Social, Critical and Political Theories for Educational Leadership

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Why Use Social, Critical and Political Theories in Educational Leadership?

   • Richard Niesche, Christina Gowlett

   Pages 1-16

3. Critical Perspectives in Educational Leadership: A New ‘Theory Turn’?

   • Richard Niesche, Christina Gowlett

   Pages 17-34

4. Michel Foucault and Discourses of Educational Leadership

   • Richard Niesche, Christina Gowlett

   Pages 35-60

5. Using Judith Butler to Queer(y) Educational Leadership

   • Richard Niesche, Christina Gowlett

   Pages 61-84

6. Bernard Stiegler: Technics and Educational Leadership as a Form of Psycho-Power

   • Richard Niesche, Christina Gowlett

   Pages 85-109

7. Entangling Karen Barad with/in Educational Leadership

   • Richard Niesche, Christina Gowlett

   Pages 111-134

8. The Inescapable Connection Between Theory and Practice

   • Richard Niesche, Christina Gowlett

   Pages 135-142

This book makes the case for the continued and expanded use of social, critical and political theories in the field of educational leadership. It helps readers understand educational leadership by introducing them to a wide variety of theoretical and philosophical approaches and positions. The book incorporates a rich blend of ideas and concepts, and compares and contrasts the approaches discussed.

The content largely focuses on four educational thinkers: Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Bernard Stiegler and Karen Barad. The chapters do not cover each thinker’s oeuvre exhaustively, but instead provide a brief overview of his/her ideas, while also helping readers understand a particular aspect of the educational leadership discourse. Each chapter also provides supplementary reading recommendations for those interested in pursuing these ideas in more depth.

• education theory and philosophy
• post-structuralism
• queer theory
• social theories in educational leadership
• critical theories in educational leadership
• political theories in educational leadership
• equality in educational leadership
• Michel Foucault
• Judith Butler
• Jacques Ranciere
• Karen Barad
• Bernard Stiegler

• School of Education, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

  Richard Niesche

• School of Education, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

  Christina Gowlett

Dr Richard Niesche is a senior lecturer at the School of Education, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He has worked as a teacher in Queensland and New South Wales at both primary and secondary levels. His research interests include educational leadership, principalship and social justice. His particular research focus is on applying a critical perspective in educational leadership to examine the work of school principals in disadvantaged schools and how they can work towards achieving more socially just outcomes. He has published his research in a range of peer-reviewed journals and is the author of a number of books including Foucault and Educational Leadership: Disciplining the Principal (Routledge, 2011), Deconstructing Educational Leadership: Derrida and Lyotard (Routledge, 2013), and Leadership, Ethics and Schooling for Social Justice, co-authored with Dr Amanda Keddie from the University of Queensland (Routledge, 2016). He is also the co-editor of the Educational Leadership Theory book series with Springer.


Dr Christina Gowlett is a lecturer at the School of Education, University of Queensland. Prior to joining the UQ, she was a McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. She is also an experienced secondary school teacher. Christina’s research interests include educational policy, school leadership, curriculum change and schooling inequalities. Her work is broadly informed by poststructural theory, especially the work of Judith Butler. Christina is the convenor of the Sociology of Education Special Interest Group at the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE). She is also the Coordinator for the Humanities and Social Sciences Curriculum Foundation course at UQ’s School of Education, and the School’s Chief Examiner. Her latest publication is a co-edited book with Associate Professor Mary Lou Rasmussen, The Cultural Politics of Queer Theory in Education Research (Routledge,2016).

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