This paper reports on a case study of the work of two women primary (elementary)school principals in a failing school in Adelaide South Australia.  It questions the creation of  the discursive performativity of women principals and the way that leadership success is read in different ways. Within the literature the nature of the work of primary school principals is often positioned as labour that is gender neutral where the possession of generic ‘leadership skills’ is regarded as providing any preparation and expertise necessary.(Cranston and Ehrich 2009). These supposedly standard leadership skills are envisaged as common to all schools and transferable. However, this is rarely the case, especially in primary schools where there is a continuous moral panic or gender crisis regarding a feminized teaching service and increasing number of women school principals(Martin 2000).  The paper further argues that the emotional subjectivity of women principals is continually constructed and reconstructed around notions of gender. These identity constructions are governed by dominant discourses of femininity and hegemonic masculinity  (Connell 1989; Connell 1991).

There exists an aesthetic component of labour, the stylization of the body where particular performative techniques of reiteration and performance must be deployed in the workplace. The stylization of the body is considered crucial with an emphasis on appearance, display and management of impressions. For women principals having a sexualised image cannot be removed from the person they represent as Principal and this sexualised image is presented as intrinsic to their work and we need to question how women principals negotiate and are positioned within this particularly within the area of emotional labour (Crawford 2009). 

The neo –liberal climate of recent times and the impact of discourses of managerialism have had considerable impact on the nature of the work of school principals and questions need to be considered as to how women principals negotiate and are positioned within this (Blackmore 2009). These and other differences have meant a change to school culture, so that positions have had to be renegotiated and there is now a need for principals to demonstrate a stylization of the successful self . The neoliberal emphasis on school choice means that principals are identified by the public as embodiments of school culture and success and how this stylization works as a form of discursive performativity is discussed(Butler 1999). As a case study of failing school in the northern suburbs of Adelaide in an area of particular social and economic deprivation, the subjectivities and discursive performativity of the two women principals were used as evidence and measure of staff morale, community satisfaction and school success when a State Parliamentary Inquiry was called to examine what was happening at the school following union complaints, staff resignations and community and press agitation.

The moral panic  over the feminisation of primary (elementary) teaching, and  the increased number of women principals and  their role and function means that examination of processes is timely. This so called 'gender crisis' is occurring not just in Australia but world wide (Gronn 2003) and it is important to understand how women principals negotiate in this contested area.

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