New Public Management and a Modernization Agenda: Implications for School Leadership

摘要

We argue that New Public Management (NPM) under New Labor in the U.K. contains paradoxical demands due to an attempt to attend to both social and economic goals. One context in which this is evident is that of Secondary School leadership. New calls for citizen-type activities and inclusive stakeholder decision-making activity is at odds with Principals being made increasingly accountable due to government preoccupation with standards and targets for pupils' attainment. Resources for identities constructed from the New Public Management rhetoric of participative, discretionary, democratic and transformational leadership abound, however, these are drawn on and subverted as individual Principals and Deputy Principals describe their new roles and relationships with one another.