Prelims

Half Title Page

Critical Education Leadership and Policy Scholarship

Endorsements Page

The UK has just ushered in a landslide political tsunami under the simple slogan change. This book is a clarion call and a harbinger for a paradigmatic change in a new critical research methodology in education leadership and policy scholarship.

John Smyth, Emeritus Research Professor, Federation University Australia & Editor Critical research and theorizing (DIO Press, 2021).

Title Page

Critical Education Leadership and Policy Scholarship: Introducing a New Research Methodology

EDITED BY

STEVEN J. COURTNEY

The University of Manchester, UK

PAUL W. ARMSTRONG

The University of Manchester, UK

AND

AMANDA McKAY

The University of Manchester, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL.

First edition 2025

Editorial matter and selection © 2025 Steven J. Courtney, Paul W. Armstrong, and Amanda McKay.

Individual chapters © 2025 The authors.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83549-473-8 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83549-472-1 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83549-474-5 (Epub)

Dedication

The editors would like to dedicate this book to the field of critical education leadership and policy studies, whose members have inspired and sustained us.

Contents

About the Editors

Prof Steven J. Courtney is Professor of Sociology of Education Leadership, researching and writing in areas including system leadership, charisma, depoliticisation and education privatisation, particularly in relation to the identities and practices of those constructed as educational leaders. He is currently Research Director at the Manchester Institute of Education (MIE), University of Manchester, Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Critical Studies in Education, and co-convenor of the MIE research and scholarship group, Critical Education Leadership and Policy. His latest book is Keywords in Education Policy Research: A Conceptual Toolbox, co-authored with Andrew Wilkins and Nelli Piattoeva, published by Policy Press (2024).

Dr Paul W. Armstrong is Reader in Education at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester. He has 20 years’ experience in academic teaching and research and has published across a number of areas including educational collaboration, leadership, management and policy. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Sage journal Management in Education and a long-standing trustee for both the British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society (BELMAS) and the Institute for School Business Leadership (ISBL).

Dr Amanda McKay is Senior Lecturer at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester. She is co-convenor of the research group, Critical Education Leadership and Policy and Co-Editor of the Journal of Educational Administration and History. Her research focuses on the contemporary challenges of school leaders’ work and what that means for how leaders can be better attracted, supported, and retained. She recently co-authored ‘How to Be Reflexive: Foucault, Ethics and Writing Qualitative Research as a Technology of the Self’, which was published in the International Journal of Research and Method in Education.

About the Contributors

Sarah Bibi is a third-year PhD student at the Manchester Institute of Education. Her PhD research looks at the impact of education leadership’s policies and practices on teacher well-being. Her master’s research looked at teacher well-being in a free school context. Her research interests are inspired by her personal experiences as a secondary school teacher.

Dr Joanne Doherty is a Lecturer in Education at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester. She is a critical scholar, and her research interests include parental engagement, school governance, school leader retention, and education policy. She is currently engaged in a research project exploring parents’ experiences of becoming and being school governors and another that focuses on school leader retention. She is interested in the role played by identity and biographies and how these can shape actors’ experiences of education. She is also school governor for a federation of infant and junior schools.

Dr Claire Forbes is Senior Lecturer in Education at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester. She uses participatory research to understand educational assets within high-poverty places. Her research involves schools, local authorities, and policymakers, as well as children, young people, and parents. Her publications focus on reconceptualising educational assets – and professional relationships within these – to support children’s trajectories and education improvement more broadly.

Prof Helen M. Gunter is Professor Emerita at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, UK. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and recipient of the BELMAS Distinguished Service Award 2016. Her research focuses on the political sociology of knowledge production in the field of education policy. Her most recent book is A Political Sociology of Education Policy (2023, Policy Press), and her research has been the focus of a festschrift: Fitzgerald, T., and Courtney, S. J. (Eds.), Critical Education Policy and Leadership Studies: The Intellectual Contributions of Helen M. Gunter (2023, Springer).

Karen Broadhurst Healey is a Lecturer and PhD researcher at the University of Manchester, Institute of Education. Her doctoral research is a critical study investigating the role of parents in the governance of multi-academy trusts in disadvantaged communities. Her interests have been driven by her experience in senior leadership roles in and with schools. Her most recent publication is ‘Mapping the Discursive Formations of “Effective” School Governance and the Role of Parents’ in the Journal of Educational Administration and History.

Dr Belinda C. Hughes is a Senior Lecturer in Education in the Manchester Institute of Education at the University of Manchester, UK. Her research interests are educational policy and school leadership, and the writings of Hannah Arendt. Her most recent publication titled ‘Writing a Genealogical Ethnography of a Multi-Academy Trust’ was published in the Journal of Educational Administration and History (2023).

Mark Innes is a Lecturer in Education at the University of Manchester. His research focuses on policy enactments and policy actors in schools and multi-academy trusts. He is part of the Critical Education Leadership and Policy Research Group.

Prof Kirstin Kerr is Professor in Education at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester and an expert in complex, multi-strand approaches to tackling educational inequities in high-poverty places. She works alongside schools, housing providers, local authorities, and third-sector organisations to develop and monitor bespoke local initiatives. Her publications address these initiatives’ substantive design features and the methodologies involved.

Zeya Li is in the final year of her PhD programme at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester. Her research focus is on the interplay between discourses of gender and leadership in the context of higher education institutions in China.

Pinyan Lin is in the final year of a PhD programme at the Manchester Institute of Education. Her research interests lie in educational leadership, school-to-school collaboration, and critical policy studies. Her main research seeks to critically investigate and conceptualise governance structures and leadership models of education collectives in China. Her most recent publication is ‘Typologising Formal School-to-School Collaborations – Education Collectives – in China Through the Metaphor of Chinese Landscape Painting’, in Oxford Review of Education. She is Interim Assistant Editor of the International Journal of Leadership in Education.

Dr Alex McTaggart (Alexander Gardner-McTaggart) is a teaching and scholarship academic specialising in international educational leadership at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester. He is Senior Lecturer in educational leadership and serves as Academic Theme Lead for Transnational Education at the University. He is Associate Editor of the journal Educational Management, Administration & Leadership.

Dr Stephen M. Rayner is a Senior Lecturer at the Manchester Institute of Education. He teaches on master’s programmes, mainly for students studying part-time alongside their work as teachers or administrators in educational institutions. His recent publications are on the enactment of educational policy, school and higher education leadership, and school-to-school collaboration.

Dr Craig Skerritt is a Lecturer at the University of Manchester. He also convenes the British Educational Research Association’s Educational Research and Educational Policy-Making Special Interest Group. He has recently published a book titled Consulting Students on Classroom Practice, ‘Good’ Teaching, and Teacher Performance: A Critical Account of Student Voice in Contemporary Schools (2024, Bloomsbury Academic).