The purpose of this paper is to present data and analysis to theorise how the corporatisation of educational leadership and governance for schools has reframed parental engagement in disadvantaged communities. By thinking with Bourdieu’s field theory (Bourdieu, 1977; 1990; 1998) I examine how corporatised educational leadership secures parental engagement as a corporate activity to acquire, regulate and naturalise parents in a corporatised field, strengthening the position of the multi-academy trusts, their schools and those leading and governing in the MAT. The corporatisation of the field (Saltman, 2010; Courtney, 2015; Enright et al., 2020) has seen a change in the stance and position of those responsible for the governance and leadership of schools. I present a model to conceptualise how corporatisation has rewritten the rules of the game, with parental engagement operationalised as corporate activity. This study is an ethno-graphically informed case study located in three MATs in England. Generated data from twenty-one interviews with leaders was analysed to understand how educational leadership secured the illusio of the game through parental engagement. Thinking with Bourdieu’s field theory I analysed the generated data to explore how the fields symbolic order and doxic relations are secured through parental engagement. This study reveals the drive to acquire parents, through a corporate framing of parental engagement, seeks those parents who are willing participants in the illusio (Bourdieu, 1998) of the game. However, this study extends Bourdieu’s field theory as it revealed that corporate actors deployed parental engagement as a strategy to acquire parents who do not recognise the illusio of the game. The acquisition of these parents acknowledges corporate actors as experts. However, to legitimate this recognition, they are required to regulate and naturalise these parents into the dispositions and practices of the field. This analysis is significant as it contributes a model that extends Bourdieu’s field theory. This model illuminates how parent engagement in a corporatised field of educational leadership aims to acquire, regulate and naturalise parents into the field. Underpinning the extension of Bourdieu’s field theory is my argument that parental engagement has been purposed as a corporate activity to secure acquisitions and the dynamic of power between actors. Furthermore, I contribute empirically to the field by providing a model to analyse the parental engagement activities within the field of educational leadership to understand the purposing of such activities in relation to the fields forces and doxic relations.

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