1,721,191 research outputs found
DISCOURSES AND CONTEXTS OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP: FROM IDEOLOGY TO DISPOSITIF
No full textThis chapter aims to show how the policies of leadership represent a key dispositif(apparatus) for neo-liberal school reforms. In particular, in a foucauldian perspective, the concept of dispositif plays a strategic role at the intersection of governmentality, regimes of truth, and technologies of the self. The dispositif is a historical formation of heterogeneous elements as discourses, institutions, rules, scientific knowledge(s), and so on: ‘[t]he apparatus itself is the system of relations that can be established between these elements ’ (CF: 194); sort of a contextual and mobile configuration (see Revel 2015). Grounded on a new conception of power and challenging its ideological function it is distinguished from other conceptions of State apparatus, such as the ‘Ideological State Apparatuses’ (Althusser 1971).
As for the specific field of educational leadership we should ask how a dispositif involves knowledge(s), practices and technologies that situate head teachers as subjects (and objects) either for the enactment of educational policies or for leading schools as organizations. In doing so, we should weaken the emphasis on ideological role of leaders; that is on leaders as part of those ‘intellectuals/high rank civil servants’ of the State, who play a crucial function in maintaining the bourgeois hegemony (Buci-Glucksman 1975).
Thus, in order to adopt a beyond ideology foucauldian perspective the chapter:
1
1. shows the centrality of dispositif: in particular it discusses the way in which Foucault distances himself from ideology, in his concern with power and knowledge as it evolves towards regimes of truth and technologies of the self.
2. Illustrates knowledge(savoir) about educational leadership developed, since the ‘80s, drawing on both organisational and managerial sciences; it also highlights reactions to the leadership mantra coming from critical scholars; this requires two interpretative dimensions: discursive and epistemic;
3. demonstrates how this knowledge is linked to forms of governmentality which shape leadership dispositif through policies, technologies and practices of training, organization and assessment that subjectivate the head teachers;
4. proposes a critical deconstruction of the dispositif, in order to identify emerging ‘potentials’ (Gronn 2009) of democratic leadership, as well as knowledge based on alternative truths
Trivellato P., Triventi M. (a cura di) 2015, L'istruzione superiore. Caratteristiche e funzionamento, Roma, Carocci
No full text
Tras-formazione dei sé: soggettivazioni social nella post-education
No full textIn the 1983 conference La culture de soi Foucault made some reflections on the incorporation and integration of the techniques of the care of self in our societies in institutions and disciplinary knowledges such as education. In this article I set out to explore how these techniques have been re-incorporated by the neoliberal gov- ernmentality of the so-called platform capitalism also thanks to the wider hybridi- zation, unstoppable and in process, between the realms of formal education and the informal “outside” spheres of our digital social life: what I name here as post- education. The main aim of this contribution is to question what kind of ethical government is being proposed by post-education through social media
Educational leadership in Italy: A ‘war’ of discourses?
No full textThis article is about a process of «formation of actors» (Hasselbladh, Kallinikos, 2000). In Italy, during the last ten years, this process created the heads of autonomous schools. In order to read the process, we provide the conflict between ‘old discourses’ (bureaucratic and professional) and ‘new discourses’ (managerial and democratic-critical-critical) as a reading key. These are in a constant struggle for affirmation on the grounds of educational policy (Ball, 2006). After presenting these two clashing discourses, the article provides a synthesis of the features of the autonomous school system and of the role of school heads as they were redefined by the reforms approved about ten years ago. In order to implement policies for the training of school heads, the «triad [selection, recruitment and training] of institutionalised processes» (Gronn, 2002, p.1032) had to be carried out. These will be examined in the following paragraphs, with the scope of the various discourses progressively touched on. In order to further qualify the nature of these processes, we will try to combine the analysis of the various discourses with the ‘conceptual’ instruments provided by the trend of new-institutionalism. These are, first of all, «regulative, normative and cognitive pillars» which support all social institutions (Scott, 1995). Secondly, they are those aspects of «path dependencies, mimesis and coupling» that concern the educational system (Meyer, Rowan, 2006). Finally, we will observe how the policies for «designing» new head teachers produce a certain degree of contradiction. In fact, the processes of recruitment and training witness the rise, also in Italy, of forms of marketisation typical of a managerial discourse. At the same time, though, there is still a strong ‘resistance’ of bureaucratic and professional discourses towards processes of tight-coupling in the selection and evaluation of school heads. There still seems to be a weak response by the democratic-critical discourse. The formation of these actors through policies that are strongly influenced by the competition among different discourses can raise the levels of allomorphism in the Italian school system. The war among discourses, in fact, is open. At present, there seem to be no certain winners that could promote a more widespread isomorphism
Senza leadership: la costruzione del dirigente scolastico. Dirigenti e autonomia nella scuola italiana
No full textSenza Leadership e senza Autonomia. Così sembra ridotta la scuola italiana dopo quindici anni dalla riforma dell’autonomia che ha deluso tutte le aspet- tative. I dirigenti scolastici, in particolare, non sembrano tanto “nuovi”: le politiche che ne hanno tentato la costruzione come “soggetti”, interpreti del- l’autonomia con nuove competenze, identità e anche spirito di “missione”, hanno sostanzialmente fallito – dal primo corso-concorso voluto da Berlin- guer, fino alle prove di valutazione della Gelmini che intendevano colpire gli insegnanti e le scuole, ma salvaguardare i dirigenti come valutati e non come valutatori.
Il campo delle politiche per i dirigenti scolastici ha visto una continua inva- sione di istituzioni, consulenti, gruppi di pressione, estranei alla cultura pro- fessionale della scuola. Il privato e l’economico: Confindustria, Fondazione Agnelli, Fondazione per la scuola della Compagnia di San Paolo, Banca d’Ita- lia, per fare solo alcuni nomi, hanno preteso un dirigente sempre più mana- ger, imprenditore, competitore. Insieme alle politiche neo-liberali dei governi di destra e dei ministri Moratti e Gelmini si è tentato di smantellare una figu- ra di leadership educativa e professionale per infierire un duro colpo alla tra- dizione democratica della scuola italiana attraverso dirigenti “asserviti”.
Il volume ricostruisce come, attraverso politiche di governance, selezione, formazione e valutazione, i dirigenti scolastici siano stati (s)oggetti di tensio- ni e conflitti tra discorsi e ideologie welfariste, neo-liberali, managerialiste e democratiche e come, nonostante il rischio di ri-costruire paradossalmente nuovi burocrati, i dirigenti scolastici si siano trovati ad agire e ad attivarsi in spazi aperti, vuoti, frammentati e ibridi. Il sistema non ha saputo-voluto crea- re dei leader: loro sono stati costretti a provarci
- …
