matters: the junior years, London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Munro, P. (1998) Subject to Fiction: women teachers’ life history narratives and the cultural politics of resistance, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press. Renihan, P. (1999) In-school Leadership for Saskatchewan Schools: issues and strategies, Regina: Saskatcewan School Trustees Association. Sachs, J. (2003) The Activist Teaching Profession, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press. Sennett, R. (1996) Flesh and Stone: the body and the city in western civilization, New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company. Sergiovanni, T. (2001) Leadership: what’s in it for schools?, London/New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Principalship 183 Shaw, H. (2004) Behind the Rhetoric of Anti-globalisation Forums, the Poor are Developing a Voice (A powerful alliance of the poor emerges in the developing world). Irish Times, 27 January, p. 16. Southworth, G. (1995) Looking into Primary Headship, London: Falmer Press. Starratt., R. J. (1993) The Drama of Leadership, London: Falmer Press. Stiglitz, J. (2002) Globalization and Its Discontents, London: Penguin. Stiglitz, J. (2003) The Roaring Nineties Seeds of Destruction, London: Allen Lane. Stone, D. (2002) Policy Paradox: the art of political decision making (rev. edn), New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company. Sugrue, C. (ed.) (2004) Curriculum and Ideology: Irish experiences, international perspectives, Dublin: The Liffey Press. Walker, A. and Dimmock, C. (eds) (2002) School Leadership and Administration: adopting a cultural perspective, New York and London: RoutledgeFalmer. Walker, K., Anderson, K., Sackney, L. and Woolf, J. (2003) Unexpected Learning by Neophyte Principals: factors related to success of first year principals in schools, Managing Global Transitions, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 195–213. Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wolcott, H. F. (1973) The Man in the Principal’s Office, Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press Inc.

Appendices

M M M M M M F F M F M M F M

Arne Jens Jan

Harald Paul Jens Vera Gro

Poul Mette Sten Tom

Bolette Bent

Recent (2) Recent (2)

Recent (5) Recent (5) Recent (4) Recent (4)

Established (11) Established (11) Established (8) Established (7) Established (6)

Veteran (28) Veteran (25) Veteran (22)

Career stage (years)

‘Folke’ (380) ‘Folke’ (260)

‘Folke’ (500) ‘Folke’ (510) ‘Folke’ (440) ‘Folke’ (540) Suburb Capital

Suburb Capital Capital Suburb

Capital Suburb Suburb Capital Capital

Suburb Suburb Capital

‘Folke’2 (565) ‘Folke’ (570) ’Folke’ (480) ‘Folke’ (500) ‘Folke’ (630) ‘Folke’ (350) ‘Folke’ (420) ‘Folke’ (390)

School context

School (type and no. of students)

49 47

43 49 47 49

51 54 45 53 52

58 58 55

Age

Notes 1 Inside or outside current school; 2 Folke: the Danish ‘Folkeschool’ is primary and lower secondary, age 6–16; 3 Teacher Training College.

Sex

Pseudonym

Outside Outside

Outside Outside Outside Outside

Outside Outside Outside Outside Outside

Outside Outside Outside

Recruited 1

Appendix 1 Profiles of Danish principals interviewed

– 1990 1991 1986, 1990 1990 1992

1980 1975 1990 – 1989, 1994

1971 1973 1975

Deputy (year)

1997 1997

1994 1994 1995 1995

1988 1988 1991 1992 1993

1974 1974 1978

1st leadership (year)

1997

1997

1998

1992

1992

2nd leadership (year)

TTC TTC

TTC TTC TTC TTC

TTC TTC TTC TTC TTC MA

TTC3 TTC TTC

Education

1 1 1 2 – – – – – – – –

Gillian Lucy

Mary Tim

Jane Sarah Keith

Jenny

David Alan Cliff Paul

– – – –

11

4 6 10

– –

– –

Established

14 20 24 21

–

– – –

– –

– –

Veteran

450 B&G 234 B&G 600 B&G 400 B&G

140 B&G

220 B&G 300 B&G 220 B&G

200 B&G 180 B&G

230 B&G 140 B&G

School size

7–11 Suburban 4–11 Suburban 3–11 Suburban 3–11 Suburban

7–11 Suburban 4–11 Suburban 4–11 Roman Catholic 4–11 Suburban 5–11 Church of England 4–11 Suburban

7–11 Suburban 4–11 Church of England 4–11 Suburban 4–11 Suburban 3–11 Suburban

School context

Second Yes Second Yes

Second

Yes Yes Second

Yes Yes

Yes Yes

Only principalship

Yes Yes Yes No

Yes

Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes

Yes Yes

Deputy

Cert. Ed., BEd ‘Higher degree’ MEd BEd Diploma in Advanced Educational Studies

Diploma

MEd MEd

Cert. Ed. MEd

Qualifications

Note Some categories of information were not collected in this context, and for various reasons it was not possible to gather it at a later date.

Recent

Pseudonym

Appendix 2 Profiles of English principals interviewed

2 3 5 – – – – – – – –

Rose

Kate David

Eddie

Michelle

Jerry Margaret

Alison

Jim

Jack

Fred

–

–

–

–

9 8–9

10

10 – 2 schools

– –

–

–

20⫹

20⫹

15

20+

3 B&G

20⫹ B&G

4 B&G

20+ G

17 B 8 B&G

17 B&G

5 B&G

17 G 6 B&G

16 G

12 B&G

Veteran School size

45–50 Inside 50–55 Outside

40–45 Outside

35–40 Outside

55–60 Inside 30–35 Outside

35–40 Outside

Suburban Disadvantaged Rural Changing

50–55 First Yes principal 50–55 Outside Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes Yes

Yes

Second

Yes Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

No No

No

No

Yes No

No

No

NT (Diploma) BEd Dip. Ed. Mgt BEd Dip. Ed. Mgt. MEd BEd MEd (in progress) NT, BEd Dip. Froebel, BEd MEd NT, BA, H.Dip.Ed MSc Ed. Mgt NT, BA, H. Dip. Ed. MSc (in progress) NT, BA, H. Dip. Ed. MEd NT, BA, H. Dip. Ed. MA

BEd

BEd

Recruited Only Deputy Qualifications principalship

30–35 Inside

Age

Suburban 50–55 Inside Mixed/changing Rural 45–50 Inside

Suburban Disadvantaged Large town Small town

Rural

Suburban Irish language Urban Middle-class Large town Rural

School context

Notes NT ⫽ National Teaching Diploma (the actual designation is National Teacher).

2

Denise

Pseudonym Recent Established

Appendix 3 Profiles of Irish principals interviewed

M M

F F M M

Erik

Kari

Hilde

Stein

Birger

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

13

12

6

31

21

18

20

–

–

–

Primary 100

Primary and lower secondary 345 Lower secondary 200 Primary 200

Lower secondary 400 Primary 300

Primary 540

Rural 125 years

Rural 25 years Rural 50 years

Rural 49 years

Suburban 40 years Rural 40 years

Suburban 19 years

Suburban 28 years

62

59

62

57

56

59

52

40

Inside

Inside

Inside

Outside

Inside

Outside

Inside

Outside

Yes

Yes

Yes

Second

First

Second

Yes

Yes

Teachers College, Leadership

University, BEd, Degree in Special Education

Qualifications

Teachers College, Degree in Special Education

No

5 years

2 years

University, Leadership Teachers’ College, BEd, School Improvement Teachers’ College. BEd, Leadership

10 years Teachers College, Leadership

5 years

3
 years Teachers’ College, BEd. Special Education, Migration Education, Leadership 2 years University, BEd

4 years

No

Vivian

–

–

Yes

F

–

Outside

Lisa

2

42

F

Special school, primary– secondary 20 Primary 295

Pia

–

Suburban 4 years

–

M

Lars

3

School context Age Recruited Only Deputy ⫹ age principalship

Pseudonym Sex Recent Established Veteran School ⫹ size

Appendix 4 Profiles of Norwegian principals interviewed

The Danish educational context 189

Appendix 5 The Danish educational context Lejf Moos Danish educational culture in transition The Danish school system is part of the public sector in a country that is now a member of the European Union. Danish society has become part of the global trend of market orientation and standardisation. Its welfare system is being influenced increasingly by global trends and is undergoing restructuring (MacBeath et al., 1998). Decentralisation is carried through on a broad scale with more emphasis on economic rather than democratic values, greater emphasis on market values and less on state and civic values. Many aspects of New Public Management are being advanced in the Danish context. There is a changing discourse and changing notions of restructuring of governance in Denmark similar to neighbouring countries. There is a definite policy shift from equity through a centralised welfare-state governance, towards a school policy based on choice, deregulation, evaluation and managerialism (Johannesson et al., 2002). Both non-social-democratic governments as well as social-democratic governments have formulated and elaborated deregulation and managerialism, and the differences between parties have eroded to a considerable extent. Politicians do not see themselves as tearing down the welfare state. Rather, they argue that they are making what is good better than before (Johannesson et al., 2002). The population in Denmark is rather homogenous, but in larger towns and cities this is changing due to immigration from Third World countries. However, immigration has been halted recently by the neo-liberal government. The population density is half that of England, with an increasing tendency for population to be concentrated in the larger urban centres. This makes it difficult financially to maintain schools in rural areas, but the political majority still wants to maintain most small schools. Major trends in Danish culture and educational thinking still come from the author and politician N. F. S. Grundtvig and the co-operative movement (that includes, for example, bacon factories, banks, dairies and slaughterhouses) in the rural areas. This movement was started in the mid 1800s and has been more powerful than urban industries and trades until more recent decades. The principals of Danish ‘Folkeskoler’ (primary and lower secondary schools) are by tradition called ‘school inspectors’. This title seems more appropriate to a manager in a strongly regulated institution than to a leader in a locally managed school with many tasks and responsibilities devolved from the national and local authorities. Decentralisation

190 Appendix 5

is carried through on a broad scale. Responsibility for finances and administration of Folkeskole is devolved to municipalities and from there to schools. Recently, traditional site-based management has been redefined whereby schools have become financially autonomous and accountable. School leaders now manage very large sections of the budget in collaboration with School Boards where parents enjoy majority representation. Legislative responsibility for objectives of the schools continues to reside with Parliament/Ministry but interpretations and administration of the curriculum – that is fairly broad in its demands – is devolved to municipalities (that very often leaves it unattended) and to schools themselves. At present (since the life-history interviews), the New Public Management shift from emphasis on processes to greater focus on outcomes and on accountability is gaining momentum. For example, schools are now obliged to ‘publish’ the results of school leaving tests on their web sites. The government is issuing national, binding ‘goals’ (mostly for every two years) that are much tighter and more prescriptive than the curriculum used to be. There is also a focus on economic incentives such as merit pay for teachers. In addition, there is a focus on top-down management. Administrators and politicians look to industry and the private sector for inspiration. An illustration of this tendency is the recent provision of a postgraduate diploma in leadership that purports to be relevant to leaders in industry public service as well as in education. School leaders (Moos et al., 2000) increasingly experience a tension between the national objectives for schools (that focuses on liberal education – Bildung/Dannelse – educating children for citizenship in a democratic society), the local authorities’ demand for financial accountability and the school culture. Teachers used to be very autonomous and therefore not eager to be managed or led by the ‘new, strong, visible’ school leaders as described by government and the National Association of Local Authorities (a major player in the power game). While the application of market thinking was regarded as a vital ingredient in the renewal of education in the 1980s in the UK, similar changes have been implemented in Scandinavia more than a decade later. Although Norway was probably the last country in the region to join this ‘international movement’, Denmark has been adopting neo-liberal reforms in its renewal of education for approximately a decade (Lindblad et al., 2002). Consequently, there is increased individualism and less emphasis on alleviating the impact of socio-economic and cultural differences. School actors are encouraged to adopt a managerial language of planning, evaluation, implementation and accountability, and school principals have demonstrated an uncommon degree of alacrity in adopting this rhetoric as a shaping influence on their identities (Johannesson et al., 2002).

The Danish educational context 191

School leadership in Denmark There are approximately 1600 Danish Folkeschools and these are relatively modest in size: 6 per cent have less than 100 students, 37 per cent have 100–300 students and 56 per cent have more than 301 students. Very few have more than 600 students, while 12 to 14 per cent of students attend private schools. A small number of these are religious, some are ideological, while others are ‘good old-fashioned schools’. All schools have a principal (‘school inspector’) and one or more deputies or department leaders. In the average school size (400–500 students) there is typically a principal without teaching responsibilities and a deputy who teaches approximately half a weekly workload. The bigger the school, the more department leaders, all of whom have substantial teaching duties but not a full complement. Department leaders are normally not subject leaders; they have responsibility for leading a section of the school such as from kindergarten through to grade three. All principals must be educated teachers and have at least a few years of teaching experience before they take on a principalship. However, there is no demand for them to have leadership education prior to appointment. In reality, some municipalities only have established short training courses for potential principals. At the national level, there is no education programme for potential principals. There are a number of courses (three to four weeks full time over a period of two years) for newly appointed principals. As recently as autumn 2003, the leadership diploma referred to above has been established and is underpinned by the assumption that there are generic leadership skills that may be applied in both the public and private sectors. Approximately 50 per cent of Danish principals are members of the Danish Teachers’ Union; the remainder formed a union of their own four to five years ago. Principals are paid according to a separate salary scale and they can negotiate additional allowances, as can teachers. The element that may be negotiated is quite modest, but for principals the portion that may be negotiated is increasing. The majority of Danish Folkeschools are making departments and selfmanaging teams of teachers manage and lead those departments. Very often the departments will be kindergarten class through to grade three, grade four through to grade seven, and grade eight through to grade nine or ten. In most municipalities the recreation centres are being made part of the school, having the same board and the same principal and very often collaborating closely with teachers and the school as a whole. This is difficult, however, because two very different professional cultures need to understand and accept each other: teachers and leisure-time pedagogues. The two groups are educated at separate training colleges and their working conditions have been quite different. Getting these two groups to collaborate is a big challenge for school leaderships.

192 Appendix 5

One effect of the decentralisation of finances and administration on schools is that the load of administrative tasks has grown considerably and most principals complain that it makes it almost impossible to find the time for educational leadership. This is one of the reasons for many municipalities piloting new leadership structures. They are changing/transforming one educational department leader into an administrative department leader. This person is chosen on the basis of his/her administrative education and experiences and he/she is taking care of administrative tasks only. This department leader is subordinate to the principal, so the final decisions and the long-term strategies are still lead by a pedagogically educated leader. Although more than 60 per cent of teachers in Folkeschools are female, 40 per cent of principals are female (Moos, 2001). However, in bigger cities there are more female principals while in rural areas male principals predominate. The proportion of women in deputy posts is higher than in principal posts. There is almost total silence on this equity issue in Danish society.

References Johannesson, I.A., Lindblad, Sverker and Simola, H. (2002) An Inevitable Progress? Educational restructuring in Finland, Iceland and Sweden at the turn of the millennium, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 325–340. Lindblad, L., Johannesson, I. A. and Simola, H. (2002) Education Governance in Transition: an introduction, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 237–246. MacBeath, J., Moos, L. and Riley, K. (1998) Time for a Change, in J. MacBeath, L. Moos and K. Riley (eds) Effective School Leadership: responding to change, London: Chapman, pp. 20–31. Moos, L. (2001) Folkeskoleledernes arbejdsvilkår [Principals’ Conditions at Work], København: Danmarks Lærerforening. Moos, L., Carney, S., Johansson, O. and Mehlbye, J. (2000) Skoleledelse i Norden [School Leaders in the Nordic Countries], København: Nordisk Ministerråd.

The English educational context 193

Appendix 6 The English educational context John Spindler The Conservative government significantly reformed schooling in the United Kingdom during the late 1980s and 1990s. The ‘new right’ were in the ascendant and were having a noticeable impact on government policy. Whitty (1993) has helpfully identified neo-conservative and neo-liberal strands within the new right. Both neo-liberals and neo-conservatives held the educational establishment as responsible for a decline in educational standards and an absence of moral leadership in schools, and they shared a belief that the power of Local Education Authority (LEA) officers and advisers, universities and teacher unions needed to be broken. There was, however, a difference of emphasis in neo-liberal and neo-conservative views about what should replace it. Neo-conservatives emphasised ‘traditional values’ and looked to central government to exercise more direct control over schools. Neo-liberals regarded market forces as a way to rescue schools from what they regarded as the desperate plight into which the educational establishment had led them. They argued for parents to be able to choose the schools their children would attend, and for information about schools’ performance to be available for parents and the public at large. Legislation during the 1980s and 1990s tended to reflect these different strands within the new right. Principals had to manage their schools in a period of far-reaching and rapid change that was, paradoxically, based on arguments for more central government control and greater autonomy for schools. A long-standing consensus about the roles and responsibilities of central government, local government and school principals was overturned. With respect to the curriculum the move was towards greater central control. The 1988 Education Reform Act introduced a National Curriculum in England for the first time. This specified not only what schools were required to teach but also what children and young people were expected to attain at different stages in their schooling. There have been revisions to the National Curriculum since 1989, for example to address the fact that there was simply too much to cover in the first version. (Separate groups worked on the Core and Foundation Subjects that had been specified and there were inadequate mechanisms to enable a holistic view of the emerging curriculum.) Legislation has also addressed specific matters, such as the infamous Clause 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act which made illegal teaching ‘of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. In addition schools put themselves at risk if they chose not to follow the increasing amount of ‘guidance’ that was emanating from government and its agencies. With regards to the management and governance of schools the

194 Appendix 6

emphasis was on the neo-liberal view. ‘Local Management of Schools’ provided for responsibility for schools’ finances to be given to individual schools, and specifically to principals. Boards of Governors for individual schools were given more powers and their membership was changed, so that parents had greater influence. In this way the influence of the LEAs, which had held the purse strings, was curtailed. As a consequence principals needed to develop new knowledge and skills that they had not necessarily developed through their professional experience as teachers. No longer was managing the budget a matter of providing the essential resources needed directly for teaching. ‘Local Management of Schools’ required them to manage the entire budget, taking into account, for example, salaries and the maintenance of grounds and buildings. The relationship between principals and their Boards of Governors changed, requiring principals to ensure that governors were ‘on board’ and supportive of their plans and strategies. The neo-liberals and neo-conservatives were united in their support for more robust mechanisms for accountability. For neo-conservatives it was important that there were means by which government could assure itself that new requirements were being implemented in the way it expected. For neo-liberals the availability of performance data to inform market choices was important. The Thatcher government introduced two key mechanisms to secure greater accountability of schools. First, it reformed the system for the inspection of schools, establishing the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) under the leadership of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools. ‘Her Majesty’s Inspectors’ (HMI) continued to be involved in school inspections but new ‘Ofsted’ inspectors were recruited and those that had successfully completed training as inspectors were able to bid for contracts to inspect schools. A framework for inspection was devised, and has seen through a number of revisions. Inspections became much more frequent and whereas previously teachers and principals might count themselves ‘unlucky’ to be involved in inspection it is now routine and inevitable. Inspection reports are now published and parents are encouraged to use them when they are considering the schools they would like their children to attend. Most significant, perhaps, are the implications of an unsatisfactory inspection. All schools are required to produce an action plan following an inspection but those in ‘special measures’ are closely monitored until they are judged to be satisfactory. Where schools fail to make enough progress they may be closed and it is certainly more common for principals to resign following a poor inspection outcome. The ability to manage the inspection process successfully has become an important quality needed by principals, which is valued by teachers and taken into account when they are being appointed. The second key mechanism for accountability introduced by the

The English educational context 195

Thatcher government was national Standard Attainment Tests (SATs). These were required for all pupils aged 7, 11 and 14 years. Results in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) provided a means to assess schools’ performance with respect to young people aged sixteen. Schools were required to publish their SATs and GCSE results and, again, parents were encouraged to use the information in making judgments about schools. Ofsted inspection teams also take them into account and comment on them in their reports. ‘League tables’ of schools based on national tests results are published in newspapers and can have a significant impact on the reputation of schools and their principals, as well as on recruitment, and, through that, on the school’s financial position. Changes to the way in which principals are paid have been a further means through which accountability has increased. Until the 1980s principals were, on appointment, transferred to a specific point on the principals’ salary scale. Salaries were based on experience and the size of the school irrespective of individual performance. Under the Conservative government changes were introduced so that principals’ salaries are now fixed, within a specified range, by the school’s Board of Governors. Annual increases in salary are subject to the principal’s performance in relation to specific performance objectives. These are normally agreed with the principal but they may be imposed if agreement cannot be reached. In the United Kingdom the word ‘principal’ is rarely used, and it is more usual to talk of ‘headteachers’. Currently principals in England must have qualified teacher status and appointment panels still prize evidence of a strong track record as a teacher. Whilst in many schools principals may teach only rarely or not at all, some, particularly in small schools, continue to have substantial teaching responsibilities. For many years there have been separate unions for teachers and principals, although many choose to remain members of the teacher unions rather than to transfer to either the ‘National Association of Headteachers’ or the ‘Secondary Heads Association’. With ‘Local Management of Schools’ has come a recognition that the professional knowledge and experience developed through teaching may not be sufficient for the demands of managing a school. Specific management training for aspiring, new and experienced principals is now available and falls under the remit of the National College of School Leadership (NCSL). As appointment panels look more and more for evidence of applicants’ management skill, the National Professional Qualification for Headteachers (NPQH), which is intended for aspiring principals, becomes more significant. The extent to which deputy principals and other senior teachers have opportunities to develop and demonstrate the management skills required for the award of NPQH varies. In most primary schools deputies teach throughout the school day.

196 Appendix 6

The Conservatives made fundamental changes to the context in which principals in England lead and manage their schools. They have become subject to greater regulation and direction from central government and its agencies in some respects, particularly with regards to the curriculum. In others they have more autonomy, and the responsibility that goes with it. The burden of accountability has grown, placing schools and principals at greater risk. The scale and pace of change has increased and work has intensified for teachers and for principals. Since the election of a Labour government in 1997 there has been an increase in funding for schools. There has also been greater emphasis on social inclusion, wider participation and on the central role of schooling in providing a workforce appropriate for a knowledge economy. In some ways, however, the government has sustained the reforms introduced by the Conservative government under the influence of the new right. There continues to be an emphasis on improving standards and the government has not shied away from regulation and ‘guidance’ where it thinks it is necessary. The importance attached, for example, to raising standards in primary schools has led to the introduction of national literacy and national numeracy strategies. Whilst these are not statutory requirements, there is no doubt that schools have felt obliged to implement them and the national primary strategy which is replacing them. Changes introduced under ‘Local Management of Schools’ remain essentially intact. Accountability remains a significant factor in the context of schooling in England. National testing, the publication of test results in ‘league tables’ and Ofsted inspections continue. If anything, the emphasis on target setting and performance management has increased since Labour was elected to government in 1997.

Reference Whitty, G. (1993) Education Reform and Teacher Education in England in the 1990s, Journal of Education for Teaching, Vol. 19, Nos 4–5, pp. 263–275.

The Irish educational context 197

Appendix 7 The Irish educational context Ciaran Sugrue Introduction As recently as 1991, when an OECD visiting team sought to describe the Irish education system, their report reflects something of the history and traditions of education in the setting. It reads: To understand contemporary Ireland, it is necessary to recognize how much its remote as well as more recent history still affects public values and attitudes and offers a key to understanding its institutions, not least its system of education. (OECD, 1991, p. 11) Despite unprecedented change since the publication of the OECD report, and at a pace not previously encountered, a virtual avalanche of reports on various aspects of education from early childhood (Ireland, 1999) to adult education (Government of Ireland, 2000) as well as recent legislation – Education Bill (Government of Ireland, 1998) and the passing of legislation to establish a Teaching Council (2001) – the nineteenth century continues to cast long shadows over the deep structures of the education system in Ireland, and this is particularly evident in the management structures that continue to prevail, both at the primary and secondary levels of the system. In order to understand the system, and its shaping influences on principals’ identities, it is necessary to identify some of its more dominant characteristics. ‘National’ education A system of ‘national’ education was established in Ireland in 1831, against a backdrop of Catholic Emancipation being granted in 1829. Proliferation of ‘hedge schools’ throughout much of rural Ireland gave cause for concern to the British authorities regarding the spread of ‘Fenianism’. Consequently, the establishment of a ‘national’ system of education was intent on control over teachers, curricula and peasantry rather than being informed by enlightenment principles or philanthropy. As the Catholic church increased significantly the number of entrants to the priesthood, and several female (and male) religious orders were founded throughout the remainder of much of the nineteenth century, educating the masses became a major mission of the newly emancipated and revitalised church. Though the intention was that the ‘national’ system be non-denominational, by the 1850s its denominational nature was already well defined. Denominational control of the education system, firmly established by

198 Appendix 7

the turn of the twentieth century, remained almost undisturbed in postindependent Ireland, a status granted by the British government in 1922. Successive ‘native’ governments were reluctant to become involved in structural reforms, preferring instead to bow to the pervasive power of an increasingly triumphalist church (see Cooney, 1986; Ó Buachalla, 1988). As a consequence of these power relations, few efforts were made until the 1960s to begin to alter the dominant position of the Catholic church. The decade of the 1960s, was a period of ferment in which the state began to take a more active role in educational planning and provision, and ‘free’ universal secondary education was introduced in 1967. However, the deep structures of education were left largely intact. Primary schooling There are approximately 3,200 primary schools in Ireland. The Catholic church owns a little less than 3,000 of these; typically trustee status is vested in the bishop in whose diocese the school is geographically located. Prior to 1975, the local clergyman, typically the parish priest, was the manager of the local national school, though it may be more accurate to describe these as de facto parochial schools. In more recent years, primary schools have Boards of Management (BoMs) with parent, teacher and community representation, and it is no longer axiomatic that the chairperson of the board be clerical, while in many rural schools this continues to be the case. Teachers are employed by individual BoMs. There are no educational structures between the government Department of Education and Science (DES) and individual Boards of Management. There are no district or regional education authorities. Thus, in a system that is small by international standards, teacher mobility is reduced significantly with consequences for teacher morale, promotion and renewal. Teachers’ salaries are paid entirely by the state. Currently, there are more than 20,000 primary teachers in full-time employment, the vast majority of whom belong to the primary teachers’ union, Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO). As the vast majority of teachers are employed in denominational schools, they are obliged to provide religious instruction for approximately thirty minutes daily, and this is a condition of their employment. Primary-school principals belong to the same union as classroom teachers. During the past decade, as waves of reforms, reports and policy shifts have cascaded from the centre to individual schools, principals have become more vocal and more discontent, and have formed their own professional support body, the Irish Primary Principals’ Network (IPPN), and this has led to some ongoing tension between this ‘body’ and the union. Similar developments have occurred in the secondary sector. Apart from approximately 100 Church of Ireland schools, many of which are very small, admit Catholic pupils and employ Catholic teachers,

The Irish ecucational context 199

the vast majority of primary schools are denominational. During the past twenty-five years however, as the country has become increasingly prosperous, secular and consumerist, there has been a significant growth in the number of Irish medium primary schools; the current figure being more than 140, and these compete for pupils with local national schools. Similarly, but more recently, the multi-denominational sector is undergoing expansion, and there are currently more than thirty such schools with plans by its umbrella organisation (Educate Together) to increase that number significantly over the next five years. Recent Educational legislation (Government of Ireland, 1998) recognises the individual ‘ethos’ of each school. It also indicates that principals are responsible for the quality of teaching and learning in their respective schools. Curriculum reforms Radical reform of the primary curriculum was introduced in 1971, when a child-centred approached was espoused (Sugrue, 1997). Prior to this initiative, the Primary Certificate Examination (PCE) was abolished and since then there are no national tests in the primary sector, and transfer to secondary schools is automatic. While a revised curriculum was introduced in 1999, in general the authors of these reforms kept faith with progressivism, but with greater specification of objectives and more attention to assessment. A system of whole-school evaluation is in place and conducted on a four-year basis by the primary inspectorate, but reports are not published, and there are no league tables. Nevertheless, there is growing pressure for accountability, particularly from a more educated and consumerist-orientated parent population. The process is regarded as relatively benign, while efforts to give the process more rigour are under way, and the recent Education Bill (Government of Ireland, 1998) is likely to provide significant leverage in this regard. School size and principalship The majority of schools in the system are small, with fewer than eight teachers, while more than 50 per cent of pupils attend schools with an administrative principal. Nevertheless, more than two-thirds of principals in the system have full-time teaching responsibilities, with up to twenty ‘release’ days per annum depending on school size. There is no provision for reduced teaching responsibilities for deputy principals, while in recent years a system of middle-management has been introduced in an effort to share leadership and responsibilities but there was virtually no professional support provided to implement this initiative, and no systematic research as to its adoption and effectiveness has been undertaken. Principals are paid an allowance in addition to a teacher’s salary, and

200 Appendix 7

depending on school size the allowance can be a modest C4,000 or in excess of C25,000. The position of deputy attracts a similar pro rata allowance. More than 50 per cent of primary principals are female, but membership of the union, which includes more than 99 per cent of the teaching force, is more than 80 per cent female. While the number of female principals has increased significantly during the past decade, as the number of male entrants to teaching has declined to a stable 10 per cent per annum, gender equity within the system continues to be a challenge. In recent years, the number of applicants for principalships has declined as the position is increasingly perceived as unattractive, onerous and suffering from chronic overload. As there is little mobility in the system, without a clear sense of career structure, the vast majority who are appointed come directly from the classroom without any preparation for the role, though increasingly they are quite likely to have completed a postgraduate diploma or Master’s Degree in Management, Administration or Leadership. In the past few years, a system of induction for newly appointed principals has been introduced and it is intended that this Leadership Development for Schools (LDS) be extended to provide professional support also for more experienced principals. However, this initiative was not in place when fieldwork for this study was being completed. Principals are appointed on a permanent basis. Consequently, depending on age at time of appointment, they may serve for periods of thirty to forty years in the same school. A recent study indicates that some primary principals are ‘handing back the keys’ (Ryan, 2003). Until very recently, professional development opportunities for principals were virtually non-existent, ad hoc, sporadic and unevenly distributed.

References Cooney, J. (1986) The CROZIER and THE DAIL: church and state in Ireland, 1922–1986, Dublin: The Mercier Press. Government of Ireland (1998) Education (No. 2) Bill, Dublin: Government Publications. Government of Ireland (1999) Ready to Learn: White Paper on Early Childhood Education, Dublin: The Stationery Office. Government of Ireland (2000) Learning for Life: White Paper on Adult Education, Dublin: The Stationery Office. Ó Buachalla, S. (1988) Education Policy in Twentieth Century Ireland, Dublin: Wolfhound Press. OECD (1991) Reviews of National Education Policies for Education: Ireland, Paris: OECD. Ryan, J. (2003) Handing Back the Keys: a study of primary principals who have relinquished the role, unpublished MEd thesis, St Patrick’s College, Dublin City University. Sugrue, C. (1997) Complexities of Teaching: child-centred perspectives, London: Falmer Press.

The Norwegian educational context 201

Appendix 8 The Norwegian educational context Jorunn Møller Norwegian education: aims and structures The object of primary and lower-secondary education is, in agreement and cooperation with the home, to help to give pupils a Christian and moral upbringing, to develop their mental and physical abilities, and to give them good general knowledge so that they may become useful and independent human beings at home and in society. The national curriculum guidelines stress the importance of providing equal access to education regardless of geographical location, sex, social or cultural background and aptitude. All children, irrespective of physical or mental disability or learning difficulties, are as far as possible incorporated into the ordinary school system. There is no streaming according to abilities, gender or other factors. All public education in Norway is free, including tertiary education. It is stated that education should uphold and renew the Norwegian cultural heritage to provide perspective and guidance for the future. As it is considered important that children should attend school without having to leave their families, there are a large number of small schools in remote and sparsely populated areas. Approximately 1200 primary schools have more than one age group in each class. Some of these schools have fewer than six students. The maximum number of students per class is twenty-eight at primary school and thirty at secondary school. A White Paper published in June 2003 suggested that this regulation be abolished. During the primary stage no achievement grades (marks) are given to students. Twice per year the parents have consultations with teachers where they are given an informal report on student progress. The students are encouraged to be present at these consultations. Grades (marks) are given at the lower secondary level. At the end of year nine there is a public exam covering the main subjects: Norwegian, Mathematics and English. As a rule students usually attend the upper-secondary school closest to their homes. Some cities, amongst them Oslo, have introduced competition among schools. The marks will decide which upper secondary school and particularly which course students may attend. Each school is run by a principal (headteacher) and assisted by viceprincipals (deputy heads). The number of deputy heads depends on the number of students. In addition, there is a coordinating committee where parents, teachers, students and other staff are represented. In most of the primary schools the job as a principal is a combination of being a teacher and a principal. The number of lessons per week that a principal teaches depends on the number of students in school. For instance, if a school has 200 students, the principal teaches approximately 10 hours per week in

202 Appendix 8

addition to administrative duties. In upper-secondary schools the principal does not have teaching duties, but deputy heads normally teach 30 per cent of their time. Recently the Ministry of Education and Research has proposed a change in the rules concerning the school head’s competence. The existing formal requirements to the school head’s competence will be dropped and replaced by a demand for actual pedagogical/educational competence (‘realkompetanse’), whether formal or informal/non-formal. Policy context In the Norwegian context neither external nor internal accountability issues have emerged on the agenda until recently. There has been a strong norm of non-interference in teachers’ classroom activities, and autonomy is part of the tradition in the schools. Trust in teachers’ work has been a tacit dimension in principals’ approach to leadership. This can probably be related to the history of teaching in Norway. During the period from the late decades in the nineteenth century to the early 1970s, teachers had high status, and teaching attracted the brightest people, especially in rural areas. But now teacher autonomy is under attack from many fronts. Politicians seem to think external control of teaching is the means to ensure quality in schools. The external quest for accountability within the Norwegian context is still limited, but the Ministry of Education and Research is now developing a model for national evaluation, and several municipalities have already outlined programmes for external evaluation of their schools. The Scottish system on quality assurance has been put forward as a model. During the late 1990s there has been a changing discourse and changing notions of restructuring of governance in Norway, from a striving for equity through a centralised welfare state governance, towards a school policy based on choice, deregulation, evaluation and managerialism. In 2001 there was a shift in government, and a more conservative coalition came into power. They introduced a change in education policy emphasising that teachers’ performance should be controlled and judged according to criteria established outside the profession. International comparisons like PISA have been seized on as providing justification for this new government’s reforms. Teachers and school principals are now subject to great stress to improve national ranking in Maths and reading literacy. The government has already launched a new programme for the development of national tests in Norwegian, Maths and English, to be implemented in August 2003. In addition they are working on establishing a web portal for the publication of all results from schools. The first step was taken on 8 January 2003, when all marks from students in compulsory schools were made public for the first time. The improvement of schools was the government’s rationale for doing it. Simultaneously it was emphasised that

The Norwegian educational context 203

marks only demonstrate a small part of the schools’ results. However, immediately the newspapers began ranking schools, thus establishing informal league tables. These ‘league tables’ are used by politicians to put additional pressure on the school system. The talk about democracy of consumers has also entered the national discourse of education in Norway. Independent of the vision of collaboration and ‘lived democracy’ mentioned in the curriculum, the discourse of New Public Management seems to have a rather strong influence on how municipalities organise and govern the schools in Norway, or how they talk about governing the schools. There seems to be a change in society’s values, and steps are being taken to introduce market forces into the public sector. Managerial models of administrative reform are making a strong claim in the definition of accountability, and language becomes an agent of ideology in shaping the understanding. These changes influence the way administrators at municipal level comprehend and establish issues of accountability. The participatory discourse is overshadowed by the administrative discourse, and frequently becomes distorted into a technology of control. Traditional norms of democratic accountability are being questioned, and also the discourse of democratic leadership is changing gradually. The values embodied in the new understanding of accountability are cost-effectiveness and efficiency. However, the private sector in Norwegian education is still small (1.6 per cent of pupils in compulsory school and about 4 per cent in upper secondary). But the market alternative in education is set on the political agenda, and in future Norwegian education will probably see more differentiation and more privatisation. There may be a deterioration of some public schools, and an emerging market for private schools. Private schools have until 1 January 2003 been regarded as a supplement to state schools rather than as competitors. The law which stated that private schools should be based on a particular religious denomination or philosophy of life has been abolished. Today all private schools receive a grant that covers 85 per cent of the running costs. The responsibility to negotiate the salaries and working conditions for teachers was transferred on 31 January 2002 from the state level to the employers (municipalities and counties). These new rules come into operation in May 2004. The Ministry underlines that this change was made as a result of the principle that the school owner should have the responsibility to negotiate. Teachers’ unions have protested in vain against the decision. Until now, teachers’ salaries have been determined by length of service and level of qualification.

204 Appendix 8

A typical profile of school principals The percentage of female school leaders is still less than 50 per cent (see Table A8.1). But a predominant pattern is that the smaller the schools and the younger the pupils, the more women teachers and leaders are to be found. Men continue to dominate the positions that have the highest salaries. Table A8.1 Percentage of female and male school Leaders in Norwegian schools Formal position

Compulsory schools 1–10

Upper-secondary schools

Women (%)

Women (%)

Men (%)

Men (%)

Principal Deputy principal

42.7 53.7

57.3 46.3

27.8 36.2

72.2 63.8

Total (approximately)

48.2

51.8

32.0

68.0

Note Approximately 80 per cent of principals in primary and lower-secondary schools belong to the same union as the teachers.

Index

accountability 51, 91–8, 101–2, 132–3, 135; demands for 105, 153, 173, 175, 180, 196; and emotions 89, 92, 94, 98–101; England 92–4, 99, 105, 194–5, 196; external 39, 65, 66, 92, 153, 173; New Public Management 106, 110, 190; Norway 50, 94–5, 99, 101–2, 202, 203; to parents 32, 60, 65, 66, 96, 111; strategic attention to 29, 30–1, 33–5, 130; see also managerial accountability; professional accountability; public accountability autonomy 4, 119, 148, 173, 193; of teachers 48–9, 111–14, 115, 142, 190, 202 biographical themes 31, 35, 44–8, 54–5, 64–5, 167, 177; and identity 71, 139; passions rooted in 18, 68–9; see also family history; life-history approach boundary trajectories 138, 144–5, 147, 152, 154, 155; importance 139, 150, 151, 172 Bourdieu, Pierre 43, 47 career stages 17, 115, 134, 137, 154, 155, 168–71 change 11–12, 70–1, 79–81, 82–3, 132–3, 155, 167, 196, 197 commitment 29, 40, 89, 123–4, 130,

132; passionate 145, 146, 149, 166, 171–2, 180–1 communities 22–3, 30, 58, 110, 128, 143, 150; accountability to 50–1, 66; building 107, 118–20; as contexts 43, 48–50; of learning 146, 148, 152; of practice 9–10, 65, 128, 173; rootedness in 30, 35, 48; see also schools confidence 45, 83, 108–10, 132 contexts 19–20, 68–9, 102, 118, 124, 155–6, 177, 181; communities as 43, 48–50; and identities 43–4, 45–8, 166–7; see also educational contexts; family history continuity 13, 70–1, 140, 141; personal 70–1, 79–80, 81, 82–3, 102, 127; in succession 75–6, 135, 168, 169, 170, 171 cover stories 92, 92–3, 94, 99 curriculum 32, 35–6; Denmark 66, 190; England 35–6, 193, 196; Ireland 199; Norway 50, 55, 95, 200, 201 decentralisation 50, 106, 189, 189–90, 191 Denise 139–41, 168–9 Denmark 116, 119, 146, 162, 169, 173; accountability 95–7, 99, 101–2; educational context 22, 189–92; interviewee profiles 185;

206 Index

Denmark continued traditions of trust 105, 110, 111–14, 118, 119; see also Petersen, Peter deputy principals 32, 40, 45, 59–60, 137, 195, 204 deregulation 106, 162, 174 devolution 106, 110, 189–90 dialogue 58–9, 61, 63–4, 65, 66, 109–10, 161 distance 123, 124–7, 128, 132, 134 early retirement 102, 135, 141, 156 education 5, 31, 32, 42, 81–2, 138 educational contexts 176; Denmark 22, 189–92; England 193–6; Ireland 22, 71–4, 75–6, 79, 84–5, 141, 197–200; Norway 22, 53–4, 201–4 emotional labour 89–91, 92, 97, 100, 108–9, 114, 119–20, 123–4; of school leadership 52, 94, 99, 105, 147–8 emotions 15–18, 54, 89, 90, 123–4, 166, 171; accountability and 92, 98–101 England 114–18, 119, 162, 169, 173, 176, 190; accountability 92–4, 99, 105, 194–5; educational context 193–6; interviewee profiles 186; National Curriculum 35–6, 193; principals’ stories 29–40, 125–7 experienced principals 42–55, 57–66, 68–83, 102, 108, 141–8 external accountability 39, 65, 66, 92, 153, 173 family history 71–2, 72–3, 143; importance 68, 73, 76–7, 78, 144, 145, 149 Folkeskoler (Denmark) 57, 173, 189–90, 191, 192 gender issues 43, 44, 47, 52–4, 81, 98, 191, 200, 204; Ireland 68–9, 71–4, 74–5

Giddens, Anthony 8–9, 43, 70 global forces 3, 6, 105, 162, 172–7, 180, 189 headteachers see principals homogenisation 6, 162, 173, 174, 176, 180 identities 7–8, 40, 83, 123; changing 139–40, 145; construction 99, 118–19, 175, 179; construction ongoing 70–1, 79–82, 100–1, 137–9, 155, 164, 181; and contexts 43–4, 45–8, 166–7; idiosyncratic nature 166–8, 177, 181; and learning 9, 54, 70–1, 78–81, 166; of principals 7–8, 110, 170–1; professional 80, 105–6, 118–19, 131–4, 141, 148, 152; renegotiation 8–11, 128–30, 137–9, 148, 164–6, 166–8; Wenger’s theory of construction 43, 55, 70, 128, 143, 166–7 immediacy 123, 124–7, 128, 130–1, 134 inbound trajectories 130, 131, 138, 140, 141, 142–3, 150 insider status 10, 65, 130, 139, 140, 144, 155, 166 insider trajectories 130, 132, 138, 141, 143, 145, 150, 151, 155 inspections 92–3, 97–8, 117, 194, 196, 199; see also Ofsted inter-generational learning 130–3, 134, 181 interviewee profiles 185–8 interviews 21–2, 100–1, 124 Ireland 114–15, 117, 118, 119, 146, 162, 173; accountability 97–8, 102, 105; educational context 22, 71–4, 75–6, 79, 84–5, 141, 197–200; interviewee profiles 187; succession 137, 169; teacher training 71, 72, 73–4, 84–5; see also Denise; Jack; Margaret; Michelle

Index 207

Jack 149–55 Kari 42–55, 169 ‘keeping in touch with the kids’ 95, 102, 115, 127, 139, 145–6, 153–4 leadership 5–8, 20, 98, 110, 111, 179–81; career stages 137, 148, 154; complexity 102, 176–7; lay theories 6–7, 102, 165; potential of teachers 178–9; and power 111–13, 118; styles xv–xvi, 65–6, 80, 143, 144–50, 151; sustainable 141, 148, 170, 171, 180–1; training for 62, 133–4, 141, 190, 191; see also principalship league tables 92–3, 93–4, 195, 196, 199, 203 learning 81–2, 155, 156, 167, 168, 175, 179–81; and identity 9, 54, 70–1, 78–81, 166; inter-generational 130–3, 134, 181; at work 140–1, 142–3, 147–8 learning perspective 124, 133–4 learning trajectories 124, 128–33, 137–9, 155–6, 168, 170, 179–80 life histories 10–11, 19–20, 137–9, 164–6; see also biographical themes life stories 19–20, 123, 164; experienced principals 42–55, 57–66, 68–83, 141–8; newly appointed principals 125–7, 139–41, 168–9; veteran principals 29–40, 125–7, 149–55; woman principal 42–55 life-history approach 7, 18–20, 44, 136–7, 163–4, 171, 177; benefits xv, 13, 83–4 local authorities 33–4, 44, 50–1, 95–6, 103, 116–17, 193 managerial accountability 54, 91, 92–5, 95–7, 101–2, 112–13 Margaret 68–83, 169 market forces 3, 6, 98, 118, 176; in

England 173, 190, 193; in Scandinavia 146–7, 173, 189, 190, 203 mentors 15, 44–5, 49–50, 141, 149, 152, 153–4, 165 Michelle 141–8 mission 149, 150, 151, 152 mobility 117, 135–7, 141, 198, 200 national policies 130–1, 172–7 New Public Management 94–5, 106–7, 110, 114, 190, 203; view of leadership 66, 116, 119 newly appointed principals 100, 101–2, 108, 109, 119, 166, 200; learning trajectories 128–30, 130–1, 134; stories 125–7, 139–41, 168–9 Norway 53–4, 105, 116, 146, 162, 169, 173, 190; accountability 50, 94–5, 99, 101–2, 202, 203; educational context 22, 53–4, 201–4; interviewee profiles 188; teachers’ autonomy 48–9, 114, 119, 202; traditions of trust 110, 111–14, 118, 119, 202; see also Kari Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education) 101, 115, 116, 169, 176, 194, 196; reports 38, 92–3 outbound trajectories 130, 138, 139, 144–5, 150, 151, 152, 155, 172 parents 44, 194, 199, 200; accountability to 32, 60, 65, 66, 96, 111; relations with 38–9, 62, 95, 105, 131–2, 140, 154 passion 11–13, 14–18, 54, 78, 141, 156, 167–8, 174–5; fading 17, 115, 120, 132, 171; harnessing 177–81; and self 162, 172; sustaining 13, 17, 40, 168; of veteran principals 127, 132 passionate principalship xv–xvi, 14–18, 123–4, 125

208 Index

peripheral trajectories 138, 140, 141, 142, 151, 166 personal accountability 91, 95, 98 personal advancement 135–6 personality of change 136, 155, 163, 170, 178, 180, 181 Petersen, Peter 57–66 political accountability 91, 95, 96–7 power 74, 77–8, 140, 144 power relations 20, 69, 110–14, 118–19, 152 prescription xv–xvi, 119, 162–3, 173, 175, 180, 181; on curriculum 4, 115, 190; on targets 115, 146, 190 pressure 12, 40, 83, 93, 131, 145–6, 148, 173–4 principals 3–4, 10, 20, 40, 116; appointment of 141, 168–70, 171; ‘buck stops with’ 93, 99; characteristic ‘signatures’ 123, 154–5; contexts 6, 43–4; educational background 31, 32, 71–4; gender 191, 204, 1200; identities 7–8, 110, 118–19; interviewees 185–8; mobility of 135–7, 141; reactions to criticism 62, 66; relations with parents 38–9, 62, 95, 105, 131–2, 140, 154; relations with teachers 48–50, 51, 57, 60–1, 66, 105–6, 108–18; roles 3–4, 20, 115–16, 155; salaries 199–200; stepping down 83, 85, 102, 135, 141, 156; support groups 53, 127, 143, 152, 166, 198; teachers forgoing promotion to 4, 11–12, 162, 200; teaching experience of 31–2, 42, 44–5, 59, 74–5, 165, 191; training for 62, 133–4, 136–7, 190, 195, 200; unions 126; would not now apply for headships 39–40; see also experienced principals; newly appointed principals; superprincipals; veteran principals principalship 11–13, 20, 29, 135–6,

146, 154–6, 162; career paths 135, 166; emotional labour of 89–91; passionate xv–xvi, 14–18, 123–4, 125; revolving door syndrome 170, 180; routes to 31–2, 45, 58–60, 67, 74–6, 136–7, 141, 168–70 professional accountability 51, 91, 95, 96, 96–7, 102 professional identities 80, 105–6, 118–19, 131–4, 141, 148, 152 public accountability 37, 91, 95, 96, 97 reforms 70–1, 136, 162, 194–5; impact of endless 39–40, 172–3; imposed 30, 32–3, 91, 127, 146, 175, 180 regulation 106–7, 119, 173, 195; and trust 105, 111–18, 111–20 risk 10, 45, 52, 166 SATs (Standard Assessment Tasks) 31, 36–7, 194–5, 196 school leadership see principalship schools 7–8, 58, 77, 163, 177, 196, 200; as communities 105, 107, 110, 174; development 33, 63, 65, 67; life cycles 168–72, 179–80, 181 secret stories 92, 101 self 29, 40, 80; see also substantial self Standard Assessment Tasks see SATs stress 12, 40, 93, 100, 131; see also pressure substantial self 138–9, 141, 149, 152, 154, 156, 162, 172 superprincipals 4, 178 support groups 53, 127, 143, 152, 198 sustainable leadership 141, 148, 170, 171, 180–1 teachers 43, 47, 117, 119, 178–9, 203; attrition rates 11–12, 17, 151, 162; autonomy 48–9, 111–14, 115, 142, 190, 202; forgoing promotion 4,

Index 209

11–12, 162, 200; mobility 117, 175, 198; principals and 48–50, 51, 57, 60–1, 66, 105–6, 108–18; supporting 34, 35–6, 153–4; training 33, 71, 72, 73–4, 79, 84–5n tests 31, 63, 146, 162–3, 169, 173, 196; Norway 103, 202–3; publication of results 98, 190, 195, 196, 199; see also SATs training 79, 138, 163; for principals 62, 133–4, 136–7, 190, 195, 200 training perspective 124, 133–4 trust 51–2, 108, 119–20, 180; building 107–10, 144, 148, 175–6; and regulation 105, 111–20;

Scandinavian tradition 101, 110, 111–14, 118, 119, 202 values 16–17, 29, 91, 127, 177; and identity 50, 55, 172, 188; and leadership 94, 102, 130, 131 veteran principals 102, 115, 119, 130, 131–3, 134; stories 29–40, 125–7, 149–55 Wenger, Etienne 9–10, 65, 124, 128, 130, 137–9, 173; on identity construction 43, 55, 70, 128, 143, 166–7 women principals 42–55, 68–83, 123