Since 1997, in the Italian educational system important reforms have flourished. A new institutional structure was established granting autonomy to each school, within the framework of a wider decentralisation. New policies were created and the actors’ role in the educational system underwent relevant changes. One of the aim of these policies was to ‘design’ the actors of the renewed system (Gronn, 2003). In order to act out their role and tackle this challenge, the actors of the Italian educational system can choose among different and conflicting foucauldian discourses (Ball, 2006): two “old” discourses, i.e. bureaucratism and professionalism, which both are typical of the pre-autonomy era and configure the Italian school as a case of “professional bureaucracy”; two “new” discourses, namely managerialism and the democratic-critical discourse. The former intends to introduce the logic of marketisation. The latter embraces the professional logic, trying to revitalize it and endeavours to foster collegial and participative modes of governance. Facing this background, the objective of the paper is two-folded. On the one hand our aim is to define in details the way the four discourses have been in a constant struggle for affirmation on the grounds of educational policy in Italy. On the other discourses are used as heuristic devices in order to examine real people and institutions acting out their renewed roles (Gewirtz, Ball, 2000). With this objective in view, the paper will deal with a case study regarding the raising of a new form of governance in the field of education on a provincial level in Italy. The research has been focused on the constitution and the implementation of a new instrument of governance, the “Conference of district”, promoted by a local authority. The conference is a collective actor that involves all the relevant stakeholders of the local arena in the decision-making regarding educational planning. In particular, our focus will be both on the transformation of the headteachers and local authorities practices, on the ways they re-act out their roles as well as on the modes of integration and co-ordination adopted (Grimaldi, Serpieri, 2008).

The research has comprised durable contacts with the field (3 years), where we have conducted observations of the interactions during the conferences as well as the daily work activities of the Province’s actors responsible for the educational planning. Many of the actors involved have been also interviewed. The research activity has so far led to collect documents (standing conference proceedings, etc.), transcripted in-depth interviews, observations of everyday working practices, of negotiation practices between stakeholders. These materials have been analysed in the theoretical perspective outlined before according to the principles of the Grounded Theory (Strauss, Corbin, 1990).

The paper will show how the Conferences establishment could represent for the actors involved an occasion for institutional learning (Newman, 2001) about the ways to re-interpret their renewed roles and tackle challenges of the increasing diversity and complexity of arenas (Kooiman, 2000). In the conferences the professional and bureaucratic discourses are increasingly worn away, even if not completely replaced. Integration and coordination are pursued through a mixed strategy of delegation, bargaining and empowerment. As dialogue, imaginery (Newman, 2005) and negoziation become common ways to bring on decision-making processes, new discourses are emerging, competing with and hybridizing the old ones. Anyway, the research results highlight how dialogue, and then the democratic-critical discourse, rather than the managerial one, seems to prevail within the conferences. At the same time the recognition of the difference between front and back regions’ practices (Giddens, 1984), makes how difficult is learning practices and contexts (Seddon, 1994) inspired by the democratic-critical discourse.