This article, which is set within the Maltese education scenario of unfolding decentralization through the setting-up of multi-site school collaboratives (legally termed 'colleges') via a policy mandate, explores a particular aspect of this reform -that of 'networking'. This is examined in terms of the potential for 'networking' that educational leaders have at both school and college levels and the 'effects' of these (non-) opportunities on both the leaders and the network itself. My study is framed within a postmodern paradigm and interpreted through a Foucauldian theoretical framework. Data for this case study are collected via semi-structured, in-depth interviews; participant observation; and documentary analysis; which are then subjected to narrative analysis. The findings reveal a very detached bond within and across levels, with this detachment unfolding simultaneously within both micro and macro strata. This article, besides theoretically addressing a gap in literature regarding the shortcomings of networks and network dynamics, has a particular significance for educational practitioners, policy makers, and all those who have school improvement on their agenda.

In this paper, I explore the relationship of democracy to educational leadership; more specifically, to the notion of distributed leadership as it unfolds within policy-mandated multi-site school collaboratives, with particular reference to practices in Malta. Under the policy framework ‘For All Children To Succeed’ introduced in Malta in 2005, Maltese primary and secondary state schools embarked on the process of being organized into networks, legally termed ‘colleges’. I explore leadership distribution among the leaders constituting the college and the subsequent inherent tensions within this educational scenario. The notion of distributed leadership as perceived by the leaders is examined, and especially the leaders’ reception of its presentation in the policy document as the leadership discourse; and its eventual (non-)enactment at both school and college level. A Foucauldian theoretical framework, specifically Foucault’s concepts of power relations, governmentality, discourse, and subjectification, is used to carry out a case study of a Maltese college, collecting data via semi-structured, in-depth interviews, participant observation and documentary analysis. Narrative is both the phenomenon under study and the method of analysis. The policy discourse does not unfold in a participatory democratic manner in practice, resulting in an organizational paradox where leadership enactment in a Maltese college is ‘directed’ from above, rather than ‘distributed’. These findings may be significant for educational practice, policy and theory in terms of the generation of problematization which may lead to further research on this contested topic.

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Policy in transition: the emergence of tackling early school leaving (ESL) as EU policy priority This paper explores, from a Foucauldian perspective, the emergence and nature of the current EU education policy priority issue of 'early school leaving'. The paper suggests that a number of problematizations developing from the failure to secure Lisbon Strategy objectives have served to create a much stronger focus on the issue of young people deemed to be leaving education and training early in EU states. In examining how EU policy discourse positions such young people (subjectivation), the paper highlights how this has narrowed to a concern with young people as economic problems and principally positioned as economic units which require to be more productive. Education and training are understood as investments in human capital and as the principal means to secure the dominant global economic position desired by the EU. The paper suggests, however, that human capital theory has been modified within this approach so that merely being retained in an educational setting is seen as proxy for the investment which education and training represent. This is a weaker policy position than previously espoused but, born of economic crisis, one which addresses related EU political aims of softening youth unemployment figures, dampening associated unrest, and reducing risks to social cohesion.

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