Re-imagining leadership as a resource of and for educational practice/praxis in neoliberal times

The transformative aspect of leading practices in public education is beginning to be explored in a number of studies of school networks in England. In Australia, there have been moves in the states of Queensland and Western Australia to create Independent Public Schools schools which remain part of the public-funded education system but enjoy greater levels of school autonomy in terms of expenditure and employment of staff. To conceive solely of public education in Anglo-American nations as predominantly a sorting and classifying mechanism for societal reproduction would be a mistake. This chapter argues that the democratising tendencies provide key signposts towards a rich vein of conceptual resources which can be mined in order to re-imagine and reconceptualise public education and leadership as resources both of and for educational practice/praxis. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of these theoretical and conceptual resources for public education, when educational leadership is reconceived as praxis, rooted in the lifeworld of educators.