School leadership and education policy-making in England

Abstract

We report on a major Economic and Social Science Research Council funded study: the Knowledge production in educational leadership Project (RES-000-23-1192), with a particular focus on the relationship between the state, public policy and knowledge. The project focused on the first 10 years of New Labour education policy-making, with a particular emphasis on investment in school leadership as a means of delivering radical reforms. The specific aims of the enquiry have been to examine knowledge production: the types of knowledge used in policy-making, the methodologies and claims to the truth being made, and the people involved in developing policy as politicians, advisors, consultants and researchers. We have explained the policy-making process by using theoretical tools from political science (regime theory) and Bourdieu's theory of practice (field and habitus) to develop a conceptual framework that we call regimes of practice. The article presents these regimes and examines their impact on how and why knowledge is used in policy-making.