Principal self-government and subjectification: the exercise of principal autonomy in the Western Australian Independent Public Schools programme

Abstract

The launch of the Independent Public Schools (IPS) programme in Western Australia (WA) in 2010 reflects the neoliberal policy discourse of decentralisation and school selfmanagement sweeping across many of the world's education systems. IPS provides WA state school principals with decision-making authority in a range of areas, including the employment of staff and managing school budgets. Using an analytical toolkit provided by Michel Foucault and Foucauldian scholarship, this article examines how the IPS programme functions as a regime of government and self-government. Data collected from two IPS principals is used to examine the subjective effects of power as it is exercised in the IPS regime. The article finds that the IPS initiative introduces new possibilities for principals to actively participate in practices of self-formation, through which these principals self-steer, exercise their freedom and govern themselves and their schools. It illustrates how governmental mechanisms depend on, harness and shape the autonomy of these principals, and how their individual practices of self-government align with neoliberal governmentalities.

Putting “the system” into a school autonomy reform: the case of the Independent Public Schools program

“…It reports on data collected as part of a small-scale study into the development and implementation of the IPS initiative, which also included interviews with two IPS principals (Gobby, 2013a(Gobby, , 2013b. Using the above analytical perspective, this paper interleaves an analysis of DOE documents about the IPS program, with interviews conducted with key political and bureaucratic decision-makers responsible for developing and implementing the program.…”

“…Instituting contractual relationships, with its competitive system of providers, is expected to transform the thinking, values and behaviors of organizational participants from reliance, dependence and rule following, to entrepreneurialism, creativity, and selfresponsibility (Du Gay, 1996). Through the Performance and Delivery Agreement, managing a one-line budget, and recruiting staff, principals are to fashion themselves as enterprising, self-responsible and self-managing subjects of neoliberal government (Gobby, 2013b). Even choosing and applying to become an IPS principal is a key practice of this ethical transformation toward the autonomously choosing self-managing principal (Peters, Marshall, & Fitzsimons, 2000).…”

“…Fitzgerald and Rainnie (2012) note its employment of the rationalities and practices of New Public Management and New Public Governance. Gobby (2013aGobby ( , 2013b examined how a number of practices of IPS operate as a regime of principal self-government, which has the effect of cultivating the principal as a subject of neoliberal government. While these studies provide insight into the discursive framing of the program and the governmental effects of its specific practices, studies have not explored the curious coupling of the "independent school" with the "public school", as evinced by the program's moniker.…”

Tracking the neoliberal juggernaut: a virtual edition

“…Down rejects the neoliberal axiom, 'what is good for business is good for education and society' (p. 57) on the grounds that the narrow 'job ready' subjectivity projected by enterprise society is 'not only profoundly anti-democratic but anti-educative' (p. 57). Gobby's (2013) article documents the risky freedoms offered to school principals under neoliberal devolution of decision-making and responsibility, and could be considered a companion to Down's consideration of the students' subjectivity. The article offers an empirical snapshot of the Independent Public Schools (IPS) initiative in Western Australia, drawing on interviews with principals to examine 'the practices of self-government and self-formation that principals engage in under the IPS regime' (p. 274).…”

Leading schools in challenging circumstances: strategies for success

“…Rather than being an independent expertise with neutral and politically benign ends, leadership scholars in the field would need to confront the reality that 'leadership' is a technique of governmentality, or more specifically, a discourse being deployed as a strategy in liberal and neoliberal programmes of government (Niesche, 2011). Put simply, leadership is a political practice and the head teacher a political construct (Gobby, 2013). From this perspective, a theoretically rigorous leadership literature must contend with its own constructedness as a discourse deployed within political discourse as a means to govern schools according to objectives and knowledges developed largely outside of the field itself (Gunter, 2011).…”