Senior Leaders Doing Policy Narration in Social Research Projects

This chapter builds on understandings of the policy ‘narrator’ position typically performed by principals/headteachers and other senior leaders. Rather than exploring the policy narration done internally, this chapter focuses on the narratives senior leaders produce for the outside world during social research projects – accounts which may not necessarily be accurate reflections of schools’ policies and which as critical researchers we need to be conscious of when doing fieldwork and analysing and presenting our data because what are often produced during these projects are spokesperson-like ‘official’ narratives. In addition to this explicit focus on the narratives produced during social research projects, and how these narratives can be exaggerated, this chapter makes three key contributions to the literature on policy narration: it supplements data generated through interviews with policy narrators with additional data; it provides a more in-depth look at what policy narration can entail, and it emphasises the role of deputies in policy narration. Moreover, this chapter speaks to a new research methodology known as critical education leadership and policy scholarship (CELPS) and provides an example of CELPS in action.