Session Information
ERG SES G13, Management in Education
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper aims to illustrate how aspiring headteacher socialisation could be reconceptualised as disciplinary socialisation by using Foucault’s notions of panopticism, disciplinary power and governmentality.
Socializing aspiring school leaders has been viewed as an important part of leadership preparation (Normore, 2004), while the extant literature on the socialisation of headteachers largely focuses on the effective socialization and succession of school leaders (Bengtson, Zepeda, & Parylo, 2013; Crow, 2006; Normore, 2004). Much of the research views headteacher socialisation as a rational and political vacuum process where an individual learns or acquires the necessary knowledge, skills, and values needed to perform a social role in an organization (Bengtson et al., 2013). However, this seems to be a danger of intensification of the particular ways that school headteachers are being normalising through ‘the means of correct training’ (Foucault, 1977). As Anderson and Grinberg (1998) have rightly pointed out, this perspective of socialisation tends to reproduce discourse-practices through what is assessed in assessment centres, what is taught in courses and what is learned in internships. They go further to argue that Foucault’s concepts can be fruitful to expose the dangerous aspects of some administrative practices that can result in more effective technologies of control. Therefore this paper examines the practices of headteacher socialisation in the pre-service formal training in the context of Taiwan, and links it to normalisation, discipline and subjectification by using Foucault’s theory of disciplinary power, governmentality (Foucault, 1977, 1991, 2002). The purpose of this paper is to re-conceptualise and enrich the theory of professional socialisation in the field of school leadership preparation.
The context of this study is situated in Taiwan. As more and more countries place school headship preparation as a high priority on their policy agendas (Hess & Kelly, 2005; Huber, 2004; Leithwood, Jacobson, & Ylimaki, 2011), Taiwan has no exception. In order to ensure the quality of school headteachers, Taiwanese local governments create a new school headship training strategy known as ‘administrative placement in the Department of Education (AP)’. Unlike the school placement in most of countries where aspiring headteachers are placed in school settings, those in Taiwan are placed into local authority office for about one-year AP training before they acquire the position, in order to strength their policy delivery capacities and administrative skill development. It is this new AP training strategy that positions aspiring headteachers in the District Office, under the constant surveillance, normalising judgments and the examination from officials. Although the research context is situated in Taiwan, its implication of using Foucault’s concepts in socialisation of school leadership preparation might be internationally profound.
Foucauldian studies into discipline, the subject and governmentality have been increasingly influential in the field of educational leadership and administration (Anderson & Grinberg, 1998; Cohen, 2013; Gillies, 2013; Gobby, 2013; Niesche, 2010, 2011, 2013a, 2013b). Some scholars have employed a Foucauldian theoretical lens of disciplinary power to examine the modality of leadership preparation with adoption of standards (English, 2003; Gronn, 2003). Using Foucault’s notions of disciplinary power and governmentality, this article examines the practices of administrative placement in the local education authority. Such an examination highlights the insidious dimension of aspiring headteacher socialisation within such new leadership imperative.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
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