The emergence of new (post-bureaucratic) governance models in the fields of organisations and educational policies gets along with modernising discourses on professionalisation of actors – teachers, headteachers and school executives. Recent researches (Maroy, 2006; Barroso, 2005; among others) reveal convergences about models of governance and regulations which European countries are trying to set up, whereas the are in search for a balance between centralisation and decentralisation, adapted evaluation tools, reinforcement of management, increased school autonomy and actors’ empowerment. At the same time, most researches also underline contradictions and paradoxical injunctions which seem to go along with the evolution of models of governance. These evolutions tend thus to complexify headteachers’ working realities and to create new needs of competencies in order to reinforce strategic management, communication, leadership, development of learning communities, ongoing analysis and problemsolving whithin a constant changing social and institutional environment world. Professionalisation of headteachers nowadays aims at helping headteachers to build up the conceptual and concrete tools in order to assure sustainable and valuable school development. My contribution takes place in this context. It tries to identify existing links between new governance policies, contextual realities in different work places and the daily work of headteachers. More particularily, I am studying professional experiences of beginning headteachers, in order to identify the trials they encounter and which I suppose to be key moments during the their professional socialisation process (Dubar, 2007). Conceptual framework The present research aims at observing the impact of governance policies on leadership and its various forms and especially on beginning headteachers’ professional experience and professional socialisation process.

Methodology Approach: psychosociological. This is a qualitative and ethnographical research based on grounded theory. The approach is as well clinical as ergonomic. Comprehensive interviews and field observations by shadowing will be lead. The data analysis will be essentially centred on the trials headteachers go through during their first working years.

The research is at an exploratory stage and based on grounded theory, so it is difficult to give specific information about any outcome for the moment. Some results are in my publication: De Rham, C., Gather Thurler, M. & Progin, L. (coming). Gouvernance et professionnalisation : des cadres scolaires à l’épreuve du réel. In G. Pelletier (Ed.), La gouvernance en éducation, régulation et encadrement intermédiaire.