School governing bodies in England have considerable powers and responsibilities with regard to the education of pupils. This article explores how power relations operate, within governing bodies, through struggles over which types of knowledge are claimed and valued. The article draws on the analysis of policy and on ethnographic research in the…

This article reports research into the role and responsibilities of the chairs of governing bodies of further education colleges and sixth-form colleges in England. Further education colleges and sixth-form colleges represent a significant part of post-16 educational provision in England. Every college in the sector has a governing body, which has…

This small-scale case study focused on academic managers to explore the ways in which they control the workload of academic staff and the extent to which they use the workload model in performance management of academic staff. The links that exist between the workload and performance management were explored to confirm or refute the conceptual…

The experience of headteacher socialization has been described as challenging and often traumatic for new headteachers. The research reported in this article provides a theoretical explanation of that experience by analysing the socialization of new primary school headteachers in England from a role boundary perspective. The role boundary is the…

This study considers the rhetoric and practice of self-assessment by governing bodies of schools and colleges. The context expects governing bodies to reflect on their performance and this is supported by theoretical approaches to self-assessment of "boards". However, there are both general notes of caution and interview evidence of the…

This research generates new knowledge about how 24 educational leaders in the USA and England used their doctoral research to build narrative capital to inform strategies to steer their organizations towards cultural alignment. Cultural alignment prevents forms of segregation rooted in nation-states' wider historiography of education segregation…

This article explores the impact of changing policy priorities on the role of director of children's services, before and after the economic crisis of 2008 and the election of the coalition government. The role of director of children's services from 2003 to 2010 was driven by the New Labour imperative to deliver regionally based integrated…

Educational change can call up a range of feelings that can pose a number of problems for those experiencing and/or organizing it. This article analyses the processes of educational change from a psychodynamic standpoint. In particular it explores affective containment, which enables feelings to be fully experienced and to be used productively. an…

Literature examining effective leadership in education describe a number of models such as Transformational, Learner-Centred, Distributed and Situational. A similar example is "pedagogical leadership", a phrase that frequently appears in literature and one referring to forms of practice that shape and form teaching and learning to be…

Drawing on data from a series of semi-structured interviews this article reports on findings from a research project focusing on the responses of two local authorities and their secondary schools to the Academies Act 2010. The article considers the background and the development of the education system in both localities. It goes on to focus on…

This article presents findings from a study of 14 heads of construction in further education colleges in England as they manage the transition of new construction lecturers from a culture of hypermasculinity to one of emotional labour and caring. It focuses firstly on the dilemmas faced by heads of construction at the recruitment stage before…

Formal and informal partnerships have become key features of education policy and practice in many countries and managing such collaborative arrangements is an important dimension of the role(s) of leaders of educational organizations. Recent research has shown both the tensions and conflict that can develop in partnerships as well as the…

The move in England towards extended services was a core part of the educational policy of successive Labour governments throughout the 2000s. Sitting alongside like-minded initiatives, school leaders were encouraged to envision, plan for and operate a range of activities and services aimed at deepening and extending schools' relationships with…

Early childhood (EC) leadership literature indicates few theoretically based studies identifying and testing different models and characteristics of leadership. Objectives were thus to identify, describe and analyse what leadership meant to key EC participants; to consider roles, responsibilities and characteristics; to investigate core…

This article draws on research conducted with HLTAs in the North-West of England over two years and is located in the context of workforce remodelling. The respondents have presented a picture of a role which is developing outside the hegemonic discourse of rationality, testing, accountability and performativity within which the teacher role is…