Competing Narratives of Leadership in Schools: The Institutional and Discursive Turns in Organizational Theory

• In Event: 67.052 - Understanding School Leadership Through Organizational Theory

Abstract

This paper examines competing narratives of organizations and leadership in education research and proposes an analytic approach that emphasizes discursive institutionalism. Such an approach provides a focus on discursive struggles within the institutional environment and captures the play of agency and constraint that influence the everyday work of educational leadership. We illustrate the utility of this framework by synthesizing studies of New Public Management (NPM) as a new form of governance imposed on educational leaders. Aligning with this year’s annual theme and the Organizational Theory SIG’s interest in alternative conceptualizations of educational organizations, we explore how educational leaders might negotiate school structures imbued with NPM discourse/practices and work to reclaim discourses of equity and a common good.

Authors

• Gary L. Anderson, New York University

• Ethan Chang, University of California - Santa Cruz