Abstract
This book seeks to contribute to the field of critical leadership studies by invoking paradox as an intervention in the constitutive politics of school principals. It proposes that, in neoliberal times, the subjectivity of principals is better understood in its paradoxy than in the austere and essentialist accounts of school leadership that currently prevail. In Paradox and the School Leader, I am concerned with the ‘soul’ of the principal, conceived, after Foucault (1977), as a product of various forms of power exercised around, on and within the principal subject. Fifteen paradoxes derived from theoretical and empirical analysis are used to provide insights into the competing forces that haunt and contradict simplistic positivist accounts of contemporary school leadership and to reveal the presence of a political struggle for the soul of the principal in this neoliberal era.
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Notes
- 1.
The word ‘paradoxy’, which refers to ‘the quality or state of being paradoxical’ (paradoxy, 2019), appears to have enjoyed prominence during the Renaissance when the revival of ancient paradoxes became a popular form of amusement and public entertainment. It is used in this book to denote a state of ambiguity, tension and conflict in the lives and work of principals.
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Dolan, C. (2020). Scope, Position and Sequence. In: Paradox and the School Leader. Educational Leadership Theory. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3086-9_1
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