Niesche, R. (2011). Foucault and Educational Leadership: Disciplining the Principal. London: Routledge.
Link to publisher’s site
Description
This book draws on a number of Foucault’s concepts to explore how school principals are created as subjects through their work practices and various educational leadership discourses. Foucault’s work is useful for provoking new thought into how the principalship is lived and disciplined in ways that produce both contradictions and tensions for schools principals. Rather than using overarching theories and models of leadership, this book uses Foucault’s notions of disciplinary power, governmentality and ethics to provide an alternative look at educational leadership through two in depth case studies. The book provides an example of putting Foucault’s concepts to work in a field that is still largely dominated by traditional, best practice approaches to educational leadership.
