Women’s leadership as narrative practice: identifying ‘tent making’, ‘dancing’ and ‘orchestrating’ in UK Early Years Services

Purpose – The paper discusses the “narrative practices” utilised by women leading in a small sample of Early Years services in the North East of England. These Early Years settings are presented as an alternative site for studying women's experiences of leadership. It examines the way in which these women use narrative strategies and approaches to work in collaborative, community based services for young children and their families. Design/methodology/approach – The study is drawn from a larger study into narratives of professional identity and their relation to interactional contexts. The study follows an interpretive paradigm, and used narrative and participative methodology and methods to work with a small number of participants purposively sampled from cohorts of the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL). Participants were involved in reflective conversations about their leadership supported by interactive, visual methods in five extended sessions over the course of twelve months. Data from the larger study which related to the theme of “narrative practices” was subsequently coded and interpreted to inform this study. Findings – Data coded as “narrative practices” led to the establishment of three high level categories of narrative practice found in the study. These are summarised in the metaphors of “tent making” (creating and using symbolic and narrative space with others), “skilled dancing” (improvising, and remembering with others) and “orchestration” (reflexive attuning). Data suggests that women involved in the study drew on their experience and values to develop sophisticated narrative practices that were particularly adaptive, ethically sensitive and sustainable – often in spite of “official” masculine leadership cultures. Research limitations/implications – This specific study only draws on narrative accounts of three women leaders in Early Years services and as such is not intended to generate generalizable theory. The intention of the study is to conceptualise women's leadership as narrative practice, and in so doing to direct further study into these practices as aspects of effective leadership. Practical implications – The study develops new ways of conceptualising and interpreting women's leadership practices and opens up opportunities for further study in this field. Access to this material also provides individuals (including women leading in UK Early Years services) and opportunity for reflection on their own leadership practice. Originality/value – This study is unique in using a form of highly participative, reflective methodology to consider women's use of narrative in leadership interactions in the UK Early Years sector. The study is the first in this sector to look at this specific topic using aspects of Ricoeur's (1984) narrative hermeneutics and in so doing generates new questions about women's narrative practices

Environmental Education Policy Implementation Challenges in Botswana Schools

This paper analyses teachers’ responses to the introduction of environmental education policy in Botswana’s primary schools. The 1994 Revised National Policy on Education introduced environmental education into the education system through an infusion approach. This paper reflects on some of the issues and challenges confronting teachers in interpreting and implementing this environmental education policy. The findings are based on research conducted in four regions in Botswana. Data for this research were generated through interviews, questionnaires and classroom observations, and were supplemented by a genealogical analysis of key documents and interviews with policy makers. A post-structural analysis of the data indicates that various normalising (self governing) strategies were applied by teachers in their policy interpretations. The study also considers how these environmental education policy interpretations are influenced by the construction of the policy discourses, and by contextual challenges emanating from the genesis of the policy, conceptions of environmental education, support mechanisms, educators’ experiences and power relations

What Is the Impact of Neoliberalism on Clinical Psychology Practice? A Foucauldian Genealogical Analysis

There has been an increase in research looking into the impact of neoliberalism on mental health and healthcare over recent years, with studies particularly emphasising the harmful implications of neoliberalism on people’s wellbeing. However, much of this research has been criticised for a lack of nuance and specificity, and only a few studies have looked at the impact of neoliberalism on clinical psychology practice. This is an important research area for a profession which aims to reduce psychological distress and to enhance and promote psychological wellbeing. This study analyses historical documents relating to the development of eight specific clinical psychology practices. A Foucauldian Genealogical Analysis is used to develop a critical interpretation of the mechanisms and power relations underlying the impact of neoliberal processes of governmentality and subjectification on these practices. The analysis suggests that in a neoliberal era, clinical psychology practices have predominantly supported and enabled a neoliberal hegemony. Documents published by the profession emphasise practices that can be used to change individuals’ behaviour and ‘ways of being’ in line with neoliberal strategies. More recently, clinical psychology documents also show an increase in practices that offer resistance to a neoliberal hegemony. However, these practices exhibit a tendency of being marginalised or altered in service of neoliberal strategies. The analytical interpretation developed in this study offers tools to support the resistance of a neoliberal hegemony by providing critical questions that could be used to critique existing practices and policies and develop alternatives

Latino educational opportunity in discourse and policy: A critical and policy discourse analysis of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics

This study interrogates how federal policy discursively shapes Latino educational opportunity and equity. The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics (WHIEEH) represents the pre-eminent federal discourse on Latino educational opportunity, and sets the parameters by which institutions are able to be informed and respond to its espoused objectives. Despite the recommendations and strategies previously conveyed by WHIEEH reports, Latino educational equity remains to be achieved. This study adopts critical and policy discourse analyses as methodological tools to identify the discourses that are informing how the policy subjects, problems, and solutions are being constructed and produced through the WHIEEH. The findings suggest that policy subjects are constructed and informed by a discourse of homogeneity, American discourse that supposes citizenship, a discourse of disadvantage, and a marketplace discourse. Problems constructed in the WHIEEH, are informed by a crisis discourse that helps to produce framing the lack of contributions of Latinos to the country as an unintended problem. This is made possible, by discursively framing Latino educational opportunity in relationship to the economic well-being of the country. Solution constructions are informed by an accountability discourse that leaves further questions about who is ultimately accountable for ensuring Latino educational opportunity. The study disrupts traditional and conventional policy analyses and raises imperative understandings of how Latino educational opportunity is discursively constructed in federal policy

Intersectionality queer studies and hybridity: methodological frameworks for social research

This article seeks to draw links between intersectionality and queer studies as epistemological strands by examining their common methodological tasks and by tracing some similar difficulties of translating theory into research methods. Intersectionality is the systematic study of the ways in which differences such as race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and other sociopolitical and cultural identities interrelate. Queer theory, when applied as a distinct methodological approach to the study of gender and sexuality, has sought to denaturalise categories of analysis and make normativity visible. By examining existing research projects framed as 'queer' alongside ones that use intersectionality, I consider the importance of positionality in research accounts. I revisit Judith Halberstam's (1998) 'Female Masculinity' and Gloria Anzaldua's (1987) 'Borderlands' and discuss the tension between the act of naming and the critical strategical adoption of categorical thinking. Finally, I suggest hybridity as one possible complementary methodological approach to those of intersectionality and queer studies. Hybridity can facilitate an understanding of shifting textual and material borders and can operate as a creative and political mode of destabilising not only complex social locations, but also research frameworks