Ghana's basic education Headteacher leadership: critical discourse analysis of the Headteachers’ handbook

Philip Saagyum Dare, Robyn Babaeff, Linda Henderson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

The Ghana Education Service created the Headteachers' Handbook, a policy document that outlines Headteacher leadership practices. A recent review of Ghana's basic education Headteacher Leadership literature reported that these practices align within a hierarchy-horizontal leadership framework and are enacted within predetermined boundaries specific to the context. Therefore, this paper examined the Handbook's Forward, Introduction, Managing Your School, and Improving the Quality of Learning sections using Fairclough's (2001. Language and Power. 2nd ed. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education) three-stage approach to critical discourse analysis to identify how leadership is constructed and produced. The study shows that the Handbook constructs Headteacher leadership through relational authority, producing responsibilization, accountability, obligations and constraint roles. As such, Headteachers have discourse constraints and limitations when enacting leadership through this predetermined discourse. This paper provides a point of reference for present and potential researchers and Headteachers to theorize about the future of Headteacher leadership in Ghana.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Educational Administration and History
DOIs
Publication statusAccepted/In press - 2024

Keywords

  • basic education
  • critical discourse analysis
  • Ghana education service/handbook
  • headteacher leadership
  • School leadership

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