Product Description: Educational systems around the world now understand that school change is dependent on the understandings and skills of those that lead them. There is an increasing understanding that school change is more effective when it is locally designed to suit specific histories and conditions, and that school-based research makes an important contribution to successful reform...read more

Explores the issues inherent in critical and postmodern feminism in educational leadership. Performing and Reforming Leaders critically analyzes how women negotiate the dilemmas they face in leadership and managerial roles in Australian schools, universities, and continuing education. To meet the economic needs of the post-welfare nation state of the past decade, Australian education systems were restructured, and this restructuring coincided with many female teachers and academics moving into middle management as change agents. The authors examine how new managerialism and markets in education transformed how academics and teachers did their work, and in turn changed the nature of educational leadership in ways that were dissonant with the leadership practices and values women brought to the job. While largely focused on Australia, Performing and Reforming Leaders strongly resonates with the experiences of leaders in the United States and other nations that have undergone similar educational reforms in recent decades.“…Performing and Reforming Leaders is an insightful, well-researched and timely piece that explores the paradoxical corporate worlds which women leaders inhabit. It is a relevant book for anyone who has an interest in education, gender and organisations.” — The Australian Educational Researcher“This book breaks new ground for scholars interested in critical and postmodern feminism in educational leadership. It is refreshing to read about women leaders’ experiences in trying times and also to see them positioned as having agency and as appropriating contemporary political discourses to advance their own agendas.” — Linda Skrla, coeditor of Reconsidering Feminist Research in Educational Leadership

Answering Back exposes the volatility of gender reform in many different schools and classrooms. It tells stories in close up and from below, allowing everyone to talk: anxious boys, naughty girls, cantankerous teachers, pontificating principals and feisty feminists. This book challenges many sacred ideas about gender reform in schools and will surprise and unsettle teachers and researchers. It draws on a deep knowledge of gender issues in schools and of feminist theories, policies and practices. It is compelling and provocative reading at the leading edge.

Product Description: Jill Blackmore here argues that the particular approaches previously taken by feminist theory towards educational leadership require reviewing in the light of the radical restructuring of educational systems seen in the late-1990s...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)