Local school micropolitical agency: an antidote to new managerialism

Abstract

This paper reports research into the micropolitical strategies used by five school leadership teams in the South Australian School‐based Research and Reform Project. The research challenges many of the orthodoxies of educational managerialism. For example: 1. the use of leadership teams made up of teachers, coordinators and senior school leaders reflected a commitment to distributive leadership and very flat leadership structures in each of the schools (rather than ‘line management’ structures); 2. the leadership teams promoted key values as the driving force for reform (rather than leader inspired ‘visions of reform’); 3. leadership teams used non‐linear and evolutionary planning approaches that were negotiated closely with participants (rather than ‘strategic planning’ approaches to goal setting driven by school leaders); and 4. the main process vehicles used by leadership teams to further their schools' reform work were local action research and regular, dedicated staff workshops (rather than directives and accountability regimes). The paper analyses local school reform initiatives through a micropolitical frame. It is argued that micropolitical knowledge and insight is critical to the development of school practices that use the ‘positive politics’ of negotiation, collaboration and conflict resolution to address issues of local concern in schools, rather than the ‘controlling politics’ of new managerialism.