Liesbeth Piot

The lucid loneliness of the gatekeeper: exploring the emotional dimension in principals’ work lives

Based on a secondary analysis of studies on Flemish primary schools, the article argues that the metaphor of the gatekeeper, on the threshold between the outside‐school and the inside‐school world, is a powerful frame to capture some of the particular complexities of principals’ emotional experience of themselves and their working conditions. More in particular, the image allows for a more refined and in‐depth understanding of the emotional and relational aspects in the position and role of the principal. Apart from depicting the working conditions of leadership in terms of the gatekeeper‐image, the authors contend that the inevitable normative character of education contributes to a sense of vulnerability and emotionality in leadership. Two themes appeared to be prominent in principals’ experience of their gatekeeper’s position: first, being caught in a web of conflicting loyalties and second, the struggle between loneliness and belonging. Underneath these themes—it is argued—lies the issue of the principal’s professional self in the particular school. The article concludes with suggestions for the training of (future) principals.

Surviving Diversity in Times of Performativity: Understanding Teachers’ Emotional Experience of Change

In this chapter we focus on the way teachers experience their job and their professional identity. Our narrative and biographical approach allows for an in-depth reconstruction of the political and moral tensions teachers experience; the pressure to reconceptualise their “selves”; and as a consequence the emotional quality of their work lives. We argue that the changes in the working conditions deeply affect teachers both in their professional actions and the emotional experience of the job. Teachers experience intense emotional conflicts as they struggle to cope with conflicting identity scenarios, the web of (conflicting) loyalties they find themselves in, etc. Our findings confirm, exemplify and deepen earlier work on vulnerability as a structural characteristic of the teaching job.

Beginning teachers’ job experiences in multi‐ethnic schools

Multi‐ethnic schools in Flanders are frequently portrayed – both in popular media and research – as highly problematic working environments for (beginning) teachers. This article reports on an exploratory study of beginning teachers’ experiences in one secondary multi‐ethnic school in Flanders. Based on data from questionnaires, document analysis and semi‐structured interviews with both six beginning teachers and two mentors, the study concluded that the structural and cultural working conditions as well as the personal belief systems of the teachers were essential to understand the actual impact of the multi‐ethnic character of the school on new teachers’ job experiences. Due to the mediating role of these factors, beginning teachers do not consider the multi‐cultural character of their working environment as problematic as such.

The Micropolitics of Distributed Leadership: Four Case Studies of School Federations

This study analyses the collaboration between principals within four Flemish school federations (voluntary collaborative networks between either primary or secondary schools). Interview data from principals were analysed using a micropolitical perspective. A central idea in micropolitical theory is that organization members’ actions (and sense-making) are largely driven by their interests. As such this perspective allows to understand how principals’ interests influence how collaborations within federations work out in practice. In three federations, we found an alignment of principals’ interests that stimulated a collaborative dynamic, which eventually contributed to improvement of the federation. Moreover, it also enhanced principals’ professional development. In the fourth case, however, such dynamics were absent due to a conflict of interests between the federation and one member school. Because one school felt the federation threatened its educational identity and mission, it almost completely withdrew from the federation. Thus, we conclude that principals’ balancing of interests plays an important role in the development of collaborative relationships and practices within school federations.

Living the Janus Head

Leadership in schools changes. Traditionally leadership in schools was about “the man in the principal’s office” as Wolcott (1973) labelled it in his seminal work about four decades ago. The formal leaders –principals, head teachers, directors, … whatever their name was- were people who did not hang around in classrooms, but had an office, a separate space to perform their separate duties.