Table Of ContentEducational Leadership and
Nancy Fraser
Drawing on the work of Nancy Fraser, this book offers a critical view of
contemporary educational leadership and reform discourses, exploring how her
key concepts of redistribution, recognition and representation may apply to social
and therefore educational justice.
Fraser offers a political and pragmatic reconciliation between feminist,
neo-Marxist, critical and post-structuralist theories. This book outlines how
Fraser has worked on and worked over theories of social justice and how this can
inform how we can understand educational theory, policy and practice generally.
In particular, the book focuses on the field of educational administration and
leadership (ELMA) as it relates to equity issues such as school choice and inequal-
ity, gender and inclusive leadership, and alternative schooling. Fraser’s argument
about ‘scaling up’ social justice theory is shown to be highly salient given the
emergence of the field of transnational education policy and its role in the context
of intensified nation-state and edu-business competition.
Overall, through the lens of Nancy Fraser’s unitary framework, this book con-
siders epistemological questions about the nature of knowledge, examines the
relationship between the state, the individual, education and social movements,
addresses the difficulties and dilemmas which arise due to the intersections of gen-
der, class, race, sexuality and culture in a globalized context, and illustrates how
the principles of social justice can be mobilized by leaders in everyday practice.
Educational Leadership and Nancy Fraser is an illuminating read for those
policymakers, researchers and practitioners engaged in the field of educational
administration, leadership and social justice.
Jill Blackmore is Alfred Deakin Professor of Education at Deakin University,
Australia.
Critical Studies in Educational Leadership, Management
and Administration Series
Series Editors: Pat Thomson, Helen M. Gunter and Jill Blackmore
This series draws on social and political theories from selected key thinkers and
activists to develop critical thinking leadership tools. Each text uses the work of
a particular theorist or theoretical approach, explains the theory, suggests what
it might bring to the ELMA field, and then offers analysis and case studies to
show how the tools might be used. Every book also offers a set of questions that
might be used by individual leaders in their own practices, and in areas of further
research by ELMA scholars.
In elaborating the particular approaches, each of the books also suggests a pro-
fessional and political agenda which addresses aspects of the tensions and prob-
lems created by neoliberal and neoconservative policy agendas, and the ongoing
need for educational systems to do better for many more of their students than
they do at present.
Titles in the series
Deconstructing Educational Leadership: Derrida and Lyotard
Richard Niesche
Educational Leadership and Hannah Arendt
Helen M. Gunter
Educational Leadership and Michel Foucault
Donald Gillies
Educational Leadership and Nancy Fraser
Jill Blackmore
Educational Leadership and
Nancy Fraser
Jill Blackmore
First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Jill Blackmore
The right of Jill Blackmore to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Blackmore, Jill, author.
Title: Educational leadership and Nancy Fraser / Jill Blackmore.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015049588| ISBN 9781138022027 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781315777337 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Educational sociology | Educational leadership—Social aspects. |
Social justice. | Educational equalization. | Fraser, Nancy.
Classification: LCC LC189 .B56 2016 | DDC 371.2—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015049588
ISBN: 978-1-138-02202-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-77733-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Galliard
by diacriTech
Dedicated to my son Jesse who had a strong sense of social
justice and of care for others.
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Contents
Series foreword ix
1 Introducing Nancy Fraser 1
2 From state-managed to transnational capitalism: Fraser,
feminism and the field of educational administration and
leadership 20
3 Educational inequality, parental choice and school
governance 41
4 The gender politics of educational leadership 62
5 Addressing social justice dilemmas: The case of male
teachers and alternative provision of education 85
MARTIN MILLS
6 Conclusion: Fraser’s thinking tools and socially just
education 98
7 Annotated bibliography 119
References 124
Index 149
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Series foreword
Imagine yourself walking into the foyer of the Department of Education, Victoria,
Australia. In front of you is a wall on which a series of names are displayed ceiling
to floor. You glance quickly and note the following: Edward de Bono, Richard
Elmore, Michael Fullan, Andy Hargreaves, Maria Montessori, Linda Darling-
Hammond, Daniel Goleman, Kenneth Leithwood. Now imagine yourself in
England. You decide to go to the website of the state-owned leadership research
and training National College and you find a section called Key Thinkers. When
the screen changes you find yourself looking at a list which contains many of the
same names.
Today, both of these things have disappeared. The names on the wall in Victoria
have been removed and the National College website has been revamped. But
they were both in place for some years. Seeing them made us wonder how it
was that the very same people were being lauded on both sides of the world. We
noted that both lists were dominated by North American men. In the Australian
case no Australians were listed, and in the case of England, the English names
were in a minority. Would this happen if we were exploring a leadership space or
place in Los Angeles? In Edinburgh? In Cape Town? In Beijing? In Buenos Aires?
In Toronto? It is interesting to think about where and where not we might see
similar listings.
We are sure that we would not have found this thirty years ago. While there
was an international circulation of educational ideas and texts, the development
of a celebrity leadership culture promoted by international gurus with modern-
izing know-how is a new phenomenon. It is worth considering why this might be
the case. We think of four possible reasons.
1 Leadership now encompasses all aspects of ‘continuous educational improve-
ment’. All professionals (and increasingly children and young people as
well), are identified as leaders, doing leading and exercising leadership. Head
teachers, or principals, are deemed repositories of leadership that they do or
do not ‘distribute’ to others to enable ‘delivery’ to be ‘maximized’. All edu-
cational professionals are spoken to or about as school leaders, often without
reference to role titles, and so just about everyone is potentially included as
a consumer of leadership ideas and models.
