Performing and Reforming Leaders: Gender, Educational Restructuring, and Organizational Change

Explores the issues inherent in critical and postmodern feminism in educational leadership.

Performing and Reforming Leaders critically analyzes how women negotiate the dilemmas they face in leadership and managerial roles in Australian schools, universities, and continuing education. To meet the economic needs of the post-welfare nation state of the past decade, Australian education systems were restructured, and this restructuring coincided with many female teachers and academics moving into middle management as change agents. The authors examine how new managerialism and markets in education transformed how academics and teachers did their work, and in turn changed the nature of educational leadership in ways that were dissonant with the leadership practices and values women brought to the job. While largely focused on Australia, Performing and Reforming Leaders strongly resonates with the experiences of leaders in the United States and other nations that have undergone similar educational reforms in recent decades.

“…Performing and Reforming Leaders is an insightful, well-researched and timely piece that explores the paradoxical corporate worlds which women leaders inhabit. It is a relevant book for anyone who has an interest in education, gender and organisations.” — The Australian Educational Researcher

“This book breaks new ground for scholars interested in critical and postmodern feminism in educational leadership. It is refreshing to read about women leaders’ experiences in trying times and also to see them positioned as having agency and as appropriating contemporary political discourses to advance their own agendas.” — Linda Skrla, coeditor of Reconsidering Feminist Research in Educational Leadership