Intellectual Histories of School Leadership

The shift from professional preparation for headship to leadership training in England is the site for the presentation and deployment of a framework for constructing intellectual histories of school leadership. The framework has been developed based on research undertaken in the past decade through conducting independently funded social science projects. The reading of field outputs combined with fieldwork data has produced a five-part framework that examines knowledge traditions, purposes, domains, contexts and networks. In using this framework to examine the intellectual history of the field in England I identify certain key trends in England, where I consider the implications of this about, with and for the profession and for further research both in England and in other contexts.