The erosion of the field of Education by fields outside it, such as the political, the economy and the commercialised cultural field, has been questioned extensively by critical education policy studies (Simons et al., 2013; Ball & Youndell, 2008). In the Europeanised and globalised Education Policy Space, member-states are called to adopt and implement evidence-based modes of accountability and new forms of governing of educational institutions (Ozga, 2012; Ball & Junemann, 2012). Marketisation, managerialism and performativity have become the fundamental principles that prescribe the processes of governance of education, whereby the actions of institutions and professionals become ‘outputs’ that can be objectively measured (Ball, 2008, Sifakakis et al., 2016). In this context, New Public Management and Distributive Leadership theories are the forms of knowledge for education administration that are disseminated as valid in the field of symbolic control throughout the national educational systems in Europe and globally (Tsatsaroni et al., 2015; Hall et al., 2015; Gunter et al., 2013). Inscribed in these forms of knowledge are principles, models and knowledge-power relations that transform the relationship of school and education professionals with civil society and the state (Tsatsaroni et al., 2015).

Education policies and practices are shaped under the influence of globalised governance discourse, structures and procedures. Robertson & Dale (2013:431) “understand governance frameworks as comprised of combinations of: (i) distinct forms of education activity (funding, provision, ownership, regulation); (ii) particular kinds of entities or agents with different interests (state, for-profit/not-for-profit market, community, individual); and (iii) different platforms or scales of rule (sub-national, national, supranational)”. Furthermore, as Robertson (2011, 2012) argues, the state-education-citizen relation has been re-ordered and re-bordered and the division of labour of the agents located in the field of symbolic control has been changed as an implication of these discourses, structures and procedures.

The research and analysis of educational policy based on a single theory is impossible, due to the complexity of the issues involved and it is also necessary to connect the macro-level analysis of educational systems and educational policies with the micro-level of practice and policy enactment (Ball, 2008; Ball et al., 2012). Hence, in my research I combine the theory of governmentality and discourse, developed by Foucault (1988; Burchell et al., 1991), with Bernstein’s (2000, 2001) theory of symbolic control and Totally Pedagogised Society. This combination has helped me to develop sets of analytical tools to explore the principles through which the Europeanised governance discourse is recontextualised in the field of education administration and in the pedagogic discourse that is disseminated in this field, in Greece.

The paper draws on data from a completed research program focusing on the forms of knowledge and power that are inscribed in the training, selection and evaluation processes, implemented in the Greek education administration field in response to Europeanised and globalised discourses of governance. The research explores the politics of re-ordering and re-bordering, and describes changes in power and control relations in the field of symbolic control in Greece, under the influence of European Education Policies. For the education executives these processes are part of their everyday activity in the field of administration, where they negotiate, interprete, translate, accept, transform or reject the governance discourses, procedures and criteria. Furthermore, these processes of change have been taking place in conditions of economic and political crisis and austerity measures, Greek society has been confronted with during the last seven years. The European Education Policy Space is tested in Greece alongside “Troika’s” economic policies, so in this context the negotiation of governance discourse has different content and meanings.

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