This book explores the theoretical and practical implications of a global resurgence of populism on educational leadership. Drawing together a wide range of international authors, it examines how socio-cultural and political populist developments affect educational policies, organisations, and administration around the world.
The collection addresses the forms and meanings of populism and examines their influence on education systems and institutions. It includes theoretical perspectives and rich examples from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Hungary, Nicaragua, the UK, and the US, exploring the complex influences and effects of populism on education policy, politics, and institutions in these countries. These include attacks on initiatives promoting equity and inclusion, the repression of academic freedom, the erosion of institutional autonomy from partisan political direction, and the suppression of evidence and expertise in policy and curriculum development.
With its international and multidisciplinary outlook, this book will be highly relevant reading for researchers, scholars, and students in the fields of educational leadership and administration, higher education, and education policy, as well as those interested in the contemporary manifestations of populism on education.
List of tables. Contributors. Acknowledgements. Introduction: studying the relationship between populism and educational policy and administration internationally. PART I: Theoretical foundations in application. 1. Educational populism as a policy configuration: the struggle against school absenteeism in France. 2. Authoritarian populism, body politics, and the assault on gender studies: toward a new progressivism in education and society. 3. Challenges facing educational leaders in an ethos of anti-intellectualism: populist leadership and the personalisation of power in Hungary. 4. Neoliberal crisis, the populist moment, and the challenge of educational leadership. 5. Populism on young people’s non-conforming behaviour as othering. PART II: Teaching issues. 6. Getting political: exploring how political savviness can help school district administrators counter-frame problematic populist policies. 7. Social foundations as preparation for school and community leadership: the urgency for deep learning in anti-intellectual times. PART III: Contemporary cases and issues. 8. Populist governance, caudillismo, and the crisis of education in Nicaragua: from the ideal of national purpose to political expediency. 9. Policymaking in higher education under neo-populism: a Brazilian experience. 10. Populism in Australian education: implications for educational leadership. 11. To surveil or not to surveil: educational surveillance in populist and nationalist times. 12. Conclusion: populism and educational leadership, policy and administration: influences, responses, and directions for scholarship and research. Index.
Peter Milley is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education and Director of the Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Eugenie A. Samier is a reader in the School of Education, University of Strathclyde, UK. She has frequently been a guest researcher at the Humboldt University of Berlin; was a visiting professor in administrative studies at the University of Tartu, Estonia; and a visiting fellow at Oxford Brookes University.
