Helen M. Gunter (University of Manchester, UK) and Emiliano Grimaldi (University of Naples 'Federico II', Italy).

What is the problem? How does the chapter support your thinking about the problem?

The question that we would like to challenge you with is: do organisations exist? We raise this because in our work as professionals and students we practice as if they do – we apply to work and study in nurseries, schools, colleges and universities, and we are paid to work in these organisations, we study and graduate, there are buildings and symbols, and so they MUST exist. We provide you with a range of ways of thinking about this by examining three approaches: functional or how organisations exist through structures, procedures, and systems; critical or how organisations exist in the thinking, saying and doing of those who are the organisation; and socially critical or how structures and people can both replicate and create social injustice in the organisation, and dynamically engage in social justice change within and external to the organisation. We ask you to think about functional, critical and socially critical approaches, and in doing so you can look at your own work/study place and/or the site of your fieldwork data collection differently: you can see the systems and structures, you can see the people, and you can see the values and purposes. Importantly we ask you to engage with a major theme of the field regarding micropolitical activities through how people know each other, work together, like and dislike each other, support and resist change.

What are other ways to think about this? Where can I go next to follow these up?

Alternative ways of ‘doing’ educational leadership

One way is to look at the issue of values or the moral ideals that underpin who you are, what you do and how you do it and why. There are two helpful ways forward. You could examine the experiences of educational professionals through reading biographical accounts of what it means to do the job, and the challenges of working within and constructing organizational practices. Two examples show the complexities of the interplay between functionality, criticality and socially critical practice and research with and for practice:

Bruce Addison uses Bourdieu’s thinking tools to think about the work of school principals in Australia:

Addison, B. (2009) A feel for the game – a Bourdieuian analysis of principal leadership: a study of Queensland secondary school principals. Journal of Educational Administration and History. 41 (4), 327-341. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00220620903211554

Rodney Evans uses Greenfield’s ideas about values to think through his work as a principal in US:

Evans, R. (1999) The Pedagogic Principal. Edmonton: Qual Institute Press.

Alternative ways of ‘conceptualizing’ educational leadership

Thinking about how educational leadership is conceptualized is important for professionals in practice and in research. An important way forward is to read the debates about organizational practices and values. For example, in 2001 Wright published, ‘Bastard Leadership’ and Managerialism: confronting twin paradoxes in the Blair Education Project. Educational Management & Administration. 29 (3), 275-290. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0263211X010293003

This research was critiqued by Gold et al. in this article:

Gold, A., Evans, J. Earley, P., Halpin, D. and Collarbone, P. (2003) Principled Principals? Values-Driven Leadership: Evidence from ten case studies of ‘outstanding’ school leaders. Educational Management & Administration. 31 (2), 127-138. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0263211X030312002

Wright followed up with a rejoinder to this critique:

Wright, N. (2003) Principled ‘Bastard’ Leadership? A rejoinder to Gold, Evans, Earley, Halpin and Collarbone. Educational Management & Administration. 31 (2), 139-143. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0263211X030312003

Reading this debate is very important for thinking about professional practice in educational organisations. Notably there are concerns raised about values. Wright is helpful in his 2003 reply whereby he distinguishes between first-order and second-order values. He identifies that team work is an example of second-order values, yes it is helpful for the profession but it essentially requires the delivery of externally determined policies. Instead he argues for first-order values whereby the profession are actively involved in debating, determining and practicing the purposes of education. In other words, the profession should not be primarily focused on inclusive ways of delivering policy, but should be policy-makers by working on the purposes of education and the policies required to develop such purposes within practice.

You can look further into the values debate through examining research into micropolitics, for example:

Gunter, H.M. (2022) An intellectual history of the ‘political’ in the EMAL field, Educational Management Administration & Leadership. Forthcoming.

In addition, you can consider the evidence and debates about how discrimination within organisations works. For example,

Morley, L. (2006) Hidden transcripts: the micropolitics of gender in Commonwealth universities. Women’s Studies International Forum. 29 (6), 543-551. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277539506000859

Morley, L. (2016) Institutional micropolitics. In: Naples, N.A. (Ed.) The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies. London: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1-4.

Beyond education

The field of critical organisation studies has produced a range of research outputs, and we draw your attention to the journal: Organization. https://journals.sagepub.com/home/org

In addition we suggest you look at the work of Mats Alvesson and Hugh Willmott in order to develop your reading and thinking:

Alvesson, M., Bridgman, T. and Willmott, H. (Eds.) (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Critical Management Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Alvesson, M. and Spicer, A. (2016) The Stupidity Paradox. London: Profile Books.

Alvesson, M. and Willmott, H. (2012) Making Sense of Management, A Critical Introduction. London: Sage.

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