Existential Crises in Educational Administration and Leadership: Existential Anxiety and Loss of Meaning in the Gaze of Munch’s ‘The Scream’ 9780367702564, 9780367702588, 9781003145288

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Contributors
1. Existential Threats, Crises, and Disciplinary Responses: Educational Administering and Leading in an Emerging Zeitgeist of Angst
Introduction
What is Existentialism?
The Rise of Existentialism in Other Disciplines and Fields
Existentialism in Education
Volume Overview
References
Part I: Philosophical and Theoretical Foundations
2. Standing at the Edge of Abysses: Existential Threats to Education and its Administration and Leadership, or, Communing with Kafka in the Abyss
Introduction
Origins of the Metaphor: What is an Existential Abyss?
Contemporary Abysses
Education
Conclusion: Whither Educational Administration
References
3. The Sublime, Affect Phrasing, and Les Petits Narratives in Educational Leadership
Introduction
Lyotard and Language Games
The Sublime, Event, Affect Phrase, and Les Petits Narratives
Affect phrases
The event/les petits narratives
The sublime
Conclusion: Phrasing Educational Leadership
Notes
References
4. Creating and Sustaining a Politics of Outrage and Indignation, While 'Screaming' Back at Educational Leadership as a Bullshit Idea
The Time for Being Silent is Over...
What then, Makes Educational Leadership such a Bullshit Idea?
Who Else is Speaking Back to Bullshit Educational Leadership?
Why Are We Continuing to Have this Bullshit Language Driving the Discourse of Educational Leadership?
Arsehole Management... Bullshit Leadership's Close Accomplice
Remaking Educational Leadership
References
Part II: Teaching and Researching Crises
5. Out of the Shadows: The Power of Art to Transform Conversations in Leadership
Introduction
Personal Positioning
Distinguishing Features Of Aesthetics and Art
Framing The Arts-Aesthetic Attitude
'Making special'
Seeing differently
Art and Aesthetics in Educational Administration
Higher Education: Promise and Pitfalls
Arts-As-Action in The Leadership Classroom
Sharing The Knowledge Base: Educational Administration and Adult Education
Theories of 'conscientization'
Ethos of teaching/learning
Sensitivity to personal taboos
Healing dichotomies of mind and body
Global responsibility
The pleasure principle
Arts in Practice: Research, Pedagogy, and Community Outreach
Arts-based research as leveller
Pedagogy: Insights into lesser-known subjects
Community outreach
Further Thoughts On Application
Coda
Note
References
6. The 'Why' Matters Most: A Framework for Activist Art Making to Transform School Communities to Promote Social Justice
Introduction
Critical Dialogue
Social critique and action
Mariel
Joshua
Christa
Bottom line
Leshun
Social justice art making and empowerment
Mariel
Joshua
Christa
Leshun
Creating spaces to challenge injustices
Mariel
Joshua
Christa
Leshun
Discussion
Conclusion
References
7. Educating Administrators and the Fear of Freedom in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Introduction
The Fear of Freedom
Digital Transformation As The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Educating School Administrators and Teachers in The Age of Ubiquitous Computing: The Need for Anthropological Education
Note
References
Part III: Contemporary Issues and Cases Internationally
8. The Meaning of Voice in our Search for Authenticity
Introduction
Theoretical Framework
Professional Learning Communities
The Characteristics of A Professional Learning Community
Nurturing A Collaborative Culture
End Note
References
9. The Scream and the 'Dependent Beauty' of Betsy DeVos
Introduction
Background: The American Federal Department of Education
The Royal Rich in Western Michigan
Christian Nationalism: Doing God's Work
Becoming Trump's Federal Secretary of Education
The Devos Debacle Before The Senate Sub-Committee
Betsy Devos At Work
The issue of for-profit universities and student debt
The issue of sexual assault on college campuses
A failure to take a stand on guns in schools
A refusal to cut funding to schools that discriminate
Withdrawing support for transgendered students
School choice pushed even in the midst of a pandemic
The End of The Existential Scream
References
10. The Stoic Leadership of Dialogic Engagement: Expressionist Reflections on Surviving the Scream Against Toxic Leadership and Management in Higher Education
Introduction
The Scream as Metaphor of Resistance in Higher Education Workplaces
Methods
At risk of Disappearing: Critical Thinking, Freedom of Speech, and Resistance
Toxic Leadership and Management in Higher Education
Results
Trust and Leadership Forum
Trust and Leadership Interviews
Selected Trust and Leadership Survey Responses
Conclusion: Analysing Discernible Elements of Stoic Leadership
Notes
References
Afterword: Or, how to cling to the abyssal edge
References
Index

Citation preview

Routledge Research in Educational Leadership series

EXISTENTIAL CRISES IN EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND LEADERSHIP EXISTENTIAL ANXIETY AND LOSS OF MEANING IN THE GAZE OF MUNCH’S ‘THE SCREAM’ Edited by Eugenie A. Samier

Existential Crises in Educational Administration and Leadership

This book examines the theoretical foundations relevant to existential issues in educational leadership and management, taking inspiration from Munch’s painting The Scream. The book considers internationally relevant topics such as the growth of neoliberalism, globalisation, cultural shifts, forced migration, and the digitalisation of the socio-cultural sphere and uniquely positions these crises as existential threats, rather than simply political, cultural, or social. The volume explores this complex set of dimensions in existential experience and outlines the implications for research and teaching in educational leadership. By exemplifying the narrative and introspective nature of existential research, the book addresses major aspects of the field including the impact such threats have on organisational studies, policy, administrative structures and practices, and leadership. This timely collection on existential issues in administration and leadership will appeal to academics, scholars, researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers. It will also be of great interest for students in teacher education programmes and graduate courses in educational administration and leadership, organisation studies, and educational ethics for broad international use. Eugenie A. Samier is a Reader in the School of Education, University of Strathclyde, Scotland. She has been a Guest Researcher at the Humboldt University of Berlin, was Visiting Professor in Administrative Studies at the University of Tartu, Estonia, and a Visiting Fellow at Oxford Brookes University, UK.

Routledge Research in Educational Leadership series

Books in this series: Exploring the Affective Dimensions of Educational Leadership Psychoanalytic and Arts-based Methods Alysha J. Farrell A Model of Emotional Leadership in Schools Effective Leadership to Support Teachers’ Emotional Wellness Izhak Berkovich and Ori Eyal Glocalization and the Development of a Hybrid Leadership Model A Study of Chinese University Presidency Qingyan Tian Exploring the Role of the School Principal in Predominantly White Middle Schools School Leadership to Promote Multicultural Understanding Jacquelynne Anne Boivin School Leadership for Democratic Education in South Africa Perspectives, Achievements and Future Challenges Post-Apartheid Edited by Tsediso Michael Makoelle, Thabo Makhalemele, and Pierre du Plessis Professionalisation of School Leadership Theoretical and Analytical Perspectives Jakob Ditlev Bøje, Lars Frode Frederiksen, Bjørn Ribers, and Finn Wiedemann Existential Crises in Educational Administration and Leadership Existential Anxiety and Loss of Meaning in the Gaze of Munch’s ‘The Scream’ Edited by Eugenie A. Samier Populism and Educational Leadership, Administration and Policy International Perspectives Edited by Peter Milley and Eugenie A. Samier

Existential Crises in Educational Administration and Leadership Existential Anxiety and Loss of Meaning in the Gaze of Munch’s ‘The Scream’ Edited by Eugenie A. Samier

First published 2022 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Eugenie A. Samier; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Eugenie A. Samier to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-70256-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-70258-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-14528-8 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003145288 Typeset in Galliard by MPS Limited, Dehradun

Figure 0.1 By Edvard Munch – National Gallery of Norway, by Coldcreation, Public Domain. Edvard Munch, 1893, The Scream, oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard, 91 × 73 cm, National Gallery of Norway.jpg.

Contents

Notes on Contributors 1 Existential Threats, Crises, and Disciplinary Responses: Educational Administering and Leading in an Emerging Zeitgeist of Angst

ix

1

E UGE NI E A . SAM IE R

PART I

Philosophical and Theoretical Foundations 2 Standing at the Edge of Abysses: Existential Threats to Education and its Administration and Leadership, or, Communing with Kafka in the Abyss

19

21

E UGE NI E A . SAM IE R

3 The Sublime, Affect Phrasing, and Les Petits Narratives in Educational Leadership

38

RIC HARD N IE SCHE

4 Creating and Sustaining a Politics of Outrage and Indignation, While ‘Screaming’ Back at Educational Leadership as a Bullshit Idea

55

JO HN SMYTH

PART II

Teaching and Researching Crises 5 Out of the Shadows: The Power of Art to Transform Conversations in Leadership CA RO L E. H ARR IS

71

73

viii Contents

6 The ‘Why’ Matters Most: A Framework for Activist Art Making to Transform School Communities to Promote Social Justice

96

CH RISTA B O S K E , M AR IE L S A LLE E , L . JO S HU A JA CK SON, AN D LESHUN CO LL IN S

7 Educating Administrators and the Fear of Freedom in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism

113

E VELI NE W IT T MA N N AN D A L D I N S T R I K O VI Ć

PART III

Contemporary Issues and Cases Internationally 8 The Meaning of Voice in our Search for Authenticity

131 133

CH RISTOP HER B EZ ZI N A

9 The Scream and the ‘Dependent Beauty’ of Betsy DeVos

149

FE N WI C K W . EN G LI S H

10 The Stoic Leadership of Dialogic Engagement: Expressionist Reflections on Surviving the Scream Against Toxic Leadership and Management in Higher Education

170

JIL L J A MES O N

Afterword: Or, how to cling to the abyssal edge

189

E UGE NI E A . SA MI ER

Index

194

Contributors

Christopher Bezzina FCCEAM is a Professor of educational leadership in the Faculty of Education, University of Malta, and guest professor in the Faculty of Education, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. He is also visiting professor at the University of Bologna, Italy, the Catholic University of EichstaettIngolstadt, Eichstätt, Germany, and was recently appointed guest professor at the Bologna Business School, Italy. He has taught and done consultancy work both locally and abroad in countries such as Albania, Belgium, Cyprus, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Seychelles, and the United States in the areas of professional development, school development planning, school-based self-evaluation professional learning communities, and governance. He is both a Commonwealth and Fulbright Scholar. Christopher has published in the areas of professional development, leadership, and governance in various peer-reviewed journals, including a number of books. Recent books include Teacher Education Matters: Transforming Lives ... Transforming Schools (2019, co-edited with S. Caruana), Intercultural Studies of Curriculum: Theory, Policy and Practice (2018, Palgrave MacMillan, co-edited with C. Roofe), and New Educational Horizons: Leadership in Catholic Schools and Universities (2018, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, co-edited with I. Fiorin, A. Paletta, J. De Groof and A.V. Zani). He is involved in various European and international educational institutions and serves on a number of editorial boards. Christa Boske is a Professor at Kent State University. She works with aspiring teachers and leaders to promote social justice and equity-oriented work in K12 schools. Christa has over 100 publications including journal articles, books, chapters, and edited books. She spends most of her time in the field collaborating with K-12 students, families, teachers, school leaders, and community members to give school communities a voice. Together, school community members co-authored journal articles and book chapters with Christa in the Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, Journal of Educational Administration & Supervision, and the National Forum of Multicultural Issues Journal, as well as chapters in The Throwaways, Standing Still is Not an Option, and Students, Teachers, and School Leaders Addressing

x Contributors Bullying in Schools, presented at national educational conferences (e.g., University Council for Educational Administration), and participated in artmaking as sense-making with Christa curating over 16 social justice-focused art exhibitions (e.g., Summit Artspace, Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Akron Art Museum) with thousands of K-12 youth. LeShun ‘Ship’ Collins has been empowering young minds and challenging his peers to transcend the common and accepted thought of social confines for over two decades. A highly accomplished educator and innovator, Collins is leading the conversation and ultimately the transformation of social injustice by breaking down its barriers. As a mentor and advisor, Collins works with the Reach Program, a summer enrichment initiative for academically advanced African-American males. He was also recognised by President Obama for a minority leadership programme he created and coordinates that provides mentoring and leadership opportunities for young men, helping them become divergent thinkers and explore their potential. As a thought leader, Collins is passionate about developing the twenty-first-century person and conveying within any community the importance of excellence, determination, leadership, and social change. He has published two articles in the National Administrative Council Forum and The National Council of Multicultural Forum. Collins is sought after by universities and other educational institutions for his keen insight and perspective and for raising awareness of a flawed system that benefits some, but not all students. His mission to provide a voice to the marginalised and underrepresented inspired the release of ‘Considering sensemaking as artmaking in promoting social-justiceoriented work in schools’, written by Collins and his colleagues and published in the University Council for Educational Administration journal. Fenwick W. English is Professor and Department Chair of Educational Leadership in Teachers College, Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Formerly he was the R. Wendell Eaves Senior Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His record of publications includes more than forty books and over 100 referred journal articles. In addition, he has served as General Editor of the 2015 SAGE Guide to Educational Leadership and Management, the 2005 SAGE Handbook of Educational Leadership, the 2006 SAGE Encyclopedia of Educational Leadership and Administration (2 volumes), and the 2009 SAGE Major Works Series in Educational Leadership and Administration (4 volumes). He is also co-author with Lisa Ehrich of Leading Beautifully: Educational Leadership as Connoisseurship (Routledge, 2016). He served as President of UCEA (2006–2007) and later President of NCPEA (2011–2012). He received the NCPEA ‘Living Legend’ award for his lifetime contributions to the field in 2013. Carol E. Harris graduated in Educational Administration from the University of Toronto in 1991. Her award-winning dissertation examined technological

Contributors

xi

rationality underlying the administration of music programming in Canada. Carol’s advocacy for arts literacy in schools, teachers’ unions, and government was followed by her first academic post in Fine Arts at the University of Calgary where she continued to explore the intersection of aesthetics and organisational action. From Calgary, she joined the education faculty at the University of Victoria where, for 15 years, she taught organisational theory and philosophy of leadership, and conducted research primarily in coastal communities. Now, as Professor Emerita, she continues to supervise students and pursue research interests in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. She publishes nationally and internationally at the intersection of aesthetics, feminism, and social justice. Her present chapter builds on the importance of history, socio-political awareness, and philosophy (i.e., the foundations) in the preparation of responsible leadership. L. Joshua Jackson is a student and teaching assistant at Oberlin College. He works with students using his Afrikana Studies major and discipline to reinforce suppressed stories, values, and ideologies. While promoting social justice through education and art-making, Joshua studies Brazilian craft, dance, and martial art Capoeira. His primary goal is to facilitate embodied liberation through sound and movement. Joshua spends his time studying Capoeira G. Angola, music production, theatre, dance, and Afrocentric means of education that focus on deconstructing systemic oppression. Joshua has coauthored chapters and articles, for example, in the Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, and has presented at conferences and in panel discussions including the UCEA. He has also assisted in teaching and leading social justice courses in over thirty K-12 schools in seven countries via the Global Education Program Up with People and the Diversity Center of North-East Ohio and continues to support the Ohio Regional Music Arts Cultural Outreach via board position. Joshua has performed for the Djapo Cultural Arts Institute’s first-ever Juneteenth Celebration at the Cleveland Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Ohio Regional Music Arts Cultural Outreach, and Survivors of Sexual Harm & Allies, among others. As Joshua currently assists in teaching Capoeira I and Intro to African-American Music I, he looks forward to continuing his work in identifying and using art forms stemming from Afrikan heritage that can educate and liberate us beyond our boundaries. Jill Jameson is a Professor of Education, Chair, Leadership and Enterprise Research, Institute of Lifecourse Development, Faculty of Education, University of Greenwich, was a Visiting Fellow at the Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge (2018) and is an Associate Member of the Cambridge Educational Dialogue Research Group (CEDiR), Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge (2018–2021). Chair, Society for Research into Higher Education (2012–2017) and Convenor, Educational Technology (and Post-Compulsory and Lifelong Learning) British Educational Research Association Special Interest Groups (2012–2021), Jill was Guest Editor for five special issues of the British Journal of Educational

xii

Contributors Technology (2006, 2013, 2016a, 2016b, 2019). She is co-editor of Vocationalism in Further and Higher Education (2016) and Values in and of HE (2018), and Editor of International Perspectives on Leadership in HE: Critical Thinking for Global Challenges, for the International Studies in Higher Education Series, University of Oxford Centre for HE Policy Studies. Principal Investigator for the ESRC and BIS-funded Higher Vocational Education and Pedagogy (HIVE-PED) seminar series, Jill is an ESRC, Academy of Finland, UNESCO Chairs, UKRI/MRC, and ESRC/NRF Newton peer reviewer, a supervisor, Chair of Examinations and External Examiner, with 14 doctoral completions and 20+ PhD/EdD/DBA/MRes/ MPhil examinations. Previously Director of Lifelong Learning (2000–2004) and Director of Research and Enterprise in Education, with 40 years of governance, leadership, and management experience, Jill’s publications include Researching Post-Compulsory Education (2003), Leadership in PostCompulsory Education (2006), the Ultimate FE Leadership and Management Handbook (2007), and e-Learning Reader (2012). Born in Zimbabwe, with a continuing love of Africa, Jill was one of the Winners of the 2011 CMI Management and Leadership Awards. She has a continuing fascination with the study of leadership, trust, and critical perspectives on educational technology and management in higher and post-compulsory education.

Richard Niesche is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. His research interests include educational leadership, principalship, and social justice. His particular research focus is to use critical perspectives in educational leadership to examine the work of school principals in disadvantaged schools and how they can work towards achieving more socially just outcomes. He has published his research in a number of books and peer-reviewed journals, and he is the founding co-editor of the ‘Educational Leadership Theory’ book series with Springer. Recent books include Social, Critical and Political Theories for Educational Leadership (2019, Springer, co-authored with C. Gowlett), Theorising Identity and Subjectivity in Educational Leadership Research. (2020, Routledge, co-edited with A. Heffernan), and Understanding Educational Leadership: Critical Perspectives and Approaches (2021, Bloomsbury, co-edited with S. J. Courtney, H. M. Gunter, and T. Trujillo). Mariel J. Sallee has 19 years of experience in public education and is currently an account executive for a private educational technology company. He has always used his administrative positions to empower students from marginalised backgrounds, as a principal creating opportunities through a student-led mentorship program. As a central office member, he empowered a group of black males to start their own organisation, Emerging Black Men of Society, to change the narrative of how they are viewed as individuals and the positive impact they have on the school and community. He was also part of a team that created school district initiatives around Leading for Social Justice and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Mariel was able to organise the first

Contributors

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district-wide celebration, Trailblazers, which honoured black women and men who either grew up in the community or contributed to the community in a positive way. This assembly had over 3,000 people in attendance from the school district and community at-large. Mariel is committed to ensuring that students receive opportunities, that they otherwise would not have access to, under his leadership. Eugenie A. Samier is a Reader in the School of Education, University of Strathclyde, Scotland. Her research concentrates on administrative philosophy and theory, interdisciplinary foundations of administration, theories and models of educational administration and leadership, and comparative public and educational administration. She has frequently been a Guest Researcher at the Humboldt University of Berlin, was Visiting Professor in Administrative Studies at the University of Tartu, Estonia (2003), a Visiting Fellow at Oxford Brookes University, and has been a guest lecturer at universities and institutes in the United States, the UK, Germany, Estonia, Russia, Norway, Lithuania, Finland, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the UAE. Her publications include book chapters and articles on organisational culture and values, the New Public Management, the role of history and biography in educational administration, the role of humanities, aesthetics and literary analysis in administration, Weberian foundations of administrative theory and ethics, passive evil, toxic leadership, identity, and administration and leadership in the Muslim world in a number of international book collections and many leading journals in the United States, Australia, France, Russia, the UK, Germany, the Baltic region, and Canada. She is a founding board member of Administrative Culture journal, is author of Secrecy and Tradecraft in Educational Administration: The Covert Side of Educational Life (Routledge 2014), and is editor of several book collections with Routledge on ethics, aesthetics, politics, emotions, trust and betrayal, ideologies, maladministration, identity, and existential threats in educational administration. She has also contributed to a number of handbooks and encyclopaedia in the field. She has worked as a management consultant to the public sector for a number of years on a broad variety of projects including legislation development, organisational reviews, board development, and government department restructuring and redesign. OKAY John Smyth is Visiting Professor of Education and Social Justice, University of Huddersfield, UK. Until recently he was a research professor of Education, Federation University Australia, and is Professor Emeritus of Flinders University, and Federation University Australia, is a former Senior Fulbright Research Scholar, the recipient of several awards from the American Educational Research Association, and an elected Fellow of the Academy for Social Science in Australia. From 2004 to 2006 he held the Roy F. & Joanne Cole Mitte Endowed Chair in School Improvement, Texas State University-San Marcos. John Smyth is series editor of Palgrave/Macmillan Critical University Studies. He has been on the editorial board of twelve journals including:

xiv Contributors The British Journal of Sociology of Education; International Studies in Sociology of Education; Critical Education; and Journal of Educational Administration and History. He has published widely in scholarly journals, is the editor/author of 40 books, among them: Critical educational Research: A Conversation with the Research of John Smyth (with Down, McInerney & Hatttam, Peter Lang, 2014); The Socially Just School: Making Space for Youth to Speak Back (with Down & McInerney, Springer, 2014); Becoming Educated: Young People’s Narratives of Disadvantage, Class, Place and Identity (with McInerney, Peter Lang, 2014); Living on the Edge: Rethinking Poverty, Class and Schooling (with Wrigley, Peter Lang, 2013); Silent Witnesses to Active Agents: Student Voice in Re-engaging with Learning (with McInerney, Peter Lang, 2012), Hanging in with Kids in Tough Times: Engagement in Contexts of Educational Disadvantage in the Relational School (with Down & McInerney, Peter Lang, 2010), Critical Pedagogy for Social Justice (Continuum, 2011). His most recent books include: The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rockstars, and Neoliberal Ideology (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, 2019 with Simmons); Education and Working Class Youth: Untangling the Politics of Inclusion (with Down and Robinson, Springer, 2018); and Rethinking School to Work Transitions: Young People have Something to Say. The latest books include: Criticality and Teachers’ Work: A Collection of Essays from the Critical Pedagogy Networker, 1988–2002, Vol. 1 (New York: DIO Press, 2021) and Critical Research and Theorising: A Collection of Essays from the Critical Pedagogy Networker, 1988–2002, Vol. 2 (New York: DIO Press, 2021). His research interests include policy sociology, policy ethnography, social justice, social class, and sociology of education. Aldin Striković is a Doctoral Student at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany. There, he finished his studies in Vocational Education by receiving his MEd degree in 2019; since 2018 he has been a research and teaching assistant at the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology. His research focuses on the digital transformation of work as well as modelling and measuring cross-occupational collaboration competence. With his background in electrical engineering and teacher education, he has been involved in theory-based construction of a ‘smart home’ at TUM, serving for vocational teacher education purposes. As project coordinator of the project Extended Measurement of Competencies in Health Care (EKGe), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), he is involved in the model-based construction of situational judgement tests for nursing competencies, including collaboration competencies, the longitudinal measurement of nursing competence development, and the construction of instruments to measure the developmental conditions at the workplace. In the context of these research interests, he recently co-authored a publication with Eveline Wittmann on ‘Collaborating Across Occupational Boundaries: Towards a Theoretical Model’ in Vocations and Learning. He is also a contributor to the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting.

Contributors

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Eveline Wittmann conducts research in the areas of technology-supported modeling and measurement of vocational and professional competence, educational concepts for the digital transformation of the world of work and professions, and digitisation-related changes in vocational school centres as administrative units. Her longstanding interest in topics at the intersection of digitalisation and administration, particularly in vocational education, is nurtured by two major current research projects on digitalisation in vocational education and training, funded by the German Ministry of Education, on Extended Measurement of Competencies in Health Care and [email protected], concerned with changes required for vocational teacher education in the context of digital transformation of work and professions. She has contributed to International Journal on Leadership in Education, as well as Educational Management Administration and Leadership most recently in 2019 on ‘Impacting School Administration through Information Technology? How Digitalisation Changes the Bureaucratic Features of Public School Administration’. Dr. Wittmann studied business education and educational management with a focus on economics, political science, and contemporary history at the University of Mannheim. She received her doctorate and habilitation from the Humboldt University in Berlin and worked at the DIPF (Leibniz Institute, German Institute for International Educational Research) from 2009 to 2011. Since 2011, she was a professor of Business Education and Educational Management at the University of Bamberg and in 2015 was appointed Full Professor of Vocational Education at Technical University of Munich (TUM). Among other positions, Prof. Wittmann was Visiting Professor at Simon Fraser University, Canada. Prof. Wittmann was a board member of the Section for Vocational and Business Education of the German Society for Educational Science and is the editor in chief of the Yearbook of Vocational Education Research (Jahrbuch der berufs- und wirtschaftspädagogischen Forschung).

1

Existential Threats, Crises, and Disciplinary Responses: Educational Administering and Leading in an Emerging Zeitgeist of Angst Eugenie A. Samier

Introduction The genesis of a book project comes about in various ways – sometimes from reading, from conversations with colleagues and students, thoughts about a news story, and personal observations of or even inclusion in events. But this project came about in an odd and circuitous way. For another project, I was browsing through humanistic psychologies and thought of Erich Fromm, whose work I read years ago, primarily Escape from Freedom (1983, published in the UK originally as Fear of Freedom) and which shaped some of my thinking about educational administration. In fact, it was one of many required texts that Christopher Hodgkinson included in his doctoral seminars, along with many other classics in the primary disciplines of psychology, sociology, political science, and philosophy that shape the educational administration field. And, then I wondered if anyone in the field was still referencing Fromm. I found in a google search a recent piece by Ken Saltman in which he discussed the importance of Fromm’s work. In the way, than Ken wrote the paragraphs, an image I hadn’t thought of for some time popped into my mind’s eye – Munch’s painting The Scream. Perhaps it was the topics I was writing about, probably a chapter on the conditions of education in war-torn countries like Syria and Yemen, but the image stuck, and I began wondering why it resonated so strongly. I sent out an email that I had never sent before – I attached a copy of The Scream and wrote to colleagues I had worked with on projects before, asking them what they would write for a book with this image on the cover. I was overloaded with work at the time and wasn’t sure that this would become anything concrete, and after sending the email returned to a long list of work to do. Within 72 hours, I had received enough replies, including suggested chapter titles, to fill a Routledge collection. Because of the image, the topics that came in were of personal significance. And, because of this, the collection used various styles of writing, from a more conventional academic paper to a more literary essay style. Because Munch’s work expresses existential Angst, I decided as an editor to allow for the greatest freedom in style and approach. For my part, I returned to a metaphor that had

DOI: 10.4324/9781003145288-1

2 Eugenie A. Samier been significant for me in my earlier life when I read many existential authors in my undergraduate philosophy years such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Buber, along with existential novels, short stories and dramas from Kafka, Dostoevsky, Beckett, Camus (2013), and Hesse, and Kundera (see Aho 2020). I also watched films with existential themes in film studies that were popular among university students and professors during the 1960s and 1970s like the original Solaris (1972) by Tarkovsky, Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957) and Kubrick’s 2001 (1968). I then checked a few major databases for recent academic publications and found that the abyss was back in vogue. The increased interest in existential topics in a number of fields recently indicates that socio-political conditions are such again that existential problems have returned. Existentialism is an approach that is relevant in many ways, communicated through popular culture and used in philosophy, psychology, sociology, and other fields to address fundamental qualities of our human condition and the threats it encounters to existence. Existentialism was a commonplace perspective in the mid-twentieth century, found in many fields in the university curriculum of the 1960s and 1970s including education. Disorder and destruction of meaning on social, cultural, political, and other levels of personal and societal construction as critiques of fundamental meaning on an existential level were threatened in the mid-twentieth century. This was regarded by the Frankfurt School, having grappled with fascism, as one form of existential abyss, which led to members developing a critique based upon a political economy descent of many countries into mass consumerist capitalism that augured ill for humanity on many levels and expressing itself in the arts, popular culture, and social institutions (Jeffries 2017). However, existentialism was eclipsed by structuralism, poststructuralism, postmodernism, and the more objectified forms of behaviourism and later reductionistic neoliberalism. Himmelfarb (1994) examined a number of intellectual movements that had disengaged themselves from a value-based foundation (e.g., postmodernism) resulting in them not being able to substantively critique political ideologies that lead to mass or pervasive violence and meaninglessness. Although the legacies of existentialism were incorporated into critical race theory and many postcolonial critiques like that of Fanon (1965), interest in it waned for at least twenty years. But existentialism is having a renaissance in many disciplines and fields, evident in searches in databases like Google Scholar and book vendors like Amazon in reaction to many levels of existential threat (detailed below). Sadly, existentialism becomes popular when the being and welfare of humanity is at stake, acting much like a canary in a mine, presaging destruction – in this case of social institutions. In other words, literature from many fields is again emitting a scream against meaninglessness. The field of educational administration and leadership has yet to fully tackle the extremism in economics and politics, in culture and social norms and structures, and the encroachment of the digital world, all threatening traditions and structures of meaning. The purpose of this volume is to explore approaches, problems, and issues that have arisen over the last few decades involving existential crises and threats arising

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from these causes internationally. These include a disparate range such as neoliberalism and the market model, globalisation, the decline or erosion of democratic systems of government, replaced with populism or other forms of authoritarianism (e.g., Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018), cultural and social shifts, forced migration, geopolitical tensions (including state actor hacking and disinformation to destabilise target countries), and digitalisation of the sociocultural sphere. This is a topical area of growing concern in the general management and leadership literature, a number of professional fields like social work, and some areas of education (detailed discussion below), but little discussed in education. These same tensions and problems arise in education but are generally not characterised as existential – rather dealt with as a legal, political, cultural, social, or religious problem or from neoliberal managerialism as a technical issue. As other fields find the existential dimensions of these forces meaningful to analyse, this volume explores on an existential level the effects these forces have on education. Already, titles like Peter Fleming’s (2021) Dark Academia: How Universities Die, are appearing signalling the destructive influences of neoliberalism over the last few decades (despite decades of critique and warnings) on the psychological welfare of staff and students, alienating them from intellectual autonomy, the art and craft of scholarship, and meaningful values of an academic life and pursuits, or John Smyth’s (2017) The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rock Stars and Neoliberal Ideology examining the destructive effects of market models on university administration, collegial culture, intellectual standards of knowledge, and produced inequalities. Essentially, in existential terms, neoliberalism and many other socio-political movements that undermine the value of knowledge (e.g., ‘alternative facts’) destroy fundamental values and activities that make us human, according to McMullin (2019), those experiential parts of our human activity that allow us to make the normative claims of intersubjective answerability, self-fulfilment, and moral responsibility. This chapter first describes existentialism, identifying its major figures, key concepts and questions as well as existential threats we face in the contemporary world, its value and use in a number of disciplines and fields that are foundational to educational administration and leadership, and how it has been used in education. The chapter concludes with an overview of the chapters in this collection.

What is Existentialism? While existentialism is associated with thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, its origins go back historically a long way. Aho (2020) traces key concepts in Hebraic and classical Greek texts, but even earlier ideas associated with existentialism appeared in the earliest narrative text that has survived, ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’, dating to approximately 3000 BCE that grappled with topics like death, the search for meaning, anxiety, absurdism, authenticity, and meaninglessness in much the same way that Kierkegaard, Buber, and Heidegger have

4 Eugenie A. Samier (Sadigh 2010). As Sadigh (2010) explains, these topics being encountered in a self-aware and philosophical way are as old as human civilisation and the emergence of self-reflection. Reflection on the most fundamental level of the human condition has been with us as long as homo sapiens, and recent indications show that Neanderthal, one of our ancestors, also grappled with meaning construction (e.g., Finlayson 2019; Sykes 2020). Existentialism is most associated with key concepts that it explores from our experiential life that present problems for the nature of our being (Dasein): the absurd, death, alienation, nothingness, meaninglessness, absurdities, authenticity, the nausea of utter existence without human meaning formation attached, individual freedom and the responsibilities that incur, and deep anxiety about our existence referred to as existential ‘Angst’ (Crowell 2012a). Out of this confrontation arise authenticity and commitment, and a deep sense of being and selfunderstanding that inform meaning construction, the formation of values, and an intense moral sensibility, as well as an emphasis on our individual choices in these expressing a free will, courage and the responsibilities we assume as individuals for all thoughts and actions (Hanaway 2019, 2020). This requires a focus on subjectivity and a constant self-awareness not only of usual conscious activity, but learning to read deeper into oneself for rationalisations, denials, projection, and other self-defence mechanisms that motivate us when we feel or imagine being threatened. It also necessitates acquiring extensive knowledge in whatever field one is in, far beyond immediate relevance but the many deeper layers and levels of forces in an international context. For example, one should understand the ways in which it is possible to impose colonising actions and wield negative stereotypes (Hanaway 2019) that have become forms of critique in non-Western and postcolonial perspectives. Usually dated in modern form from its first appearance in Kierkegaard’s (1983) writing in the early nineteenth century, existentialism spread across Europe producing an influential body of literature in philosophical and literary form associated with major thinkers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries such as Nietzsche (e.g., 1960), De Beauvoir (1963), Sartre (1966), Tillich (1952), and Arendt’s (1998) The Human Condition. It laid the foundation for the existential psychology of Jaspers (1971) and R. D. Laing (1960), the psychoanalysis of Otto Rank (2011), the existential therapy of Boss (1963), Frankl (2003), and Rollo May (1999), and the psychiatry of Binswanger (1975) (see also Crowell 2012b). It also had an influence on other schools of thought like phenomenology with Husserl (2009), Heidegger (1962), Merleau-Ponty (2013), and Ricoeur (1984), as well as more recent authors extending the scope of existential analysis like Bouton’s (2014) examination of existential notions of space and time and studies into how memory, emotions, intentionality, imagination, and embodiment operate within our experiential being (see Cerbone 2006; Dreyfus and Wrathall 2006). Its influence is felt also by major philosophical writers like Rorty (1989) examining truth and understanding of the world that lead to political and social engagement for reform and emancipation, and Taylor’s (1989) work on the self (Crowell 2012b).

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What is fundamental to all existential writings is an emphasis on authenticity and choice-making: on accepting responsibility for all of one’s own value constructions, decisions, and behaviour without appealing to external sources like laws, belief systems, and mores in an automatic way, but with deep personal commitment, often coinciding with external sources of values but needing to be confirmed through authentic internalisation and commitment. Within a religious context, it does not imply that one cannot accept religious precepts and values, but they must be chosen individually, affirmed in one’s system of meaning, and accepted knowingly and willingly (Pattison 1999). It also includes being able to experience fundamental crises of meaning that are a part of the human condition through confronting meaninglessness, failures of rationality, alienation, and fundamental anxiety that form the foundation of existence, rather than denying and avoiding them. These can all be experienced in educational administration and leadership as a constant choice-making state wherein one re-examines the values and principles upon which policies and practices are based, what one agrees to or supports in the organisation (rather than for political or opportunistic reasons), and ensures that one has fully and authentically chosen them. To not do so on a personal and individual level, which, in fact, most people do much of the time is the essence of Fromm’s (1983) escape from freedom thesis. In other words, most of the time we live truncated lives, not experiencing our humanity fully but relinquish responsibility to external groups and systems. One existential critic of bureaucracy and administration is Kafka, whose short stories and novels The Trial and The Castle are among the most incisive in exposing bureaupathologies including the exclusion of human values that would apply equally to neoliberalism now. The Kafkaesque is the dehumanisation of administrative systems and relationships, the misrepresentation of the human numerically that damage the human condition by creating alienation, isolation, preventing people from fulfilling human capacities by focussing too much on technical and commercial goals and values, and practices like misguided meetings that lead to absurdities in terms of humanistic and existential aims. Gogol, also, explored many of these themes among bureaucrats, functionaries, or, in Russian, apparatchiks (see Samier and Lumby 2010). Dehumanisation leaves people anonymised – in higher education far too much curricular and pedagogical work is produced as a standard ‘product’ that anyone can deliver, moreover, delivered by everyone in a uniform way, particularly in neoliberalism. The European existential movement also had influence on other parts of the world, for example, Sartre on the formation of a modern Arab existential (wujudiyya) movement oriented towards decolonisation in the 1950s and 1960s through bodies of philosophical and literary sources that were read in many the Middle East and North African countries, until Sartre became involved politically in the Six-Day War controversy and then branded a traitor (Di-Capua 2018). However, existential critique continues to influence decolonisation literature, such as that of Edward Said (1978) with its emphasis on freedom and authenticity and Lewis Gordon’s (1997, 2016) existential critiques of current social problems like racism (Davis 2019). Ozturk (2018) discusses the existential

6 Eugenie A. Samier orientation of Muhammad Iqbal’s (2008[1920]) early twentieth-century work on being Muslim, emphasising how Kierkegaard’s existentialism is useful in describing what it means to be authentically and genuinely Muslim. He also discusses the influence of Nietzsche on Iqbal’s work, for example, The Secrets of the Self (2008[1920]), and in identifying a large body of literature that has arisen in Islamic studies on existentialism.

The Rise of Existentialism in Other Disciplines and Fields Existentialism has had a rebirth in many fields, in part due to perceived existential threats that are arising compromising, or destroying our humanity: dehumanisation, alienation, and meaninglessness, including the extreme political movements and conspiracies people, can engage in when confronted by them. These range from the threats of climate change that have produced widespread resistance (Latour 2018), in medicine and psychology such as dementia studies (e.g., Cheston and Christopher 2019), technology (e.g., Foer 2018), apocalyptic social mindsets and movements related to scientific and technological change (Vox 2017), security threats facing citizens (Barak and Sheffer 2009), and the impact of neoliberalism’s reduction to economic values on social institutions, and its negative effects through globalisation on the existence of many cultures, languages, religions, and social structures, particularly indigenous peoples (Hall and Fenelon 2016). In addition, many countries have also been experiencing political strife and conflict further creating existential threats to the survival of communities and their cultures, along with increased surveillance that poses problems in education for citizenship and human rights (e.g., Awan, Spiller and Whiting 2019). It is also arising in reaction to political shifts to the right through populism and authoritarianism that is increasing intolerance and contributing to racism, bigotry, and prejudice aimed at minority populations and refugee groups (e.g., Fouskas and Gökay 2019). Most profoundly, it is the recognition that there are existential crises of meaning, values, identity (due in part to globalisation), and personal experience, and how these affect participation in society and in one’s profession. However, even here, much of the literature has focussed on Anglo-American contexts and thus requires expansion geographically and socio-culturally. In the field of educational administration and leadership, an international perspective seems particularly important because education systems and educational reforms have been affected by globalisation for the last few decades to quite a high degree, initiating postcolonial critiques as Western influences have begun to create existential concerns in non-Western countries where culture, political traditions, language, identity, and values have been negatively affected (Andreotti and de Souza 2012; Burney 2012). Gessen (2020) argues that consequences of autocratic politics are the threats to public institutions including political, economics, law, education, and government agencies by destroying values, morality, and meaning, and the rise of many forms and levels of inauthenticity – seen in the performative of autocracy

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like Trump, and how language has been made devoid of meaning through ‘posttruth’. One way in which this happens is the destruction of political dignity in participation and performance by degrading the values and practices upon which they rest. A fundamental form of this is rendering language meaningless like emptying out terms like ‘responsibility’, ‘death’, ‘decision’, and the creation of empty terms like ‘alternative facts’. Gessen also introduces into her analysis the causal factor of postmodernism which has for some time undermined knowledge and truth (see Kakutani 2018). For her, an autocrat is not just redefining facts or truths, but attempting to assert control over reality, and often in a malignant narcissistic form with negative consequences for all social institutions including the educational sector. Existential approaches have been appearing with regularity in the last decade in most primary disciplines that serve as a foundation for educational administration and leadership. In philosophy, topics approached from an existential perspective include happiness and ethics (Costello 2010). Psychology has seen existentialism used in theory (Gendlin 2017) and in topics that relate to education, such as therapy (Cooper 2017), human development (Adams 2019), interpersonal conflict studies (Dixon 2017; Weixel-Dixon 2017), psychoanalysis (Johnston 2005), and cultural psychology (Sullivan 2016). In the 1960s and 1970s, an existential approach to psychoanalysis was promoted by a large number of scholars and analysts (e.g., Binswanger, Frankl, Laing, May, Lefebre, and Mindkowski) (Thompson 1998); however, it fell out of favour for a number of decades and now seems to be resurrecting. What existentialism brought, and brings again, is an emphasis on being grounded in personal experience (both subjective and objective dimensions), existential anxieties, and the need for authenticity, as well as overcoming selfdeception in resisting anxieties (Thompson 1998), as well as taking personal responsibility and exhibiting commitment. There is also a resurgence of existential therapy, which also can inform educational administration and leadership, especially in toxic cultures and with toxic leaders, with changes during career phases in relational forms, as well as areas of distress related to minority groups and refugees. Other disciplines have also generated existential studies and critiques like anthropology (Jackson and Piette 2017) and political science, particularly with the work of Badiou and Zizek on existential problems with current economic regimes (Johnston 2009). Applied fields drawing on existentialism that intersect with education are medicine (Aho 2018), criminology (Dion 2014), social work (Griffiths 2017), technology studies (Foer 2018), and architecture (Pallasmaa 2009). Interdisciplinary fields like diversity and multiculturalism studies have also used existentialism (e.g., Hoffman 2019), for example, in exploring the nature of cosmopolitanism (Josephides and Hall 2014) that focusses on the existential conditions of being human in moral rather than political senses, as ‘a particular kind of sensibility or empathy, which works by enabling an understanding of the self from other possible perspectives’ (Josephides 2014: 14). There is also an increasingly large body of literature in cognate fields like public administration, management,

8 Eugenie A. Samier and general leadership studies that education draws upon that have introduced existential approaches and critiques as they apply to organisation studies, management, coaching, leadership, and policy. Arguments have been made recently for existential approaches to lived experience in management topics like project management (e.g., Rolfe et al. 2016; Segal 2016; Segal and Jankelson 2016) and leadership coaching (Jacob 2019; Van Deurzen and Hanaway 2021). Existential leadership has also received attention, primarily in promoting leadership skills in responding to the many problems and threats of contemporary life (Johner et al. 2018; Kets de Vries 2021; Thompson 2016). These are evident, for example, in organisational cultures of silence and fear where problems and criticism are suppressed and the perpetrators marginalised if not subjected to ‘social death’ by being neutralised or driven out of the organisation. Existentialism is also a wholistic perspective, inclusive of physical, spiritual, social, and psychological dimensions of our being (Hanaway 2019), providing a strong multidimensional approach to leadership and administrative roles that also allows for international and cross-cultural studies. For Hanaway (2019), existentially aware people provide many important characteristic for leadership that people can respond to in their formation of leader relationships. This includes care and concern for others on deep levels, the ability to empathise, to relate to people on many levels, and they should have strong skills in meaning construction necessary to provide others with a vision (Hanaway 2019), noted by Lipman-Blumen (2000) as requisite for authentic leadership. However, there are also drawbacks – existentialists do not compromise well, they are driven heavily by moral values that are often elevated above pragmatic concerns, and they will have expectations of others in their own existential development that many cannot meet. Existentialists are also reform-oriented – willing to enter the unknown and assume the risks of failure, however, not everyone may be able to engage in the work involved, preferring the safety of what is known, and returning back to Fromm’s escape from freedom condition. Kets de Vries, who has explored many aspects and problems of organisational life, and the conditions of administration and leadership, has turned his attention recently to the existential dimension in Quo Vadis? The Existential Challenges of Leaders (2021), which fundamentally is a problem of meaning and meaning construction. In so many ways, the existential search for meaning in life lies at the origin of all those features that tend to be studied on a more superficial level, and questions of meaning and value tend to be avoided through the many defences we have at our disposal – rationalisation, denial, projection, et cetera – and the non-critical acceptance of decisions about policy, professionalism, social relationship, decision-making, and the carrying out of administrative tasks. This also has been extended to leadership, a role that is distinctively different from administration, and which to exist must challenge and construct meaning, define purpose, and create the values upon which organisational life rests.

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Existentialism in Education Existentialism played a strong role in education, at least in many Western countries in all fields from curriculum theory to educational psychology and counselling and to educational administration, most prominently in the 1960s and 1970s through work like Van Cleve Morris’ (1966) Existentialism in Education, Maxine Greene’s (1978) The Landscapes of Learning, and Dissanayake’s (1988) What Is Art For? Often their work was taught with Paulo Friere (e.g., 1970) whose postcolonial critique was grounded in existential values. Many texts on educational philosophy also had chapters on existentialism as a matter of course, such as the first edition of Ozmon and Craver’s (1976) Philosophical Foundations of Education, and the introduction of existentially oriented research methods with Max van Manen (1990) Researching Lived Experience. In educational administration, a number of major scholars also discussed the application of existentialism to meaning and values construction and the complexities and depths of the experiential and its relationship to humanism and phenomenology (e.g., Greenfield and Ribbins 1993; Hartley 1970; Hodgkinson, 1983). There was no shortage of existential and existential humanist sources at one time in educational administration such as Bates (1982), Clark (1985), Macpherson (1984), and Vandenberg (1982). However, this approach was eclipsed initially by postmodernism, and then shortly after by the rise of neoliberalism and its globalisation, which quite early was also generating a counterresponse through critiques of neoliberal and globalised education (e.g., Ball 2012; Spring 2015), the increase in cross-cultural studies (e.g., Dimmock and Walker 2005), and various kinds of postcolonial responses (e.g., Huggan 2013). Of special note here is the psychoanalytic approach to education, well established in the early to mid-twentieth century, and gaining interest again given the many problems and threats that education faces. Willougby and Demir-Atay (2016), in their discussion of psychoanalysis and education, examine the role of fantasies that reflect unconscious motivations, rejecting a simplistic subjective/ objective binary. These arise from fears in early life that affect psychosocial development and how symbolic meaning and anxieties are attached to external objects and relationships in the world as well as resistance to actual conditions in reality exhibited through rationalisation, denial, projection, et cetera. One of the main points of a psychoanalytic critique is how affect often underlies seemingly rational and intellectual processes through envy, jealousy, fears, and feelings of inadequacy. Also central to a psychoanalytic approach are the ways that unconscious anxieties, fears, and motivations, such as defence mechanisms shape organisational politics and culture. This can include compensation for lack of knowledge and expertise – contributing to academic mobbing of highly productive scholars (Westhues 2008), demonisation of others, and projections of one’s inadequacies onto others. These anxieties and problems have been exacerbated by neoliberalism (see Jill Jameson’s chapter in this volume for an overview of the effects). In addition, the new digital technologies, Willougby and Demir-Atay (2016) argue, have facilitated escape from the ‘shadow’ side of

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educational organisations through various retreats into fantasies. They provide a fairly comprehensive overview of the psychoanalytic literature that has been produced in the educational field over the last almost one hundred years. Much of what they write about, and the many psychoanalytically-informed publications like those of the Tavistock Institute (e.g., Obholzer and Roberts 2019) and Manfred Kets de Vries (e.g., 2003, 2021). One type of circumstance that these analyses bring are to organisations or departments of organisations where academic quality is very low, where fantasies are created to rationalise or deny this, where projection is common onto those especially who are operating with high academic standards, and academic mobbing marginalising high performing individuals causing ‘social death’ or even driving them out of the organisation, particularly those who raise these issues or problems. Existentialism’s influence has resurfaced, but yet has to receive the attention existentialism deserves in the current socio-political conditions. One of these is Peters, Smeyers and Marshall’s (2000) discussion of the many ways in which Nietzsche’s work is still relevant including critiques of society in terms of how it contributes to the creation of meaning, constructive use of subjectivity, a will to knowledge and a study of freedom, and the critical nature of moral authenticity as well as the necessity of confronting meaninglessness in one’s human development as a responsible person. One indication of an authentic return to existentialism is the inclusion of many forms of expression, such as the arts as a primary mode of existential expression and critique, seen recently in Mulryan and Mackler’s (2015) exploration of cinematic portrayals of school administrators and the existential insights gained through these. The role of education from this perspective is in providing guidance and support for the individual’s journey through authentic meaning construction that requires facing meaninglessness with the necessity of having teachers and administrators who have travelled this path of forming a self that is able to independently critique society and social practices while contributing meaning to the lives of others. As noted in this collection, there are strong forces that are opposed to this kind of approach particularly neoliberalism grounded in economic values and managerialism, a problem for education also in Nietzsche’s time, while eschewing those values necessary to existentialism, existential freedom, and many other forms of humanism. In other words, many of the educational institutions of society, from schools to higher education, have betrayed some of their most fundamental human responsibilities and the importance of culture. In the field of educational administration and leadership, very little existential writing has been done at the school and higher education levels in the contemporary period, although titles have begun appearing in a number of other fields in education, with more representation from higher education. It appears in discussions of pedagogy that are more subjectively meaningful (e.g., Saeverot 2013) and which can inform a deeper educational experience through myth and metaphor (Gordon 2016). Nelson (2016) argues for the value of using existentialism in education during a period of risk, which is mostly defined as sociopolitical problems and authoritarianism in the United States. Preston (2017)

Educational Administering and Leading 11 counters the recent Competence BasedCompetence-BasedEducation and Training as a new form of Taylorism and behaviourism that reduces learning to employability, a problem similar to that of Neoliberalism which reduces education to economic values, and which heavily influences many shared ‘leadership’ models for education like the distributed model (which mostly is the distribution of administration responsibilities). Shirley (2017) draws on existential concepts like dignity to promote the return from the market model towards a more humanistic foundation upon which to place education for a greater critical and interpretive purpose for students that also contributes to a more globalised view and which also is more deeply grounded in meaning. Some of the attention received in the critique of neoliberalism that has some existential reference and is viewed as a serious threat to knowledge and meaning construction is the application of neoliberal ideology to social institutions, in the public sector identified as the New Public Management (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2000). In essence, it is a reductionism to only economic values, the construction of homo oeconomicus and functionalism, and as applied to education forms the market model in which students are regarded as consumers, curriculum and knowledge as product, and faculty as service providers. Sacrificed are humanistic and related conceptions of human development, other forms of values such as moral, cultural, and social and the long tradition of academic values, collegial ethics and governance, and scholarly virtues. It is in this part of higher education administration and leadership that the existential threats are recognised and discussed such as in Smyth’s (2017) The Toxic University, Maisuria and Helmes (2021) Life for the Academic in the Neoliberal University and Slaughter and Rhoades (2009) Academic Capitalism and the New Economy, identifying worsening conditions, organisational culture, and particularly the decline of scholarly values and principles that are pushing the institution into a crisis of values, roles, and knowledge and meaning construction, essentially betraying the academic ethic and ethos through the commodification of people, values and knowledge. One organised scholarly reaction to the last forty years of neoliberalism is the Humanistic Management Network that contends that management education over the last few decades has been oblivious to its social obligations and the deeper purposes of higher education (Amann 2011; Dierksmeier 2016). To this humanistic end, Principles for Responsible Management Education has been developed to redress these omissions by reintroducing ethical content and aims in curricular change (Laasch and Conaway, 2013), a foundation, upon which a large number of books have been published by network members that reflect a broad international scope of humanistic traditions, also incorporating many values of existentialism. For Dierksmeier (2016), for example, a humanistic education is grounded in human dignity and the development of moral and critically self-reflective knowledge and abilities, replaced in neoliberalism by education as a means to worldly or even materialist ends. Their arguments for humanistic management studies also address many other existential crises evident in the world around us in political, technological, social, and cultural forms that reduce humanity and breed intolerance and prejudice.

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Volume Overview This volume is designed to examine the theoretical foundations relevant to existential aspects of educational administration and leadership, the implications for research and teaching in the field, and cases from a number of national contexts to provide a diverse perspective. Through this approach, the collection addresses major aspects of the field, including organisational studies, policy, administrative structures and practices, and leadership. In addition, many of the chapters exemplify the narrative and introspective nature of existential research. The collection explores existential approaches from theoretical and practice-based perspectives, and in a number of national contexts, embodied for them in Munch’s painting The Scream. It is organised into the following three sections: foundational theories and models; teaching and research issues; and contemporary issues and cases internationally. The first section consists of three chapters that explore underlying or foundational theories and concepts reflecting multidisciplinary foundations. The first chapter, by Eugenie A. Samier, examines the abyss concept as a central one in existentialism that has appeared in many world religions, belief systems, and philosophies denoting a loss of values, meaning, individual commitment, and the legitimacy of social institutions, particularly in this age of ‘untruth’, humanistic values in politics and societies, and the collapse of systems of meaning, and the role of neoliberalism in the degradation of higher education. Richard Niesche examines the work of Jean Francois Lyotard in its critique of the dominance of instrumentalist and functionalist approaches to educational leadership that are the mainstream of scholarship in the field that have reasserted themselves with neoliberalism, and explore his work, and that of a number of critical scholars in educational administration and leadership as alternatives. John Smyth draws on seminal work by the Harvard philosophy scholar Harry Frankfurt in his ‘bullshit’ critique of pseudo-scholarship, Friere’s pedagogy of indignation, and the relevance of this screaming back to the inauthentic forms of educational leadership that are purveyed in so much of the neoliberally-oriented scholarship, which is actually a ‘zombie-like’ idea contained in the many myths dominating the field that are evidence of ‘post-truth’ and authoritarian views. The second section, teaching and research issues, includes three chapters. The first one by Carol Harris, grounded in the work of Collingwood, explores how arts-based activities can be used to examine the anxiety and despair experienced in the challenges to democratic systems caused by nihilism, climate and environmental crises, war, famine, injustice, and mass migration as well as the negative impacts of the neoliberal market-model and their effects on educational systems. This chapter is followed by Christa Boske, Mariel Sallee, L. Joshua Jackson, and Leshun Collins’ discussion of using activist artmaking to pursue social justice through existential to aid reflective practices for teachers and school leaders in their professional practice drawing on the qualities of artmaking in identifying and reflecting on social justice experience. In the third chapter, Eveline Wittmann and Aldin Striković’s examine how the prevalence of digital

Educational Administering and Leading 13 technologies in our lives and in education have created complexities and uncertainties in our lives that carry existential implications such as ubiquitous computing, including surveillance, data mining, and behavioural manipulation, and decision making by artificial intelligence in higher education and schools and present a large array of challenges for educational administration. Finally, the last section on contemporary and country cases consists of three chapters exploring contemporary issues for educational administration. The first of these is Jill Jameson’s examination of many forms and dimensions of toxic experience in higher education in the UK due to a large extent to the imposition of neoliberalism that has curtailed academic autonomy, subjected to symbolic violence, and performance-based rule-bound corporatist managerialism. Next, Christopher Bezzina explores authenticity and moral purpose that can lead to the growth of people as part of living communities in contemporary educational policies and practices compromised by the current neoliberal regimes of performativity, accountability, and managerialism we have been subjected to for a few decades now in many countries. Finally, Fenwick English’s chapter on the recent US federal educational leadership of Betsy DeVos in the Trump era rounds out the collection, providing a cautionary tale emphasising the despair mingled with the leadership of an ideologue and her anti-public education, neoliberal agenda based on the ideology of privatisation and profit from the world of business. There are many dimensions of our lives that can be affected – our sense of self, personality and character, interpersonal relations, meaning and value, and in turn have broad effects on professionalism, organisational culture and politics. These have an impact on curriculum, teaching, supervision, collegial relations, the surrounding community, and society. It is the intention of this volume to explore this complex set of dimensions in existential experience as they affect educational administrators and organisations in a variety of ways, from international perspectives, and provide the cathartic value that scholarship affords (see Glesne 2007).

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Barak, O. and Sheffer, G. (eds) (2009) Existential Threats and Civil-Security Relations, Washington DC: Lexington Books. Bates, R. (1982) ‘Towards a critical practice of educational administration,’ paper presented at the American Educational Research Association annual conference, March, New York. Binswanger, L. (1975) Being-in-the-world, London: Souvenir Press. Boss M. (1963) Psychoanalysis and Daseinsanalysis, New York: Basic Books. Bouton, C. (2014) Time and Freedom, Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Burney, S. (2012) Pedagogy of the Other: Edward Said, Postcolonial Theory, and Strategies for Critique, New York: Peter Lang. Camus A. (2013) The Stranger, London: Penguin Classics Cerbone, D. (2006) Understanding Phenomenology, New York: Routledge. Cheston, R. and Christopher, G. (2019) Confronting the Existential Threat of Dementia, Cham: Palgrave Pivot. Clark, J. (1985) ‘Willower on philosophy’, Educational Administration Quarterly, 21, 1: 119–122. Cooper, M. (2017) Existential Therapies, London: Sage. Costello, S. (2010) Ethics of Happiness: An Existential Analysis, Lima: Wyndham Hall Press. Crowell, S. (2012a) Existentialism and its legacy, in S. Crowell (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Existentialism (3–24), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crowell, S., (ed.) (2012b) The Cambridge Companion to Existentialism, Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. Davis, D. (2019) Black Existentialism: Essays on the Transformative Thought of Lewis R. Gordon, London: Rowman & Littlefield. De Beauvoir, S. (1963) Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, London: Penguin. Di-Capua, Y. (2018) No Exit: Arab Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Decolonization, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dierksmeier, C. (2016) Reframing Economic Ethics: The Philosophical Foundations of Humanistic Management, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Dimmock, C. and Walker, A. (2005) Educational Leadership: Culture and Diversity, London: Sage. Dion, M. (2014) Financial Crimes and Existential Philosophy, Dordrecht: Springer. Dissanayake, E. (1988) What is Art For? Seattle: University of Washington Press. Dixon, K. (2017) Interpersonal Conflict: An Existential Psychotherapeutic and Practical Model, Abingdon: Routledge. Dreyfus, H. and Wrathall, M. (eds.) (2006) A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism, Malden, MA: Blackwell. Fanon, F. (1965). The Wretched of the Earth, London: McGibbon & Kee. Finlayson, C. (2019) The Smart Neanderthal: Bird Catching, Cave Art, and the Cognitive Revolution, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fleming, P. (2021) Dark Academia: How Universities Die, London: Pluto Press. Foer, F. (2018) World without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech, New York: Penguin Random House. Fouskas, V. and Gökay, B. (2019) The Disintegration of Euro-Atlanticism and New Authoritarianism Global Power-Shift, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Frankl V.E., (2003) Man’s Search for Meaning, London: Simon and Schuster Friere, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, London: Penguin.

Educational Administering and Leading 15 Fromm E. (1983) Escape from Freedom, New York: Avon Books. Gendlin, E. (2017) A Process Model, Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Gessen, M. (2020) Surviving Autocracy, London: Granta. Glesne, C. (2007) Research as Solidarity, Abingdon: Routledge. Gordon, L. (ed.) (1997) Existence is Black, New York: Routledge. Gordon, M. (2016) Existential Philosophy and the Promise of Education: Learning from Myths and Metaphors, New York: Peter Lang. Greene, M. (1978) The Landscapes of Learning, New York: Teachers College Press. Greenfield, T. and Ribbins, P. (eds.) (1993) Greenfield on Educational Administration: Towards a Humane Science, London: Routledge. Griffiths, M. (2017) The Challenge of Existential Social Work Practice, London: Springer. Hall, T. and Fenelon, J. (2016) Indigenous Peoples and Globalization: Resistance and Revitalization, Abingdon: Routledge. Hanaway, M. (2019) The Existential Leader: An Authentic Leader for Our Uncertain Times, London: Routledge. Hanaway, M., (2020) An Existential Approach to Leadership Challenges, Abingdon: Routledge. Hartley, H. (1970) ‘Humanistic existentialism and the school administrator’, in F. Lutz (ed.) Toward Improved Urban Education (1–22), Worthington: Charles H. Jones. Heidegger M. (1962) Being and Time, Oxford: Blackwell. Himmelfarb, G. (1994) On Looking into the Abyss: Untimely Thoughts on Culture and Society, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Hodgkinson, C. (1983) The Philosophy of Leadership, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Hoffman, L. (2019) Humanistic Approaches to Multiculturalism and Diversity: Perspectives on Existence and Difference, New York: Routledge. Huggan, G. (ed.) (2013) The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Husserl E. (2009) The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, New York: Springer. Iqbal, M. (2008[1920]) The Secrets of the Self, London: Forgotten Books. Jackson, M. and Piette, A. (eds.) (2017) What is Existential Anthropology? New York: Berghahn Books. Jacob, Y. (2019) An Introduction to Existential Coaching, Abingdon: Routledge. Jaspers, K. (1971) Philosophy of Existence, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Jeffries, S. (2017) Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School, London: Verso. Johner, P., Bürgi, D. and Längle, A. (2018) Existential Leadership zum Erfolg: Philosophie und Praxis der Transformation, Freiberg: Haufe-Lexware. Johnston, A. (2005) Time Driven: Metapsychology and the Splitting of the Drive, Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Johnston, A., (2009) Badiou, Zizek, and Political Transformations: The Cadence of Change, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Josephides, L. (2014) Introduction, in L. Josephides and A. Hall (eds.) (2014) We the Cosmopolitans: Moral and Existential Conditions of Being Human (1–28), New York: Berghahn. Josephides, L. and Hall, A. (eds.) (2014) We the Cosmopolitans: Moral and Existential Conditions of Being Human, New York: Berghahn.

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Kakutani, M. (2018) The Death of Truth, Glasgow: William Collins. Kets de Vries, M. (2003) Leaders, Fools and Impostors: Essays on the Psychology of Leadership, rev. edn., New York: iUniverse. Kets de Vries, M. (2021) Quo Vadis? The Existential Challenges of Leaders, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Kierkegaard, S. (1983) Fear and Trembling, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Laasch, O. & Conaway, R. (eds.) (2013) Principles of Responsible Management: Glocal Sustainability, Responsibility, and Ethics, Stamford, CT: Cengage. Laing R.D. (1960) The Divided Self, London: Penguin. Latour, B. (2018) Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime, Cambridge Polity Press. Lipman-Blumen J. (2000) Connective Leadership, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Levitsky, S. and Ziblatt, D. (2018) How Democracies Die, New York: Penguin. Macpherson, R.J.S. (1984) ‘On being and becoming an educational administrator’, Educational Administration Quarterly, 20, 4: 58–75. Maisuria, A. and Helmes, S. (2021) Life for the Academic in the Neoliberal University, Abingdon: Routledge. May, R. (1999) Freedom and Destiny, London: Norton. McMullin, I. (2019) Existential Flourishing: A Phenomenology of the Virtues, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Merleau-Ponty M. (2013) Phenomenology of Perception, Abingdon: Routledge. Morris, V.C. (1966) Existentialism in Education, New York: Joanna Cotler Books. Mulryan, S. and Mackler, S. (2015) ‘The existential significance of cinema in educational administration’, Journal of Aesthetic Education, 49, 2: 1–19. Nelson, S. (2016) First, Do No Harm: Progressive Education in a Time of Existential Risk, New York: Garn Press. Nietzsche F. (1960) The Will to Power, New York: Vintage. Obholzer, A. and Roberts, V.Z. (eds.) (2019) The Unconscious at Work: A Tavistock Approach to Making Sense of Organizational Life, 2nd edn., London: Routledge. Ozmon, H. and Craver, S. (1976) Philosophical Foundations of Education, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Ozturk, S. (2018) Becoming a Genuine Muslim: Kierkegaard and Muhammad Iqbal, London: Routledge. Pallasmaa, J. (2009) The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Pattison, G. (1999) Anxious Angels: A Retrospective View of Religious Existentialism, New York: St. Martin’s Press. Peters, M., Smeyers, P. and Marshall, J. (eds.) (2000) Nietzsche’s Legacy for Education: Past and Present Values, Granby, MA: Bergin & Garvey. Pollitt, C. and Bouckaert, G. (2000) Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Preston, J. (2017) Competence Based Education and Training (CBET) and the End of Human Learning: The Existential Threat of Competency, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Rank O. (2011) Psychology and the Soul, Eastford, CT: Martino Fine Books. Ricoeur, P. (1984) Time and Narrative, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Educational Administering and Leading 17 Rolfe, B., Segal, S. and Cicmil, S. (2016) ‘An existential hermeneutic philosophical approach to project management’, Project Management Journal, 47, 3: 48–62. Rorty, R. (1989) Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sadigh, M. (2010) ‘The foundation of existentialism in the oldest story ever told: The Epic of Gilgamesh’, Existential Analysis, 21, 1: 76–88. Saeverot, H. (2013) Indirect Pedagogy: Some Lessons in Existential Education, Rotterdam: Sense. Said, E. (1978) Orientalism, Abingdon: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Samier, E.A. and Lumby, J. (2010) ‘Alienation, servility and amorality Relating Goglo’s portrayal of bureaupathology to an accountability era’, Educational Management, Administration & Leadership, 38, 3: 360–373. Sartre, J.-P. (1966) Being and Nothingness, New York: Washington Square Press. Segal, S. (2016) Management Practice and Creative Destruction: Existential Skills for Inquiring Managers, Researchers and Educators, Abingdon: Routledge. Segal, S., and Jankelson, C. (eds.) (2016) Face to Face with Practice: Existential Forms of Research for Management Inquiry, Abingdon: Routledge. Shirley, D. (2017) The New Imperatives of Educational Change, New York: Routledge. Slaughter, S. and Rhoades, G. (2009) Academic Capitalism and the New Economy, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Smyth, J. (2017) The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rock Stars and Neoliberal Ideology, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Spring, J. (2015) Globalization of Education, New York: Routledge. Sullivan, D. (2016) Cultural-Existential Psychology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sykes, R.W. (2020) Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, London: Bloomsbury. Taylor, C. (1989) Sources of the Self, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thompson, M. (1998) ‘Existential psychoanalysis: A Laingian perspective’, in P. Marcus and A. Rosenberg (Eds) Psychoanalytic Versions of the Human Condition (332–361), New York: New York University Press. Thompson, N. (2016) The Authentic Leader, London: Palgrave. Tillich P. (1952) The Courage to Be, New Haven CT: Yale University Press. Vandenberg, D. (1982) ‘Hermeneutical phenomenology in the study of educational administration’, Journal of Educational Administration, 20, 1: 23–32. Van Deurzen, E. and Hanaway, M. (eds.) (2021) Existential Perspectives on Coaching, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Van Manen, M. (1990). Researching Lived Experience, London, ON: Althouse Press. Vox, L. (2017) Existential Threats: American Apocalyptic Beliefs in the Technological Era, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Weixel-Dixon, K. (2017) Interpersonal Conflict: An Existential Psychotherapeutic and Practical Model, Abingdon: Routledge. Westhues, K. (2008) The Anatomy of an Academic Mobbing: Two Cases, Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen. Willougby, R. and Demir-Atay, H. (2016) ‘Psychoanalysis and the challenge of educational fantasies’, in H.E. Lees and N. Noddings (eds.) The Palgrave International Handbook of Alternative Education (113–128), London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Part I

Philosophical and Theoretical Foundations

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Standing at the Edge of Abysses: Existential Threats to Education and its Administration and Leadership, or, Communing with Kafka in the Abyss Eugenie A. Samier Would’st thou perfect glory see; Far must thy researches go. Wouldst thou learn the world to know; Thou must tempt the dark abyss Wouldst thou prove what Being is. Naught but firmness gains the prize, Naught but fulness makes us wise, Buried deep, truth ever lies! (Schiller, The Proverbs of Confucius)

Introduction Turning and turning in the widening gyre… Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,… The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity… And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? (W.B. Yeats, ‘The Second Coming’) Watching news these days from a number of countries reminds me of this Yeats poem I was taught in high school, and later studied at university in my master’s programme in English. Yeats was characterising the atmosphere in Europe after the First World War, and a period in which the influenza epidemic of 1918 to 1919 killed many millions of people. While we are in a number of apocalypses now and on the threshold of others such as climate change and increasing cyber threats, it isn’t clear that any Second Coming is in sight. We are perched on the edges of several abysses – many forms of existential crises and threats – forming widening gyres into which we may be swallowed. The abyss is a metaphor used usually to indicate the destruction of a socio-political or cultural construction and its meaning, as an existential metaphor. It can be applied to many events and

DOI: 10.4324/9781003145288-3

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circumstances in which meaning in the world and in one’s own being dissolve or fragment – in this way also, the abyss is the metaphor for many kinds of existential threat – the existence and well-being of people physically, culturally, socially, religiously, economically, and politically. An existential threat has been posed to all of these throughout human history, and in just the last century, communities and countries have faced all of them. One of these, as a Canadian, I am revisiting now – the violence, oppression, and, yes, many deaths of Indigenous children – an estimated 150,000, approximately 30 percent of Indigenous children – who were taken away from their tribes and families by government and placed in residential schools that were intended to ‘civilise’ them (see Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015). Only recently, evidence has been (literally) unearthed of mass graves at residential school sites, yet the evidence has been there in the lives and memories of the survivors and the families of the thousands of children who were placed in these schools starting in the early nineteenth century to closures throughout the mid to late twentieth century. Anyone who has worked with, befriended, communed with, lived in the communities of, or been a teacher or colleague of Indigenous people with some level of trust has heard the stories. Yet, nothing has been done until recently as the grave sites are being identified publicly. It is a tragedy. In moral terms, one can view it as an obscenity. And it is a crisis that had to come into the open. It is also an abyss for Canadians who finally have to confront the evil that has been visited upon Indigenous Canadians and many other populations internationally who have undergone cultural genocide (Bachman 2019). Not just the violence and the deaths at the time, but the moral abyss of denial, rationalisation, complacency, intolerance, and prejudice since then, and still plaguing Canadian society, that has to be confronted. There is also an identity abyss, particularly for those Canadians who grew up under official multiculturalism that required recognition of diversity and inclusion in everything one did. For many, like me, who grew up under the new constitutional passages and laws, embracing multiculturalism through our families, social life, study, and work, we believed sincerely in a Canadian identity that was profoundly multicultural. This has been tested for some years now with rising public intolerance and violence, to some extent a spill-over from ‘Trumpism’, but also racism and intolerance that was inherent, yet relatively quiet, in Canadian society all of these years. It seemed easy for most of my life to be proud to be Canadian because of multiculturalism; now it is difficult to not feel shame. This, however, is nothing compared to the abysses that Indigenous peoples have stood at the edges of, endured, still stand at the edges of, and with no surety of being able to safely step away, or the many who could not hold on at the edge and slipped away into the gyre. There is no guarantee that responsibility will be assumed and that reparations of adequate proportions will be made. Nor that racism and intolerance will cease. The abyss has come back into vogue as a sign of a widespread existential threat. The metaphor of the abyss has become common in several academic fields in the

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last few years to describe the loss or crisis of meaning in a number of fields, in politics and international relations describing perilous periods of the Cold War (Reed 2004), contemporary war conditions in Syria (Fisk, Cockburn and Sengupta 2014) and those countries that appear to be teetering on the edge of violent collapse such as Pakistan (Devasher 2017). It is also used in a number of disciplines like economics to describe the precariousness of financial and banking systems, especially under the deregulated conditions of neoliberalism (Owsley and Kaufman 2015), sociology (Lovink 2016), political philosophy (Žižek 1997), politics and communication studies (Peters 2005), and literary criticism of novels that closely examine and critique socio-political conditions (Dowden 1986). It has been used in psychology (Atwood 2012) to examine the unconscious level of motivations and dynamics (Mills 2002), connoting the collapse or destruction of not only social institutions in a society, but a depth of conflict and other conditions that lead to a collapse of meaning, order or security, strip away meaning in life, values that guide and constrain behaviour, and the destruction of learning and knowledge. It is also used to describe the experience of posttraumatic stress disorder, particularly from a Jungian archetypal perspective (Wilson 2004). The abyss is again being used to describe the recent slide of politics in many countries into populism and ethnic nationalism approached as a mentality, ideology, and style of organisation (Revelli 2019). Abysses also include the many forms of intolerance, prejudice, persecution, oppression, and killing of groups internationally. All of these influence the context within which education and its administration and leadership are constructed and practiced. Conditions in contemporary societies are again presenting structures and practices that seem devoid of meaning, such as the rise of ‘post-truth’ (e.g., Farkas and Schou 2020; McIntyre 2018), and sometimes of actively promoting a negation of values. One of the early books on post-truth is that by Keyes (2004), who describes it as a condition in which deception is a way of life, a game, and a habit, and is found in many professions: journalism, politicians, accountants, executives and among academics infecting public discourse, media, business, and academia. A sphere in which this has been regarded as a problem for a number of years in the literature (although not often reflected in discussion of educational policy) is the digital world of virtual activity and social media life (Lovink 2016). It also involves practices of legal and social interpretation of freedom that allow for any attitude or activity to be equally valid, such as right-wing and fascist propaganda that exemplifies the traditional existential confusion of freedom with license (Peters 2005). The abyss is also used in postcolonial studies to describe the potential of some Western philosophical traditions in equipping people with the reconstructed values and ideas necessary in overcoming socio-political colonial destruction of identity, culture, and societal structures (Yountae 2017). This chapter examines the abyssal ways in which educational administration and leadership (particularly at governance levels) can knowingly and unknowingly, locally and globally, contribute to a crisis of meaning and knowledge, what implications for the field are emerging, and the potential role of educational administration and leadership in transcending and overcoming the abysses that

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educational systems face within these contexts. The first section traces the origins, nature, and early modern uses of the metaphor of the abyss, particularly to reflect existential concerns and threats to values and meaning, demonstrating that human civilisation has always recognised the problem of deep existential threat. The next section reviews the use of the abyss in many disciplines and fields, several foundational to educational administrations that explore contemporary conditions and developments carrying us towards a number of abysses. This is followed by a section on the forms these can take in education particularly in leadership, administration, policy, and organisation studies, including changes like market-model neoliberalism and globalisation in undermining traditions and systems of meaning by substituting them for economic values, foreseen in Weber’s (e.g., 1930) disenchantment thesis. The conclusion identifies ways in which the field could critique and replace the abysses that threaten education and the values and systems of meaning it is intended to preserve and construct.

Origins of the Metaphor: What is an Existential Abyss? The abyss is essentially an existential metaphor that denotes meaninglessness, the loss of all values, of our humanity in the human condition on personal, organisational, and societal levels that can result in nihilism, and for existentialists, the profound responsibility people have to construct meaning. As with most core concepts and even administrative and scholarly practices, the origins can be found in ancient societies like those in Mesopotamia, contrary to most assumptions about how and when knowledge and practices formed. The earliest use of the concept of the abyss in human writing is in the Sumerian Eridu Genesis text dating back to at least 1600 BCE that provides an account of the Black Sea flood (dated to approximately 5500 BCE). It appeared later in various religious and other writings as the great flood that created chaos in communities affected through an aquatic abyss (Prescott-Steed 2008). The concept of the abyss was well-established by the time of the classical Greco-Roman period, which informs many later intellectual and belief traditions such as those in Western countries and in the Islamic world (Khalidi 2005). Kierkegaard, generally accepted to be the first modern existential philosopher, focussed on the abyss separating humanity from God, causing in those willing to confront or face it, deep existential anxiety, or angst, about one’s existence in the world and the possibility of meaning. Emblematic of the existential abyss is his treatment of Abraham from the Old Testament, and the abyss of profound doubt faced when struggling to achieve authenticity in belief in Fear and Trembling (1983). However, angst is also a necessary experience in becoming fully human since it indicates a deep self-consciousness and awareness of the possibility of meaninglessness and nihilism. For the existentialist, this must be faced and overcome in order to develop one’s full capacity, exercise the freedom to make authentic choices, and the ability to construct meaning. It is standing at the edge of this freedom that is the edge of the abyss – whether to take responsibility for

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constructing meaning, and through this morality, knowledge, and even resistance to violations of human rights and social justice, or to give up and fall into the abyss through various means, including the relinquishing of one’s responsibilities morally as described by Erich Fromm (1941) in Escape from Freedom. The argument of Fromm is that most people fear accepting the level of responsibility expected in existential freedom and retreat into structures of behaviour, relationships, and dominating value and knowledge systems determined by others. Tillich also provided a vivid account of the abyss in human life existentially in a poem that identifies many of the main existential themes of identity, meaning, the nature of our existence, and how we construct meaning, demonstrating that the answers to these are not given, nor are they found in the abyss one experiences when they are brought into question but are one’s personal responsibility to create (Gudmarsdottir 2016). This perspective informed his theology and is clearly evident in one of his most famous texts, The Courage to Be (2014[1952]), which addresses living fully in the Christian tradition. Because of the nature of existential explorations and the experiential that it has to examine, literary forms are most appropriate. The modern German novel particularly examined existential issues, including a focus on abyssal experiences, found in Kafka, Broch, Musil, and Thomas Mann (discussed in depth by Dowden 1986). Kafka, for example, investigated absurdities, power, and meaninglessness in administration in novels like The Castle (2015[1926]) and The Trial (2015[1925]). The latter focusses on Joseph K., who works in banking administration, whose regimented daily life dominated by making money (and presaged a neoliberal sensibility) is ruptured by finding himself in court operating on the most profound levels of absurdity – representing the underlying reality of society that challenges K’s belief and fundamental conceptions of social life creating a yawning chasm of the abyss in meaningfulness (Dowden 1986). Many topics and features of bureaucratic administration and bureaupathologies in particular have been investigated in literature and film, notably in Gogol’s short stories (Samier and Lumby 2010). Threats to fundamental levels of meaning and being, or existential threats, are evoked in Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’. It is an experiential human condition that does not yield well to social science investigations but often finds its clearest expression in artistic form, where a number of the arts have the aesthetic capacity to capture the ideas, the feelings, the alienation – other words the void of meaninglessness represented in the abyss. Einstein foresaw a growing problem that only came to fruition as a set of issues and problems to research later on: ‘I fear the day technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots’ (see Mount 2015). Cinema is a rich source of critique, for decades producing dystopic films about science and technology outstripping our ability to restrain and constrain it from destroying human values and fundamental altering being. The Matrix (1999), Minority Report (2002), Elysium (2013), Ender’s Game (2013), and Transcendence (2014) are a few among many films that have raised issues about our relationship with technologies and the potential negative impact they can have.

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Contemporary Abysses We currently seem to be living in an era of multiple abysses, all of which are destructive by hollowing out sense and meaning in the world: the replacement of knowledge with post-truth and the elevation of propaganda and disinformation; the division of human beings into increasing anti-humanistic forms of bigotry, exclusion, and negative stereotyping; psychological capture by various technologies; destruction of the environment and natural resources; individualism in some societies evolving in extreme narcissistic and entitlement forms with a lack of social responsibility; and political destabilisations. Increasingly, social media and other internet activities draw people into propaganda, the erosion of conscience and empathy, and fragmentation of real interpersonal relationships. Included is an overview of how the abyss is used in disciplines and fields that are foundational to educational administration and leadership. Abysses affects all levels of experience, from the individual and personal, the interpersonal, group, and social levels, in organisations and societies, and the global. They are multidimensional, affecting the self, meaning, principles, values, ethics, knowledge, cultural patterns, religious and belief systems as well as political systems producing populism and authoritarian regimes not predicated upon a sense of common humanity. Historical study is important since the causal factors of abysses take time to emerge and result from a number of complex interactions and dynamics. For example, American narcissism can be found in post-World War II cultural changes, examined by Lasch in 1979 in The Cultural of Narcissism analysing new sensibilities and states of mind that emerged through the 1960s and 1970s, produced through a combination of high consumption, unrestrained individualism, and a lack of industriousness that produced a culture of alienation and anomie that supported or even rewarded narcissism. While narcissism is a form of distorted individualism, it has what may seem to be a contradictory excessive dependence on others, because of its desperate need for admiration. However, narcissism has become institutionalised far beyond what Lasch envisioned. Sedikides et al. (2011) have examined the consumerism of narcissists as an indication of their materialist orientation through conspicuous consumption and ‘brand names’, using money and possessions in compensation for inner instability and ego fragility to sustain grandiosity, flaunt competence and influence the opinions of others who take monetary and material possessions as an indicator of character and ability. It is both reflected and reinforced in the neoliberal market model of education using conceptions and roles of consumers, products, and suppliers. Twenge and Campbell (2009), in The Narcissism Epidemic, document how it has become a cultural epidemic in US society, more so than in more traditional societies where a balance between individualism and collectivism is maintained. Twenge (2011) has argued that it is also produced by a movement for higher self-esteem and self-admiration in adolescents and young adults in parenting and education consisting of five key causes: ‘a focus on self-admiration, child-centred

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parenting, celebrity glorification and media encouragement, the attentionseeking promoted on the Internet, and easy credit’ (p. 268). In other words, narcissism produces a cult of personality and the inability to distinguish between private and public spheres. The main characteristics are uncivil, anti-social behaviour, a high tolerance for risks, and rewards with little performance improvement. This volume follows from an earlier book by Twenge (2006), Generation Me, which was widely read in universities because of the entitlement issues it raised that are accompanied by the inability to assume appropriate roles and behaviour. Clifton’s (2011) analysis of research on narcissism and electronic social networks is that a narcissist’s interpersonal functioning is impaired exhibiting aggression, vindictiveness, intrusiveness, domineering behaviour, and egocentric use of social media demonstrates an overstated quality of relationship, manipulation of others or the control of information, and an overly positive presentation of self not supported by the use they make of it. Buffardi also finds that narcissists are drawn to social networking sites and use them in much the same way they use their face-to-face techniques: practice uninhibited self-presentation and promotion, are unconstrained by time, use the medium to maintain an inflated and unfounded positive self-concept, and through superficial charm and confidence forge shallow relationships but cannot secure long-term friendships as they react aggressively to criticism often displacing anger onto innocent people. One development in the last forty years that for many creates abyssal experience is neoliberalism and its globalisation that promoted economic values and models, and its furtherance through global hegemony. For many, in a number of disciplines, we seem to be entering a new Zeitgeist, for which the previous critiques and ways of understanding are not sufficient. Globalisation also is regarded by many, especially in the various postcolonial approaches, as a cause of meaninglessness through the destruction of cultures, religions, and languages internationally. However, the early criticism of these forms of economic reductionism in a society came from authors like Weber (1989), who regarded the exclusion of all values but the technical-rational and its most pernicious form, reductionism to economics, as ‘disenchantment’ of the world: The fate of our age, with its characteristic rationalization and intellectualization and above all the disenchantment of the world, is that the ultimate, most sublime values have withdrawn from public life, either into the transcendental realm of mystical life or into the brotherhood of immediate personal relationships between individuals. (30) Existentialism has begun to return to a number of disciplines after a long hiatus. The abyss is often used as a metaphor appropriate to war, in which social values and structures are destroyed and ethics and other systems of meaning are redefined or set aside such as the deadly pursuit of politics (Röhl 2017) and destructive forces of the First World War (e.g., Kessler 2013). It is seen also in how

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the world was poised at the edge of abysses during the Cold War (Reed 2004), and the destructive politics of the Middle East that appear to have no resolution and are driven by inabilities to communicate and diplomatic failures (Avidar 2015) and the many attempts that have been made internationally to slow the development of weapons of mass destruction (Schneider and Davis 2006). It is also applied in studies of extreme politics such as fascism (Rees 2014) and authoritarian communism especially during revolutionary periods (e.g., Berdyaev 2017; Kline 2015). The abyss is often used as a metaphor for genocidal political movements and the experiences of victims, such as the attempted extermination of Armenian communities during the First World War (Tachjian 2017). The abyss has been used for some time to describe the shattered worlds of many people and groups where meaning and value were stripped from reality. It is a key metaphor, for example, that has been used to describe the Holocaust for Jews during World War II (e.g., Koker 2015; Kushner 2017). It has also been applied to intellectual movements that opposed fascism, such as the Frankfurt School in Jeffries’ (2017) discussion of the major founding figures in the Grand Hotel Abyss to denote their analysis of the loss of values, meaning, ethics and social justice including the potential effects of massproduced mechanistic society. Currently, now to populist politics have consumed many countries (e.g., Revelli 2019), contexts in which knowledge, values, and laws are disrupted and social institutions reconfigured, including the destructive forces that capitalism has unleashed on many countries (Colatrella 2021). The growing power of populist politics is evident in a rapid expansion of current and upcoming political science literature devoted to populism (e.g., Barnett 2018; Goodhart 2017). One other field in which the abyss is a common metaphor is psychology, particularly in-depth psychologies like psychoanalysis that also has relevance in informing organisational studies on toxic leadership, toxic organisational cultures, and destructive organisational politics such as Stacey’s (1992) use of the abyss metaphor in his psychoanalytic examinations of organisational politics and the chaos it can produce. Psychoanalysis, like many theories, were anticipated in philosophy and literature, sometimes employing the metaphor of the abyss, as Hegel did in his discussion of an unconscious abyss from which the conscious mind forms as well as both normative and pathological development in the individual (Mills 2002). The image of the abyss also has value across schools of psychology in examining various disorders, Atwood (2012) uses it to capture the loss of self and meaning in psychoses and personality disorders from a psychoanalytic perspective, and David (2020) from a socio-cognitive and neurological perspective. The abyss is also used in many disciplines to connote crises of interpretation and meaning, such as in Olivier’s (2011) The Dark Abyss of Time in which fundamental values and meaning in archaeology have been questioned involving questions of evidence. It is used by Rossi (1984) to describe the challenges to assumptions and knowledge that geology, history, and anthropology presented to European seventeenth- and eighteenth-century scholarship and belief systems grounded in biblical studies. Yountae (2017) explores related issues in The

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Decolonial Abyss in colonisation that has dispossessed many populations in the world through colonising structures, including educational and knowledge traditions that defined identity, purpose in the community, and the structures of societies. Administration, Management, Policy, Organisation, and Leadership Studies have all introduced the existential abyss into their literature recently, to connote a descent into valuelessness and human suffering. The fields of public administration, management, and general leadership studies have also been incorporating the abyss into representations, analyses, and critiques (e.g., Rees 2014). McMillan and Overall (2017) classify escalating organisational failures as an abyssal decline into three categories – simple ones dues to a lack of organizational learning, complete failures from poor organizational planning, and catastrophic failures from incapacity for strategic agility – due primarily to problems in the top leadership caused by a variety of factors including ‘hubris, rashness, and overconfidence’ as well as a denial of problems. One critique of neoliberalism, as a materialist and economic reductionism, is the recent Humanistic Management Network (n.d.), aimed at reintroducing human dignity into management studies and practices (Amann and Stachowiz-Stanusch 2013). Through many book projects, the network reintroduces humanistic values and principles that are shared among many belief systems internationally, providing common respect, purpose, and ethics (e.g., Dierksmeier et al. 2011; Khan and Amann 2013) that apply not only in the business management world but also can be applied to public administration and educational administration, and a sense of vision for leadership.

Education Applying the metaphor of the abyss to education means recognising many threats that bring into question education’s basic character and meaning and its continued existence. While the abyss and recognition of existential threats in contemporary times are well established in other fields, education, particularly in administration and leadership, has not yet dealt with these problems, beyond many who have been critiquing neoliberalism for a number of years. For example, most educational organisations still tend to be enamoured uncritically with online techniques and often seemed satisfied (neoliberally) when budget targets are met, relegating all other concerns to a back drawer. In its most extreme form, education contributes to what authors like Latour (2013) have described as the ontological separation and disengagement of knowledge, truth, and action producing an abyss between meaning and agency that contains the possibility of nihilism, fundamentally a contrary road from that of the purposes of education. The abyss has been used metaphorically to describe problems in education, many associated with neoliberalism and the market model, but also its exportation through globalisation now affecting many countries in the world. The critique of neoliberalism in higher education began shortly after neoliberalism was adopted in the early 1980s in mostly Anglo-American countries producing

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academic capitalism, in which economic values, market practices, and entrepreneurial roles were models (Slaughter and Leslie 1997). Since then, a growing and large body of literature has documented and analysed the effects of neoliberalism on academic standards and values, research choices and practices, the role of the academic and their academic freedom, negative effects on the community of scholars in their social and professional relationships, on curriculum and pedagogy and on social relationships with students in the classroom (see e.g., Deem et al. 2007; Gill 2010; Martin 1998; Smyth 2017). Education, through the neoliberal ideology, has been locked into the economic sector (Ball 2012a, 2012b), especially with the New Public Governance and new actors in education (Ball and Junemann 2012) that effectively removes many social, cultural, religious, and political sources of value and meaning. Many regard neoliberalism and its impact on the educational sector as a form of truncated meaning, reduced to homo oeconomicus and the market model in contrast to the many roles that education in a society fulfils. The neoliberal regime is described by Warren (2017) as technologies of performativity through auditing and metrics that produce many forms of harm, including creating a status economy through university rankings that destroy the long-standing collegial systems of relationship that neoliberalism replaced, and interventionist management of academics on non-scholarly grounds. The various emotional and spiritual stresses produced, Warren refers to as an existential dislocation in one’s role and identity as a teacher and researcher drawn into an abyss of numerical representation, and market accomplishments. Gill (2010) takes a similar view of neoliberalism as creating cultures of silence, shame, inadequacy, struggle, and suffering in an environment that is no longer a true academic one, and at a deep human cost. Ultimately, what neoliberalism produces is knowledge regarded as a product, and people as consumers or service producers, which Smyth (2017) characterises as zombie leadership. In other words, through neoliberalism we are pressed to the edge of an abyss of identity and the eradication or reshaping of knowledge into a means serving economic goals, circulating through policy networks nationally and internationally taking different forms as neoliberalism is articulated through historical trajectories and political and social forces (Ball 2010; Rizvi and Lingard 2009). A related development of a highly controversial nature is digital technologies and their effect on education in resourcing, learning impact and ethics (Selwyn, 2016; Selwyn and Facer, 2013). Alvesson (2013), also, has used abyssal language to describe academic work that reduces knowledge construction to ‘product symbolism’, in pursuit of the market in which higher education managers and administrators expend considerable energy. Neoliberalism reduces distinctions between knowledge and marketplace entrepreneurialism in which publishing is viewed as a means of achieving competitiveness rather than contributing to a community of scholars. In this way, argues Alvesson, the value of research and publication is reduced to market visibility. But, it also has destructive eroding effects on the mind, self, values of administrators and faculty members in a university, and is transmitted

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through curriculum and pedagogy. The slide towards and into an abyss develops over time in a society – noted particularly for higher education shortly after the adoption of neoliberal ideology. The neoliberal university, promoting market models, entrepreneurialism, and the prepackaging and standardisation of curriculum, has drained away what used to be ‘the academic ethic’ described by Edward Shils (1997), and the effects foreshadowed by Nisbet (1971) in The Degradation of Academic Dogma where universities are criticised for betraying their purpose having abandoned the tradition of pursuing knowledge for its inherent value in exchange for producing knowledge entrepreneurially for capitalistic purpose. It is a new version of the Treason of the Intellectuals that Benda (2007/1928) examined in the early part of the twentieth century when academics betrayed their intellectual and scholarly ethic for extra-academic purposes. Part of the practice of neoliberalism is the application of quantitatively-based rationality in organisational practices, shifting from a qualitative view of the world dominated by higher-order moral and humanistic end values, that ultimately cause self-alienation and controlled social conformity. One way in which this has been applied to higher education is through quality assurance with implications for teaching overloads, reduced collegial relations, and research autonomy through commodification and quantification (Morley, 2003), serving the accountability goals of agencies external to the academy rather than the aims of the academy itself (Houston and Paewai, 2013). Stern (2009) identifies three main categories of abyss for higher education on personal, social, and global levels of individual levels of paranoiac and schizophrenic experience resulting in education in faculty and students who feel no need to listen to others and the suppression of legitimate conflict that comes from intellectual and scholarly debate and critique. On a social and organisational level exists the abyss of assuming that the organisation and how it is structured and what it does is permanent, universal, and free from context – problematic particularly when it is ethnocentrically constructed and then imposed on foreign students and on other countries where curriculum, pedagogy, and administrative practices have been imported. On the macro-economic, international, and environmental levels, Stern describes the ‘ending-of-the-world’ type discourse, abysses for which higher education has a responsibility to address. Generally, neoliberalism, and its exported form through globalisation, run contrary to longestablished purposes and values of the university, usually consisting of the construction of knowledge, the development of the critical independent individual, the continuity of cultural traditions, preparation for employment, and also preparation for citizenship and the ability to take political action (Gadamer 1992; Habermas 1970, 1990; Jaspers 1960; Wolff 1969). The term ‘abyssal’ has also been used to describe the effects of globalisation and neocolonisation in education to characterise how Western thinking creates an abyssal world by representing Western knowledge as real, and other traditions as non-existent (de Sousa Santos 2016). Many of the changes in curriculum and pedagogy through multiculturalism, inclusion, and internationalisation of

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universities have been pursued to address this through ‘post-abyssal’ innovations and development (Rogers 2021). However, education has also been seen to be a solution to facing many abysses and overcoming them. The philosopher Martin Buber, himself the leading theorist of an abyss facing Europe politically in the 1930s, ‘new anthropological dread’ (2002: 173) of threats to culture, nations, and civilisation faced extinction. Later in 2004, Purpel and McLaurin regarded education as a solution to the many crises facing humanity.

Conclusion: Whither Educational Administration To a large extent, it is educational administration and leadership that plays a central role in the neoliberal abyss, through their involvement in policy formulation and implementation. Marginson (2000) explored the patterns of neoliberalism in Australian higher education in the late 1990s, noting the way key structural features of an emerging global model of higher education were adopted by governments to align the semi-autonomous nature of the sector to pressing economic concerns, requiring the compliance of educational administration. A number of common factors have emerged over time for higher education administration in the initial Anglo-American countries in which it developed, and then spread internationally through globalisation (Marginson 2004, 2006; Marginson and Considine 2000): (1) how government has promoted if not required the increased increased participation of higher education in economic strategies of the state to use learning as a source of human capital for economic competitiveness; (2) reducing government funding forcing organisations to seek other sources of funding by raising tuition fees and seeking corporate partners, increasing workloads, requiring faculty to seek research funding, and selling curriculum and pedagogy abroad; (3) changing research priorities and criteria in funding programmes to address economic goals; and (4) introducing market practices into higher education activities like acquiring research funding, competing for students, and particularly in trying to attract foreign students who pay much higher fees. This has changed the role of educational administrators and leadership – essentially carrying out the expectations and instructions of government bent on neoliberal ideology, and in many cases also corporate partners education has been pressured into adopting, relinquishing professional independence particularly associated with higher education. This has spawned a continuing criticism in the literature of neoliberal values in higher education, such as Urciuoli’s (2018) examination of commodification, Zajda’s (2020) exploration of corporate-based policies and accountability regimes, Gupta et al. (2016) critique of negative effects of neoliberalism on employment conditions in higher education, Maisuria and Helmes’ (2020) analysis of how neoliberalism has a number of negative effects on academic life and careers, and Leo’s (2017) study of the identity abyss of neoliberal higher education. These are only a few among a growing and considerably large literature of criticism. One feature of neoliberalism that has

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heavily infected educational administration is the fad of managerial forms of ‘leadership’ that tends to ignore or devalue administration, and promise a false idol for education in the form of literature that is not able to distinguish between administrative and leadership roles. We have not only professional but moral responsibility to face the abysses, a view expressed some time ago by Franz Kafka, in existential form – true, deep truths are not comfortable: The truth is always as an abyss. One must – as in a swimming pool – dare to dive from the quivering springboard of trivial everyday experience and sink into the depths, in order to later rise again – laughing and fighting for breath – to the now doubly illuminated surface of things. (in Janouch 1971: 209) Professionalism in education must, as Himmelfarb (1994) has explained, be pursued both as a moral responsibility and pragmatic responsibility in (re-) constructing educational purpose given its many roles in society to the political, cultural, and social systems, as well as the economic. It is a responsibility to pursue and believe in truth and reality, contrary to ideologies that deny their existence or strategically distribute disinformation, and then render us incapable of achieving morality, human rights, and social justice.

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Smyth, J. (2017) The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rock Stars and Neoliberal Ideology, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Stacy, R.D. (1992) Managing the Unknowable: Strategic Boundaries between Order and Chaos in Organizations, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Stern, J. (2009) ‘Monologue or dialogue? Stepping away from the abyss in higher education’, London Review of Education, 7, 3: 271–281. Tachjian, V. (2017) Daily Life in the Abyss: Genocide Diaries, 1915–1918, Oxford: Berghahn Books. Tillich, P. (2014[1952) The Courage to Be, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015) Canada’s Residential Schools: Missing Children and Unmarked Burials, Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Vol. 4, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Twenge, J. (2006) Generation Me, New York: Free Press. Twenge, J. (2011) ‘Narcissism and culture’, in W. Campbell and J. Miller (eds.) The Handbook of Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (202–209), Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Twenge, J. and Campbell, W. (2009) The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement, New York: Free Press. Urciuoli, B. (Ed.) (2018) The Experience of Neoliberal Education, New York: Berghahn. Warren, S. (2017) ‘Struggling for visibility in higher education: Caught between neoliberalism “out there” and “in here” – an autoethnographic account’, Journal of Educational Policy, 32, 2: 127–140. Weber, M. (1930) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Weber, M. (1989) Max Weber’s ‘Science as a Vocation’, London: Unwin Hyman. Wilson, J. (2004) ‘The abyss experience and the trauma complex: A Jungian perspective of posttraumatic stress disorder and dissociation’, Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 5, 3: 43–68. Wolff, R.P. (1969) The Ideal of the University, Beacon Press: Boston. Yountae, A. (2017) The Decolonial Abyss: Mysticism and Cosmopolitics from the Ruins, New York: Fordham University Press. Zajda, J. (ed.) (2020) Globalisation, Ideology and Neo-Liberal Higher Education Reforms, Dordrecht: Springer. Zizek, S. (1997). The Plague of Fantasies, New York: Verso.

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The Sublime, Affect Phrasing, and Les Petits Narratives in Educational Leadership Richard Niesche

Introduction Educational leadership, as a concept, and as a project, has not been able to escape its modernist shackles of narrow, fixed, and overly prescriptive accounts and constructions of ‘good leadership’, ‘best practice’, self-congratulatory research, or forms of ‘upbeat leadership’ (Alvesson 2020). These compromised accounts of ‘leadership’ only serve to weaken the ‘field’. The image of Munch’s ‘The Scream’ represents both my relationship with much of the mainstream scholarship in educational leadership and perhaps the expression of many educational leaders caught within their system’s obsession with managerialism, work intensification, and neoliberalist approaches to education. As a scholar of educational leadership, or more accurately, a critical approach to educational leadership, I project both a sense of frustration with the lack of criticality in and of the field and a sense of optimism for creating space for those more critical approaches and perspectives to appear. Outside of education, fields such as organisational studies have routinely engaged with more critical approaches and accounts of leadership and leadership research (e.g., Alvesson 2020; Kellerman 2012; Lakomski 2005; Learmonth and Morrell 2019). Education has a much less strong and robust acceptance of these more critical approaches even though there has been significant work done in this space (see Smyth 1989; Courtney et al. 2021; Courtney et al. 2017; Gunter 2016; Lakomski et al. 2017; Niesche 2018; Niesche and Gowlett 2019). Therefore, in this chapter, I seek to demonstrate the importance of more critical forms of scholarship in the field of educational leadership in response to the continued dominance of the mainstream.1 I undertake this more critically minded approach by drawing on the work of philosopher, Jean-Francois Lyotard. The work of Lyotard has been used sparingly in education2 (exceptions include Dhillon and Standish 2000; Peters 1995; Peters and Burbules 2004; Usher and Edwards 1994) and even less so in educational leadership (see Niesche 2013a). However, Lyotard’s philosophy has much to offer educators beyond his most popularised theorising of the postmodern. For those looking towards exploration of genuinely different perspectives to be developed in educational leadership, then Jean Francois Lyotard’s (1991) reading of Kant through a re-working of the notion of the sublime allows for a particular type of aesthetic reflection, the avant-garde,

DOI: 10.4324/9781003145288-4

Narratives in Educational Leadership 39 and the representation of the ‘event’ that captures forms of difference. It is in these analyses that Lyotard attempts to go beyond established modes and forms of representation that have been traditionally used to understand different kinds of events and phenomena. This can have both provocative and powerful insights into capturing leadership differently. In this chapter, I bring together some of these thoughts from Lyotard to present them as an alternative to the dominance of instrumentalist and functionalist approaches to educational leadership that are the mainstream of scholarship in the field that he has critiqued: To educate is to lead out. The moderns have stressed the efforts necessary to lead and let oneself be led out of nature towards language. But ‘out’ is possibly not ‘outside’. It is no doubt within, far inside. Once cannot reach it by uprooting oneself but by plunging deep within toward what is most intimate, where lies desire. (Lyotard 1995: xx) While on the one hand engaging in critique, in this chapter, I also seek to provide a more generative account or to provide a set of notions to open space for alternative versions of these practices to appear and be understood, or ‘captured’ through the aesthetic, affect, sublime and little narratives (Lyotard 1984). Leadership as event can capture occurrences as they happen rather than the temporal disjuncture of leadership approaches that inevitably prescribe models for the future based on observations from the past, or what Lyotard (1988) terms ‘incommensurable phrasing’. This chapter builds on previous introductory work to Lyotard in the field of educational leadership (Niesche 2013a) for the purposes of illustrating the theorising of the event in and as educational leadership through the sublime, aesthetic, and language games (phrasing) to capture leadership in an entirely different way. This chapter is essentially divided into two parts. In the first part, I work through Lyotard’s notion of language games and how this might be understood and used to engage with research claims and prescriptives in the field of school effectiveness and improvement (SESI). This, in a sense, is an example of my differend (Lyotard 1988) with leadership as presented in this field of research. In the second part of the chapter, I then move to explain a brief exposition of some of the conceptual tools in which I think differently and critically about educational leadership. Here, I convey some thoughts using the notion of the event, sublime, and les petits récits (narratives) towards a different approach to theorising, thinking about, and hopefully researching educational leadership using some examples from my own previous research but also in discourse and educational leadership research and literature.

Lyotard and Language Games Jean Francois Lyotard was well-known for his philosophy characterising the notion of the postmodern (e.g., Lyotard 1984, 1993, 1997a, 1997b, 1999).

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One of the ways he undertook these analyses was through the notion of language games. In a nod to the influential work of Wittgenstein, Lyotard uses the notion of language games to designate an emphasis on the importance of language and particularly on its pragmatic aspects as they pertain to knowledge creation and the status of knowledge (Lyotard 1984). Examining how knowledge is created, by whom, when, in which contexts, and under what conditions is a valuable way to examine what it is we know and think we know in the field of educational leadership (other good examples of this kind of work include English 2002, 2003; Gunter 2016; Maxcy 1994. This is more than just a simple mapping of the field and literature, although this too is incredibly important work. Drawing on Lyotard’s language games, as I explain below, allows us to examine what he terms the status of this knowledge through the pragmatics of language and the legitimation of the content of what we know through particular means. This largely philosophical chapter takes a few of Lyotard’s key texts as its starting point for looking at the status of knowledge and knowledge creation in the field of educational leadership since the late 1980s – a period of the introduction of school-based management into many education systems around the world, a period I will term the ‘school autonomy era’ (see also Niesche and Thomson 2017; Smyth 2011; Wilkinson et al. 2018). While I am aware of the limitations of describing this period since the late 1980s in this manner, it will allow me to work at a broader, meta-level of thinking influenced by the style and method Lyotard undertook in The Postmodern Condition (1984). This book has been one of his most referred to works but also at the same time a very underused book from a deeper perspective of language games, his method, rather than a simpler interpretation of his description of the postmodern era that is most often used. The notion of performativity is a particularly strong theme throughout the book and aptly describes, even today much of the ethos of reforms and philosophy inherent in education reforms. What I wish to examine is the status of knowledge in school effectiveness and improvement literature (SESI) that has become the most dominant as making up the field of educational leadership. I have argued elsewhere that the more critical and socially critical perspectives shave been marginalised at the same time because they do not necessarily subscribe to the same performativity principle and thus are not seen as valuable in their contribution to the system (see Niesche 2018; Niesche and Gowlett 2019). The knowledge that is brought by SESI is seen as valuable knowledge for the functioning and reform of the education system and as such has become the dominant representative flavour of educational leadership discourse for policymakers and many traditional or mainstream educational leadership scholars. There is also a newer branch of this work as represented by gurus, edu-preneurs, consultants, and so on (see Eacott 2017; Gunter 2016) who are closely aligned with this SESI body of knowledge that have used social media and other means to demonstrate its own importance through citation, likes and other forms of sharing as evidence of impact, expertise (Eacott 2018, 2020) and ‘what works’ that fulfils the performativity criterion so desired by education reformers.

Narratives in Educational Leadership 41 In the first part here, I undertake a close reading of The Postmodern Condition (Lyotard 2013) or perhaps more accurately, re-visit the book, with a view to philosophising about the creation and privileging of certain kinds of knowledge in the SESI field and how it has come to dominate the education landscape. This involves a critical examination of language games as a method through which this analysis is founded. I then move on to explore Lyotard’s most important work, The Differend (1988) as an example of in-depth analysis of these language games and phrasing, including the importance of the affect phrase – and certainly important in terms of building towards the notion of the sublime to view educational leadership. Lyotard begins The Postmodern Condition by describing the change in the status of knowledge in modern society since the end of the 1950s. As a part of general changes to society, Lyotard argues that the nature of knowledge cannot remain unchanged due to computerisation, the production and acquisition of knowledge, and societal upheavals. In particular, he argues that certain kinds of knowledge become crucial in the optimising of performance (performativity). I would suggest that this also holds for the upheaval to education system reform that came along with the self-managing school in the 1980s (Caldwell and Spinks 1988) for the development and status of certain kinds of knowledge in the educational leadership field. Caldwell and Spinks detail what kinds of models of leadership are important for the more autonomous schools, for example, transformational leadership (Caldwell and Spinks 2013). This, along with Burns’ significant work (Burns 1978) and Leithwood’s truncating of Burns into education of these approaches (Leithwood et al. 1999) has privileged an approach to leadership that was seen as the most effective way to lead a self-managing school moving forward. Now, while I am not going to labour the limitations and criticisms of transformational leadership itself here, what is significant, is how, as a form of scientific discourse, this model was accepted as the best way to ‘govern’ schools and the conditions were established and legitimised that accorded this model such a role in the field of educational leadership. There were language games, or more accurately, moves in language games that made this model and discourse a privileged status. Before moving on with the argument, I will say a few things about Lyotard’s ‘method’ – language games3. Lyotard even describes his approach to language games as his ‘method’ in The Postmodern Condition, whereby he describes the emphasising of ‘facts of language and their pragmatic aspect’ as the vehicle through which he makes his assertions of the changing nature and status of knowledge in postmodernity. Lyotard (1984) acknowledges the importance of his reading of Wittgenstein, Searle, and Austin in the development of his approach. He defines language games as: Each of the various categories of utterance can be defined in terms of rules specifying their properties and the uses to which they can be put-in exactly the same way as the game of chess is defined by a set of rules determining the properties of each of the pieces, in other words, the proper way to move them. (10)

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Lyotard very briefly then describes some of the aspects of the different types of statements and rules for which they are used and applied4. He also makes the important observation that ‘the observable social bond is composed of language moves’ (11). It is here that he then makes the shift to describing the importance of performativity within the social bond and its relationship to language games and the status and privileging of scientific knowledge. For Lyotard, performativity designates the optimal relationship between input and output (11). Arguably the SESI movement is premised on the idea of finding the best possible relationship of performativity and the leadership to match – the link between leadership and student learning and outcomes. It is important to note that this is not intended to be a criticism of SESI per se but rather to understand its link with the privileging of certain knowledge over others in the educational leadership field. Thus, the continued rise of more traditional leadership approaches that can be seen to be trying to deliver on this performativity criterion. As Lyotard (1984) indicates: ‘Traditional’ theory is always in danger of being incorporated onto the programming of the social whole as a simple tool for the organization of its performance; this is because its desire for a unitary and totalising truth lends itself to the unitary and totalising practice of the system’s managers. (12) Certain statements then become privileged, that is, leadership models and approaches that tend to emphasise the relationship between leadership and student outcomes – the ‘holy grail’ of educational leadership! This comes to be valorised in whole fields of endeavour in educational leadership that search for this ‘truth’ and prescription for optimised performance to the exclusion of other more critical approaches which are seen to be less relevant for serving these purposes. The more critical approaches play different kinds of language games that are often social theory-laden and thus are on the wrong side of the theory-practice distinction for education policymakers and reformers (more akin to narrative forms of knowledge as described by Lyotard). The SESI field, on the other hand, plays at using scientific knowledge claims and language games to privilege their worth (legitimacy) and value to the system5. Such language moves can be seen in papers like ‘Seven strong claims about successful school leadership’ (Leithwood et al. 2008). In this paper, the authors attempt to summarise previous research into SESI to ascertain their main findings from research into effective school leadership. While not necessarily wanting to provide an overall critique of the claims themselves, the paper hardly provides a sufficiently systematic review of relevant literature, not to mention much of the literature used to justify the claims comes from their own citations. As a result, the paper amounts to a form of popularised consensus that serves to reify de-contextualised forms of leadership. However, what is interesting from a Lyotardian perspective are the claims to ‘science’ or legitimising scientific forms of knowledge through using terms and discourse such as ‘expertise’, ‘evidence’ (and indeed ‘robust empirical evidence’ that

Narratives in Educational Leadership 43 amounts to ‘strong’ claims about effective leadership, or leadership effects – as if one can simply identify causal links between leadership and effects. Further claims to justification, discussions of validity, and generalisability all serve to classify this article as one that is grounded in scientific principles of research and knowledge production. However, this paper is multiple steps away from the research process itself. It is essentially summarising previous studies that have reported on previous research processes (many of which were conducted by the authors themselves). This is not to criticise general research processes themselves or the aims of conducting robust and rigorous methods in research, but there are significant limitations to the claims made in this paper that are also indicative of the SESI field itself (and, in fact, are more significant in the problematic nature of the claims because of the increased distance from context). When we consider the following properties of scientific knowledge as explained by Lyotard, many of the attempts to legitimatise the claims in the seven strong claims paper are also illustrative of the field of SESI more generally. Lyotard (1984) sets out these properties as: 1 2 3

4 5

Scientific knowledge requires that one language game, denotation, be retained and all others excluded; Scientific knowledge is set apart from language games that combine them to form the social bond; Within the bounds of the game of research, the competence required concerns the post of sender alone (ie no competence required of the addressee or referent); A statement of science gains no validity from the fact of being reported; and, The game of science implies a diachronic temporality, that is, a memory and a project. (25–6)

These characteristics exist in SESI and the referenced paper via de-contextualised generalisations working at a distance to social reality and draw upon language games that must exclude those that cannot ‘demonstrate’ impact and effects. The competence of the authors lies in their titles and expertise and their previous research and so requires no adequate justification. The significance of the distinctions between narrative forms of knowledge and scientific knowledge is that they are comprised of statements that follow different rules. For example, scientific knowledge requires questions of its own legitimation. If we look at the seven strong claims article, legitimacy is granted to the claims through continual reference to ‘evidence’ (previous research) made by ‘experts’ – scholars who draw on research and who know what it is they claim; and referencing themselves extensively is a tactic in this game not to mention their expertise awarded via tertiary qualifications and academic positions at universities. The validity of their knowledge claims comes through the link to student performance and outcomes – an obviously important and desirable aim of society. Knowledge then becomes

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intimately linked to society and the performativity criteria. There is a need to distinguish itself from more narrative forms of knowledge (even though it still draws upon them to do so) to be seen to be distant and apart from ideology or speculation. This is done through multiple lines of ‘evidence’ and ‘proof ’. The proof or evidence required for scientific knowledge thus requires further expenditure and reinforcing the relationship between wealth and research grant success and verification of results and proof. As Lyotard says, ‘no money, no proof ’ (45). Thus, the games of forming and developing scientific knowledge are those of the rich and those with the established research credibility and legitimacy. The wealthiest have the greatest chance of being right (that is highly esteemed professors with large grant and consultancy budgets and reach and followers on social media). And here it is now how knowledge becomes a force of production and consumption driven by performativity. Proof becomes a language game of performativity, not one of another kind of language game (for example, narrative) that is less concerned with performativity. The criterion of performativity becomes synonymous with success and evidence’. The key point being: The desired goal becomes the optimal contribution of higher education to the best performativity of the social system. Accordingly, it will have to create the skills that are indispensable to that system. (Lyotard 1984: 48) Hence, the relentless search for ‘best practice’ models and ‘effective’ leadership approaches, and the gurus and consultants that sell them will be seen to drive the best performativity criterion for the education system and its improvement. The legitimation of truth and performance becomes the game – to be seen to have the solution – rather than offering more theoretically informed, historical, or philosophical work that might underpin such claims – but to produce ‘evidence’ devoid of the potentially constraining and problematic theories of how the social world works and is constructed that just get in the way. The theory/practice divide that is so spoken about as the problem with more academic work. And, hence, the rise of the ‘pracademic’. Theoretical work seems to play a language game that is less valued and important for performativity. In Just Gaming (1985), Lyotard talks about moves between language games, that of the move from the descriptive to the prescriptive. He explains this move as problematic, one with a paradox with the assumption that the prescriptive can be derived from the descriptive. This is a problem because statements do not belong to the same class with different functions and the function of description is different from that of prescription. Lyotard calls this an incommensurable move. Such is the move made by the authors in the seven strong claims about leadership paper (Leithwood et al. 2008). They look at (describe) some of the key elements of research into the main seven themes and then determine how one should act, prescribe/promote approaches to leadership based on those descriptions. Ignoring the fact that there are numerous references to their own previous work – there is still some significant work and ‘talking’ to be done for

Narratives in Educational Leadership 45 this to be a just move between language games. It also requires something different from the reader in their engagement with these claims. Interestingly, Daniel Muijs (2011), also a co-author with Harris and others in the SESI field writes about the limits of the prescriptive to the descriptive in fascinating paper that has been largely overlooked. To read and understand the descriptive is a discourse in which one is to determine the truth claims made based on what is presented. However, in the prescriptive, the purpose is different, to imply form the descriptive courses of action in society, hence a different truth game and function. Certainly, a performative one. This tension is described by Lyotard (1985) in the following way: In other words, how can one derive by means of implication commands from discourses that are not discourses of knowledge, whose function is to state the truth, and that are determinable with respect to truth or falsehood. This passage from one to the other is, properly speaking, unintelligible. There is a resistance, an incommensurability, I would say an irrelevancy, of the prescriptive with respect to the functions of propositional logic, that is, with respect to that which gives theoretical discourse to its authority. (22) Arguably, this move is the central role of SESI discourse as it must satisfy the performativity criterion to bets suit the performance of the system. To find the ‘best’ and most effective’ way to leave educational reform and change and to improve student outcomes. Theoretical, historical, philosophical discourse has been displaced in these language games and moves. The oversimplification of causal realities, the ignoring of social theories in the privileging of empiricism are all tactics that make these shifts deeply problematic and yet are characteristic to SESI research (also see Goldstein and Woodhouse 2000). In the next section, I move to explore Lyotard’s notions of the sublime, the affect phrase, and the event as ways to understand the affective dimension to educational leadership provoked by the image of The Scream as central to this collection.

The Sublime, Event, Affect Phrase, and Les Petits Narratives Affect phrases According to Lyotard, ‘silence is a phrase’ (1988, 2006). In The Differend, he writes of phrases, phrasing, and the lining of phrases, their rules and genres of discourse that comprise society. In a supplement to The Differend (2006), Lyotard writes of what he terms the affect phrase – a phrase associated with feelings and emotions. For example, he writes that ‘feeling is a phrase. I call it the affect phrase. It is distinct in that it is unarticulated’ (104). In a little more detail, he explains further:

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2 3

The affect phrase appears not to allow itself to be linked on to according to the rules of any genre of discourse; on the contrary, it appears only to be able to suspend or interrupt linkages, whatever they are; The affect-phrase injures the rules of the genres of discourse; it creates a damage; This damage in its turn gives rise to a wrong, because the damage suffered by discourse can be settled within the rules, but argumentation is in all cases inappropriate to the affect-phrase, if it is true that it does not give rise to a genre and cannot be argued. (105)

In previous writing, I had used the notion of the affect phrase to examine the role of emotions in educational leadership and their absence of acknowledgement in leadership standards and discourse (Niesche 2013a). But, what is also interesting is how this can be used to examine the articulation of silence and its phrasing and linking. For example, in an interview I conducted with a school principal of a high school in Queensland, Australia, she commented: MySchool 6does not do this school community any favours nor does it do this community any favours. In fact, it’s quite degrading for them and, you know, this community over a long period of time tends to have a very negative attitude towards bureaucrats and this is just another example for them to say, well look at our government, they say they care but, you know, the performance of our kids is now out there for the world to see. So, for me, the MySchool website, I don’t mention it at all. I don’t mention it in any of my documents. I don’t talk about it with my staff or my parents. I don’t refer parents to it. MySchool is not very helpful to me and this community that’s for sure. (interview quoted in Niesche 2013c: 155) At the time (and in the published paper Niesche 2013c), I argued that this act of not referring to the MySchool website was an act of counter-conduct, theorised through the work of Michel Foucault. While this is one way of theorising and understanding this practice of the principal that embodies a political form of subjectivity, it is also possible to theorise this in terms of phrasing á la Lyotard’s thinking on language games and phrasing. There is also another example of this being used as an ‘affective’ strategy by the principal. She uses this in relation to the leadership standards document that was in operation in Queensland at the time. For example: P: Other than providing the organisers and the framework for my professional development plan I probably don’t refer to the Leadership Matters document at all. I: Do you get some sense that there’s an expectation that you will? P: We were given the Leadership Matters framework for our particular banding of principalship by the Director General at the start of the year. To be

Narratives in Educational Leadership 47 honest with you I haven’t read it. I know the Leadership Matters framework inside out. I have read it many a time. As you know we’ve done some study around it, but I don’t use it … if we really start to unravel and dig and think about and critique the Leadership Matters framework it is actually quite removed from the day-to-day practice of a principal. (interview quoted in Niesche 2013c: 155) What is important to note about this example is the strategy of silence and phrasing of silence. Educational leadership discourse is always about doing something, leading and practising to enact change and reform and yet the phrasing of silence can be an ‘affective’ strategy, a move in a language game that seeks to recognise difference through the institution of such a move or phrase. It is about capturing leadership ‘as it happens’ or as an event.

The event/les petits narratives Lyotard wrote of temporal issues with writing about how to understand, phrase, and represent ‘the present’. The descriptive to the prescriptive I have already mentioned is one other example of his engagement with temporality. However, the notion of the event is another way in which Lyotard attempts to think about the growth of particular knowledge systems, as discussed in The Postmodern Condition (date here) Capturing or representing the event is a way to overcome the traditional forms of meaning-making that tend to suppress forms of difference and alternative ways of viewing, representing and phrasing the social world. If one truly seeks to devise different ways of understanding and phrasing educational leadership that do not resort to limiting, suppressing, and narrow forms of knowledge creation such as that of the SESI field, then it is necessary to derive these different modes from different conceptual tools. The notion of the event is one way to phrase educational leadership differently. The event is an unstable form that struggles to be represented or phrased. Lyotard (1988) refers to an event as being made up of everyday occurrences that are often concealed, and therefore it is necessary to try to listen for these happenings, to be sensitive to such ‘sounds’. These ‘sounds’, sensations, or affects need to be captured in their singularity and not covered over by grand theories or models that are not equipped to capture these singularities. As Lyotard explains, ‘complete information means neutralising more events’ (1991: 65). He uses the notion of the differend to attend to such singularities through genres of discourse and phrases and their identification. Another way to try to capture these is through the affect phrase, I have already mentioned. A further device Lyotard uses to describe events is through a particular line of questioning – ‘is it happening?’ (1988, 1991). Lyotard writes about using the question, ‘is it happening?’ instead of ‘what is happening?’ to shift the line of inquiry away from the assumption that something is happening or something happened, and provokes a different aesthetic, ethical, and political move to question the very assumption that something is happening.

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This also relates to the notion of the sublime with I discuss later in the chapter. However, what is important to note about this is that Lyotard claims that the ‘is it happening?’ question serves to ‘neutralise’ the grand narratives (like leadership!) that tend to assume the produced effects from certain behaviours or actions. Lyotard writes that art and philosophy are important ways to capture these affects. One of the most striking ways that he uses this in an example in The Differend (1988) and is that of the Nazis using gas chambers to eliminate the Jewish people during WW2 where to ‘prove’ that these gas chambers existed was to ask first-hand survivors for their accounts. Lyotard articulates the differend between the accounts of the Nazis and the Jewish people in terms of the suppression and silencing of their stories and discourse, and the injustice of doing so. Verifying these claims also becomes problematic as if one was inside the gas chamber then they did not survive, so there could be no first-hand account that it was a gas chamber and thus - no ‘proof’. While I am not getting into the technicalities of this claim and evidence, the key element is to shift the question to one that does not cause injustice to the claims of the other and recognising difference through a linking of phrases and phrase regimens. Questioning itself is important: To think is to question everything, including thought, and question, and the process. To question requires that something happen that reason has not yet known. In thinking, one accepts the occurrence for what it is: ‘not yet’ determined. One does not prejudge it, and there is no security … we must distinguish two ways of assuming the questioning … the principle of reason is the way of questioning which rushes to its goal, the reply. It involves a sort of impatience in the single presupposition that in any case one can always find a ‘reason’ or a cause for every question. Non-Western traditions of thought have quite a different attitude. What counts in their manner of questioning is not at all to determine the reply as soon as possible, to seize and exhibit some object which will count as the cause of the phenomenon in question. But to be and remain questioned by it, to stay through meditation responsive to it, without neutralizing by explanation its power of disquiet. (Lyotard 1991: 74) This quote by Lyotard is significant for educational leadership and SESI discourse as it is always quick to jump to leadership as the default reason for a phenomenon, performance, or effect in education and schools. By doing so one closes off other alternatives, options of different explanations, or even a simple questioning of the effects or consequences themselves. By interrogating through a different line of questioning one may come to an entirely different understanding of such phenomena but more importantly may allow a different linking of genre of discourse outside of the assumed default effects of something called leadership. To do so requires a different attitude from the default explanation and the pre-judgement that often occurs in the rush to the explanation of assumed cause and effect. If one goes looking for leadership to explain a phenomenon then one will usually find it in one way, shape or form, especially if one

Narratives in Educational Leadership 49 fails to undertake any form of critical self-reflection or different kinds of questioning. Educational leadership is replete with these kinds of default positions that cannot see any other way of phrasing such phenomena. Thus, the suppression of potentially different and alternative approaches in favour of the quick solution or marketable package. Lyotard uses the narrative form and the term les petits récits as a way to challenge and provide alternatives to the grand narratives that he so famously articulated in The Postmodern Condition (Lyotard 1984). The ‘little narratives’ serve to highlight the problems of the totalising knowledge so pervasive with the grand narratives to bring attention to more localised forms of knowledge – and to judge without pre-existing criteria (see Lyotard 1985). Lyotard writes of emancipation and progress as being two examples of grand narratives that can no longer be relied upon. Perhaps leadership should also be considered a grand narrative that can no longer be relied upon or something that one should have incredulity towards as it is such a ubiquitous concept that it can no longer refer to a reliable form of knowledge. This is where the more critical approaches to leadership have their place in highlighting the problems of legitimation of leadership discourse in the often-presented solution to educational problems. Rather than the grand narrative of leadership, there needs to be a focus on more ‘little narratives’ of practices (á la Foucault, for example) in shaping knowledge production in the field. This can serve to examine those practices that are more reliably recounted or understood as they are not part of a pre-conceived leadership model of success. Perhaps one of the ways to feel and produce those little narratives is through the notion of the sublime which I am now returning to after highlighting my feeling towards Munch’s The Scream at the start of this chapter as representing my association with much of the field of educational leadership.

The sublime Lyotard’s approach to art and aesthetics is one that seeks to bear witness to the sublime that is, experiencing feelings of both pleasure and pain. In previous writing (see Niesche 2021 in press; Niesche and Gowlett 2019), I have tried to capture some of these feelings towards educational leadership in the form of the notions of ‘cruel optimism’ that comes from Berlant (2011) and with leadership as both poison and cure as pharmakon which comes from Derrida (1981). The notion of the sublime can operate similarly in that leadership provokes both a visceral response and perhaps, more importantly, a way to phrase leadership that considers affective dimensions, while also operating as a form of petits narratives. A question to consider here then is how can one phrase the sublime in educational leadership or maybe even, ‘is the affect phrase a way of re-presenting the sublime?’ Exploring the notion of aesthetics in educational leadership is not a new idea as there has been some excellent work done in this area (see Samier and Bates 2006). However, the way Lyotard approaches the notion of the sublime, affect phrases, and les petits narratives offer a useful and different way of understanding educational leadership practice at the localised level.

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For Lyotard, the notion of the sublime encompasses a critical reading of Kant to project a sentiment whereby one’s imagination fails to present the concept or ideal. One can conceive the concept but any attempt to present the object or make it visible (Lyotard 1984) fails or is inadequate. For those familiar with Berlant’s notion of cruel optimism, it is easy to see some similarities with this approach to the sublime. However, Lyotard’s postmodern sublime expresses conflict over the unpresentable – that is, one can conceive of leadership as an ideal, and yet any presentation of the concept can only fall short due to a multitude of factors, concepts, contexts, and lack of appropriate linking of phrases or genres of discourse. This can be a helpful tool to understand our limitations of writing leadership into being as a concept. This links back to the question of ‘is it happening?’ To ask this question risks anxiety over potentially nothing happening, almost unheard of in educational leadership research! One must produce effects and represent these effects to describe a model or theoretical tool to be sold marketed or implemented for the betterment of education overall. It is now that one can talk of Lyotard’s (1991) focus on art, the art object, avant-garde, and aesthetics of the sublime as a way to present the unpresentable. Lyotard wrote extensively on the art-object, in particular the avant-garde, and its role in not bending to rules or models and how it can present the unpresentable. I am not going to wade through his reflection on specific artworks but rather just to highlight the potentiality for alternate phrasing through art and avant-garde as something for us to consider in attempting to seek other avenues for phrasing and understanding complex concepts such as leadership. How might one capture leadership as it happens or as a feeling or sensation rather than through a preconceived model?

Conclusion: Phrasing Educational Leadership How might we feasibly bring some of these ideas into how we phrase and represent educational leadership and construct knowledge in the field? For a start, we can recognise the limitations of models and grand narratives of leadership – that is, not to start with pre-conceived models that have failed us. Such theories and notions and then the propagation of research that simply serves to advance, sell, and promote these ideas (that are usually just variations on what has been done before but given a new adjective) must be deconstructed or done away with. The concepts of Lyotard can help do this work – his ideas are obviously some of many that can be helpful in this role. Second, acknowledging the problematic theories to promote leadership standards, competencies, and other performative frameworks that serve to instrumentalise and narrow down what is considered effective or good leadership. Third, and this links to the previous point, stop ‘scaling up’ localised narratives and practices (les petits récits) into grand narratives for success. For Lyotard, this constitutes an incommensurable move between language games or genres of discourse. To do this enacts injustice to the localised narrative. Fourth, scholars must stop adhering to the performativity criterion of simplistic cause and effect and modelling what counts as

Narratives in Educational Leadership 51 success on these and then becoming part of the leadership industry or consumerist machine – for this distorts knowledge production and only fails to successfully demonstrate success even usually by its own pre-determined criteria, and thus fuelling the need for the next massive research grant which does more of the same. In essence, dismantle the leadership industry. Fifth, think carefully and deeply about what can be said that does not suppress and marginalise diverse, different approaches and perspectives that often must come from outside the leadership bubble. Self-referentialism has long been a problem in the educational leadership field when there are theories, concepts, approaches, and ways of thinking that draw from a wide variety of sources outside of education that have much to offer. Sixth, acknowledge the affective side of educational leadership and use this as a source for local narratives and how to phrase them so that injustices do not occur. Again, Lyotard’s thinking is very helpful here. The Scream, for me, represents both horror and surprise of my reaction to the educational leadership field – an endless source of frustration of scholarship that gets us no closer to understanding the concept beyond the mind-numbing simplicity and stupidity (Alvesson and Spicer 2016) of vacuous claims to what it is. Furthermore, the seductive, money-making industry sustains idealised models of practice with little hope or chance of making leaders’ lives better or ‘effective’. The sublime is a way of capturing this affect – leadership as both pleasure and pain. Pleasure for the fascination of the concept and how it is used, conceptualised, described, prescribe, taken up, perpetually misunderstood; and pain for the endless frustration with ‘sticking with the term’ while trying to acknowledge its limitations, weaknesses but in the face of such strong adoption of the concept as the be-all and end-all of what must solve education, pain and cruel optimism as I have argued elsewhere using Berlant (Berlant 2011; Niesche and Gowlett, 2019). I have described in the above sections what Lyotard refers to by those terms and offer them to perhaps phrase leadership differently. I am fully aware that it fails to fulfil the performativity criteria of SESI research but then that is also the point. To go some way to presenting the unpresentable, phrasing that which is impossible to phrase by asking different questions of leadership and of us as researchers and scholars. Jean Francois Lyotard’s graphic depiction of the dissection of an organic body at the beginning of Libidinal Economy (2004) attempts to show the primacy of the event to resist forms of conceptual representation. Through his development of libidinal intensities and affects, Lyotard breaks up traditional modes of representation and structures in his movement away from Marxist thought. Similarly, there is a need to break up traditional models and approaches to educational leadership using different tools, theories, and resources to be able to phrase leadership differently rather than remain stuck in prefabricated categories that are slight variations on a theme. Throughout this chapter, I have introduced a range of ideas in Lyotard’s work and drawn upon them to both critique and also provide generative ways of thinking about how to approach educational leadership differently.

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Notes 1 When I write of ‘mainstream’ approaches to education, I am largely concerned with school effectiveness and school improvement literature (SESI) which are particularly dominant since the late 1980s with the advent of school-based management discourse. 2 However, the notion of performativity has been used more extensively in education and educational leadership (for example, Ball 2000, 2003; Heffernan 2019), although often credited with Stephen Ball’s work. 3 As it pertains to The Postmodern Condition (1984) – later in The Differend (1988), he talks more of phrases, phrasing, and moves. 4 I will not get into the technicality of the features of these, but they can be found in The Postmodern Condition (specifically pp. 9–11), The Differend (1988) and also Just Gaming (Lyotard 1985). 5 Elsewhere I have critiqued educational leadership standards using Lyotard’s notion of language games so will not do that here (see Niesche 2013a, 2013b). 6 MySchool is a website that was created to publicly display national standardised test results (NAPLAN), and other school data, in Australia, for the purposes of school choice for parents and school and state-wide comparison of school and system performance. It has been controversial for its problematic data, its usefulness for improvement, and harmful effects on students, teachers, and schools, and also for the media creation of league and ranking tables of schools.

References Alvesson, M. (2020) ‘Upbeat leadership: A recipe for – or against – “successful” leadership studies’, The Leadership Quarterly, 10.1016/j.leaqua.2020.101439 Alvesson, M., and Spicer, A. (2016) The Stupidity Paradox: The Power and Pitfalls of Functional Stupidity at Work, London: Profile Books. Ball, S. (2000) ‘Performatives and fabrications in the education economy: Towards the performative society?’ Australian Educational Researcher, 27, 2: 1–23. Ball, S. (2003) ‘The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity’, Journal of Education Policy, 18, 2: 215–228. Berlant, L. (2011) Cruel Optimism, Durham: Duke University Press. Burns, J.M. (1978) Leadership, New York: Harper and Row. Caldwell, B. and Spinks, J. (1988) The Self-Managing School. London: Falmer Press. Caldwell, B. and Spinks, J. (2013) Leading the Self-transforming School. London: Routledge. Courtney, S., Gunter, H., Niesche, R. and Trujillo, T. (eds.) (2021) Understanding Educational Leadership: Critical Perspectives and Approaches, London: Bloomsbury. Courtney, S.J., McGinity, R. and Gunter, H.M. (eds.) (2017) Educational Leadership: Theorising Professional Practice in Neoliberal Times, London: Routledge. Derrida, J. (1981) Dissemination, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Dhillon, P.A. and Standish, P. (eds.) (2000) Lyotard: Just Education, London: Routledge. Eacott, S. (2017) ‘School leadership and the cult of the guru: The neo-Taylor-ism of Hattie’, School Leadership and Management, 37, 4: 413–426. Eacott, S. (2018) ‘Educational leadership researchers, (social) scientific credibility, and the Kardashian index’. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract= 3248811 or 10.2139/ssrn.3248811

Narratives in Educational Leadership 53 Eacott, S. (2020) ‘Educational leadership research, Twitter and the curation of followership’, Leadership, Education, Personality: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2: 91–99. English, F.W. (2002) ‘The point of scientificity, the fall of the epistemological dominos, and the end of the field of educational administration’, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 21: 109–136. English, F.W. (2003) The Postmodern Challenge to the Practice of Educational Administration, Springfield, Il: Charles C Thomas. Goldstein, H. and Woodhouse, G. (2000) ‘School effectiveness research and educational policy’, Oxford Review of Education, 26, 3-4: 353–363. Gunter, H.M. (2016) An Intellectual History of School Leadership Practice and Research, London: Bloomsbury. Heffernan, A. (2019) The Principal and School Improvement: Theorising Discourse, Policy, and Practice, Singapore: Springer. Kellerman, B. (2012) The End of Leadership, New York: HarperCollins. Lakomski, G. (2005) Managing Without Leadership: Towards a Theory of Organizational Functioning, Oxford: Elsevier. Lakomski, G., Eacott, S. and Evers, C.W. (2017) Questioning Leadership: New Directions for Educational Organisations, London & New York: Routledge. Learmonth, M. and Morrell, K. (2019) Critical Perspectives on Leadership, London: Routledge. Leithwood, K., Harris, A. and Hopkins, D. (2008) ‘Seven strong claims about successful school leadership’, School Leadership and Management, 28, 1: 27–42. Leithwood, K., Jantzi, D. and Steinbach, R. (1999) Changing Leadership for Changing Times, Maidenhead: Open University Press. Lyotard, J.F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Lyotard, J.F. (1985) Just Gaming, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lyotard, J.F. (1988) The Differend: Phrases in Dispute, Minnesota: University of Minneapolis Press. Lyotard, J.F. (1991) The Inhuman: Reflections on Time, Cambridge: Polity Press. Lyotard, J.F. (1993) The Postmodern Explained: Correspondence 1982-1985, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lyotard, J.F. (1995) ‘Foreword: Spaceship’, in M. Peters (ed.) Education and the Postmodern Condition(xi–xx), London: Bergin & Garvey. Lyotard, J.F. (1997a) The Postmodern Explained, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lyotard, J.F. (1997b) Postmodern Fables, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lyotard, J.F. (1999) Toward the Postmodern, New York: Humanity Books. Lyotard, J.F. (2004) Libidinal Economy, London: Continuum. Lyotard, J.F. (2006) ‘The affect-phrase’, in K. Crome and J. Williams (eds.) The Lyotard Reader and Guide, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Lyotard, J.F. (2013) Why Philosophize? Cambridge: Polity Press. Maxcy, S. (ed.) (1994) Postmodern School Leadership: Meeting the Crisis in Educational Administration, Westport, CT: Praeger. Muijs, D. (2011) Leadership and organisational performance: From research to prescription? International Journal of Educational Management, 25, 1: 45–60.

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Niesche, R. (2013a) Deconstructing Educational Leadership: Derrida and Lyotard, London: Routledge. Niesche, R. (2013b) ‘Politicising articulation: Applying Lyotard’s work to the use of standards in educational leadership’, International Journal of Leadership in Education, 16, 2: 220–233. Niesche, R. (2013c) ‘Foucault, counter-conduct and school leadership as a form of political subjectivity’, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 45, 2: 144–158. Niesche, R. (2018) ‘Critical perspectives in educational leadership: A new “theory turn?”’ Journal of Educational Administration and History, 50, 3: 145–158. Niesche, R. (2021, in press) ‘Educational leadership, critique and the critical researcher’, in D. Mifsud (ed.) Educational Leadership Research and Creative Analytic Practices, Singapore: Springer. Niesche, R. and Gowlett, C. (2019) Social, Critical and Political Theories for Educational Leadership, Singapore: Springer. Niesche, R. and Thomson, P. (2017) ‘Freedom to what ends – school autonomy in neoliberal times’, in D. Waite and Bogotch, I. (eds.) The International Handbook of Educational Leadership (193–206), Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell. Peters, M.A. (ed.) (1995) Education and the Postmodern Condition, Westport: Bergin and Garvey. Peters, M.A. and Burbules, N.C. (2004) Poststructuralism and Educational Research, Lanham, MD: Roman and Littlefield. Samier, E.A. and Bates, R.J. (2006) Aesthetic Dimensions of Educational Administration and Leadership, London: Routledge. Smyth, J. (ed.) (1989) Critical Perspectives on Educational Leadership, Lewes: The Falmer Press. Smyth, J. (ed.) (2011) ‘The disaster of the “self-managing school” – genesis, trajectory, undisclosed agenda, and effects’, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 43, 2: 95–117. Usher, R. and Edwards, R. (1994) Postmodernism and Education, London: Routledge. Wilkinson, J., Niesche, R. and Eacott, S. (eds.) (2018) Dismantling Public Education: Implications for Educational Leadership, Policy and Social Justice, London: Routledge.

4

Creating and Sustaining a Politics of Outrage and Indignation, While ‘Screaming’ Back at Educational Leadership as a Bullshit Idea John Smyth

The Time for Being Silent is Over… The underlying problem with the concept of educational leadership can be put fairly simply – it is all ‘bullshit’ (Frankfurt 2005), and in particular, it is ‘business bullshit’ (Spicer 2018). I am not seeking to be flippant here nor am I invoking the profane every day meaning of the term bullshit. Rather, in this chapter, I am invoking bullshit in the context of the rapidly evolving sociological discourse emerging around the term in the neoliberal times we live in. I will explain shortly what is meant by the term ‘bullshit’, and demonstrate how the notion of leadership is a stunning contemporary exemplar. The recent origins of bullshit as a serious sociological and philosophical discourse can be directly attributed to Harry Frankfurt, a highly regarded American moral philosopher from Princeton and Yale universities. Frankfurt (1986) published an essay in 1986 in the Raritan Quarterly Review entitled ‘on bullshit’, which was subsequently published by Princeton University Press as a book of the same name (2005) – the book ‘rocketed to the New York Times Best Seller List where it remained for twenty-seven weeks’ (Jurecic 2016). What was animating Frankfurt at the time was the growing and pretentious tendency for a reckless disregard and concern for the nature of truth, or as he put it: One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows that. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take this situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. (Frankfurt 2005: 1) What surprised and concerned Frankfurt was not only the lack of any clear understanding of what bullshit was, why it was proliferating so profusely in the contemporary context, what its real purpose was, but also why there seemed to be so little ‘sustained inquiry’ into it, and it was these concerns that propelled Frankfurt (2005) in his unusual quest to ‘begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit’ (1–2).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003145288-5

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The central essence of Frankfurt’s (2005) argument about the nature of bullshit is that the person perpetrating it hides the real intent – ‘… the truth values of his (sic) statements are of no central interest to him (sic)’ (53). In other words, something is bullshit when there is a callous disregard for whether a statement or state of affairs is true or not. What is of more import, Frankfurt argued, from the stance of the bullshitter, is not whether there is a situation of outright ‘lying’, so much as a form of ‘deceptive misrepresentation’ (6) in which the perpetrator is so cavalier as to not even be concerned with whether what is being conveyed is anything like an accurate representation of reality, or indeed, ‘that she is not even trying’ (32). In these circumstances, what characterises bullshit is ‘not that it is false but that it is phony’ (47 emphases in original) – which is by way of saying, it is ‘produced without concern for the truth’ (47) – in short, ‘the bullshitter is faking things’ (48). Frankfurt argues that the scale of things is also important to the bullshitter because the overwhelming intent is not simply with ‘inserting a specific falsehood at a particular point’ (52), but rather to falsely portray or misrepresent the context or the larger ‘panorama’ (52). Hence, the oft-used term ‘bullshit artist’ (53) to depict the more expansive way in which the broader context is being speciously, spaciously, and creatively manipulated and misrepresented. In what sense, then, is educational leadership an instance of bullshit discourse? For starters, there is the underlying reckless and totally false claim that because educational organisations (schools and universities) are businesses (which is to say, no different from supermarkets or breweries), then they should follow corporatist shibboleths – be profit centres, compete with each other for market share, be measured and calibrated so as to enable comparison by savvy consumers and be animated by greed and individualist economic imperatives. Of course, all of this is complete bullshit! Educational organisations are social and cultural institutions, primarily concerned with managing knowledge, culture, and the identity formation of young people. Quite how we have come to accept this massive sleight of hand, must surely be one of the great educational hoaxes of our times, explainable only by our own complicity in accepting this great scam – something I was at pains to make when called upon to provide expert witness testimony some years ago (Smyth 1994). To cast light on this unfathomable perplexity we need to look to Frankfurt’s point about how this kind of bullshit relies on the fabrication of a wider panoramic context. In the case of educational organisations, we were led to believe that if we accepted the schools/universities as business fantasy, then this would somehow extricate us from the catastrophic decline of international capitalism – by harnessing educational organisations to do their economic work. The problem was, there was a crisis, but it was not of the kind being perpetrated – rather it was a crisis of legitimacy surrounding the efficacy of market-oriented capitalism as the dominant organising motif of all aspects of our lives. Renowned economist John Maynard Keynes is reputed to have made a rhetorical utterance to the effect that ‘when the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do sir?’, even though the earliest evidence of this statement was

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provided by Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Samuelson in an NBC radio/ television ‘Meet the Press’ interview on 20 December 1970 (Quote Investigator 2011). Notwithstanding its precise origin, what this statement says is that amongst our most revered economists, there is a view that ideas need to be continually revised in light of their real-world efficacy. As Keynes (1961[1935]) put it in the preface to his seminal work The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, this imperative involves ‘a long struggle … of escape from habitual modes of thought and expression’ (viii). The difficulty he said lay ‘not in new ideas but in escaping from the old ones’ that have become solidified ‘into every corner of our minds’ (viii). Keynes (1961[1935]) summed up the inertia thus: … the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribble of a few years back. (383) The kind of lazy thinking that Keynes was alluding to has resulted in the version of economics that dominates today – what John Quiggin (2010) labels ‘zombie economics’. Concurring with Keynes, Quiggin argues that the current market version of economics constitutes a set of ideas that give the appearance of being alive, but they are essentially dead or defunct – yet they obdurately insist upon living on, even in the face of demonstrable evidence of their failure, as in the global financial crisis (GFC). Despite having been thoroughly discredited as bearing no relationship to the real world, the ideas of market liberalism refuse to lay down and die – and like zombies, they continue to stalk all aspects of our lives. Zombie ideas are ‘dead ideas’ that ‘still walk among us’, as Quiggin (2010) put it: Some ideas live on because they are useful. Others die and are forgotten. But even when they have proved themselves wrong and dangerous, ideas are very hard to kill. Even after the evidence seems to have killed them, they keep coming on back. These ideas are neither alive nor dead … they are undead, or zombie ideas. (1) Another eminent Nobel Prize economist, Paul Krugman (2012), added a political dimension in explaining why zombie ideas persist: Zombie ideas … are policy ideas that keep being killed by evidence, but nonetheless shamble relentlessly forward, essentially because they suit a political agenda.

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Leadership – and the aura that has come to surround it – eminently qualifies as a zombie idea; it has been thoroughly discredited as a historically confused idea, has been shown to be completely moribund, and deserves to be assigned to the dustbin of history. We have gone beyond calls for it to be rethought, and in respect of educational organisations, there are even calls to completely abandon it (Lakomski et al. 2018). The way Lakomski et al. (2018) put it is that there has been a massive case of slippage over the past half-century in the way the term ‘leadership’ is used in relation to educational organisations. From the 1950s to the 1980s, while ‘leadership [was seen as important in educational organizations], it was seen to be constrained, and determined by other organizational features’ (ix). However, since the 1980s: … a change in emphasis has taken place that focuses more directly on leadership and the leader as the dominant cause of desirable organizational outcomes. (ix) Perpetuating a nexus that is simply assumed, but not empirically demonstrated, really amounts to a cruel hoax!

What then, Makes Educational Leadership such a Bullshit Idea? At the most fundamental level, the answer to my rhetorical question is that educational leadership is bullshit because it borrows incessantly, recklessly, and without regard for the truth, from the thoroughly discredited ideas of zombie economics, and its close relative zombie leadership (Smyth 2017, 2018). As Teo (2019) summarises it: Bullshitters exaggerate, they present something local as being true around the world, and they provide misleading statements that appeal to parochial common sense, all the while knowing that they are not doing justice to the complexity of the problem. They pick and choose, ignore disconfirming evidence, take things out of context deliberately, and do all this with a sense of epistemic grandiosity. (39) While the nature of educational leadership is highly contingent and responsive to local and national political contexts, there are nevertheless a number of pervasive emergent underlying themes that are becoming increasingly evident. At minimum, I can think of six levels around which current neoliberal views of educational leadership are being framed. Teo’s (2019) notion of the ‘idols of bullshit’ (39) is a helpful organising heuristic here. First, educational leadership is flawed because it demonstrably promises what it cannot deliver. At its heart, its followers adhere to a constrained and synthetic

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fantasy, that if a particular emaciated marketised set of views of how the world works, are slavishly followed, that improved educational outcomes will ensure – this is a complete and unfounded nonsense. Second, and worse, once this alien interloper set of discourses (Adorno 1994[1974]: 23) are set in place – individualisation, privatisation, competition, comparability, metrification, and consumption – then the even larger long term objectives become lost in a miasma of short-term ends in themselves, unconnected to any wider valued social purpose. Auditing so-called ‘deliverables’ or ‘outcomes’ are a classic illustration of this and the follow-on construction of league tables. For example, the claim is made that testing data on schools and students are being collected so that support and resources can be delivered to where they are most needed. In reality, what occurs is that test data are used to construct league tables that are used by parents to shop around for the ‘best deal’ for their offspring, while demeaning, disparaging, and residualising the very schools that were supposed to be the beneficiaries of this data in the first place. Third, educational leadership piously positions itself as being apolitical and not having any interests, but this is a constructed fiction. Educational leadership, as it is mostly envisaged, has a quite clear set of interests and relationships, but they are of a deeply instrumental exploitative kind only. Educational leadership has a blatantly political agenda, but it masquerades as if it is neutral and value-free – arguing speciously, that its critics are biased and have interests. Fourth, educational leadership is deeply embedded in the fictive persona of a single heroic charismatic individual – usually a male, or a female who has been succumbed to a masculinist world-view. In other words, educational leadership is based on a corporatist colonisation or privatisation mindset, in which there is no such thing as the wider public good, only what is good for the consumerist individual. Nor does this hierarchical view of leadership countenance the notion that leadership may be a contingent notion, dependent on context and who might happen to have the appropriate skill set in particular circumstances, or that such skills might even inhere in a collective. In other words, extant views of educational leadership focus on the exclusive view that ‘all change begins with individuals’, while denying and ‘excluding social conditions’ (Teo 2019: 40). Fifth, educational leadership is essentially unethical – it does not have a sense of its own internal ethics, or of the wider social context in which it is embedded. It is concerned only with its own narrow instrumental ends that gyrate around an econometric world-view, that has a fetish for auditing, measurement, and commodification. Sixth, what flows from this profit (or quasi-profit) seeking agenda, is that everything has to be justified and judged in terms of its economic worth – there can be no such thing as professional judgement or indigenous knowledge – only corporatist and marketised forms of knowledge. Furthermore, institutional leaders justify their continued use of this kind of educational bullshit language, on the grounds that it is necessary to maintain ‘market share’ and ‘brand recognition’ – in a context where these are code words

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for privatisation via the back door, by governments around the world retreating from their fiscal responsibility to properly fund public education.

Who Else is Speaking Back to Bullshit Educational Leadership? Mine is by no means a single isolated voice on this. Indeed, for a sustained period of several decades, there has been a virtual tsunami of dissenting voices, with a remarkably consistent pattern to them. Keeping in mind my particular ‘take’; here is a small sliver or flavour of those voices. Courtney (2015) argues that we can only begin to understand what is going on, for example, in schools in England by accepting the ‘unfolding crisis of purpose and legitimacy in educational leadership’ that has been underway for over half a century, in which the animating purpose of education has been dramatically recast as one of fulfilling the interests of ‘corporations, not children or the teaching profession’ (215). This discursive shift, which began legislatively in England in the Education Act of 1980 and was further solidified and extended under the Education Reform Act of 1988, had the effect of requiring that schools be conceptualised as ‘a business’, with heads/principals being recast as ‘CEOs’, in charge of controlling the school’s budget, along with the business psyche in which ‘leaders were … [viewed] as marketers of their school’ (216). I have extensively canvassed the same kind of trajectories in my depiction of ‘the disaster of the self-managing school’ (Smyth 2011) in the Australian context, where the mirage of freedom offered to schools became, in reality, an iron cage in which schools, through their leaders, were given instead the power to inflict cuts on themselves in a marketised environment where the state is rapidly retreating from its fiscal responsibility to adequately and equitably fund public education (see also Smyth 1993). In this classic bullshit scam, schools are pitted against one another in a kind of competitive educational Olympic games, with testing being used to construct comparative ‘league tables’ like stock market indices, used by parents to exercise ‘choice’ as to where to send their children to school. Eacott (2011), also from the Australian context, argues that this infatuation with ‘market ideology’ and its phoney view of educational ‘productivity’ and associated forms of ‘managerialism with an “economic focus”, translates directly into forms of identity construction and educational leadership preparation – ones that are ‘more responsive to client demand and external judgement’ (46). Eacott’s dire conclusion is that ‘the doxa of school leadership needs to be more than challenged, it needs to be resisted’ (59). The stakes could not be higher: Education is arguably losing its voice in the policy arena; until school leaders and educational leadership scholars return to the fore in the political game that is educational leadership, the defining and re-defining of the boundaries of the field of schooling will continue to be set by those beyond education. (59)

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In their quest to disentangle the myths that have come to grip educational leadership, Eacott and Norris (2014) point to the powerful effect of the school effectiveness movement. They cite Dinham et al. (2013), who give credence to the dominant accepted view that ‘in educational leadership scholarly discourses’ (Eacott and Norris 2014: 170), and the conventional wisdom that flows from it, it is ‘principals [who] play key roles in creating the conditions in which teachers can teach effectively and students can learn’ (Dinham et al. 2013: 467). What follows, Eacott and Norris (2014) say, is a ‘management rhetoric’, that powerfully frames the twin leadership discourses of (a) ‘efficiency’ (standardisation, hierarchy, audit, and performance management), and (b) the ‘emotional’ stakeholder rhetoric of ‘parents, community and … the nation-state’ (174). When coupled with the ‘value-added’ mantra that comes with ‘testing regimes’ (182), then what becomes solidified is the ‘symbolic location of school leaders’ within the contexts of schools, ‘where the principal is “the boss” … responsible for the performance of the school’ (178). The only problem with this seemingly impeccable logic is that it is a chimera. As Eacott (2016) put it, leadership is a ‘methodological artefact’, a kind of manufactured solution to a constructed crisis, something that is more of a symbolic ‘social construction … than a material reality’ (159). That is not to say, ‘that “leadership” is not a force to be reckoned with’ (159), for clearly it is, but it is a concept that relies for its efficacy, in large measure, upon its own ‘elasticity,’ in that it means whatever we want it to. The way Eacott (2016) sees it, ‘leadership is a myth, a product of human cognition’ (172) that relies mostly on the power of its own ideological rhetoric and persuasion, than anything else. Gunter (2016) makes another very significant contribution to this debate through her authoring of an intellectual history of leadership, as it relates to leadership in schools. The essence of Gunter’s wide-ranging project is to ‘recapture the word “transformation” in support of transformational leadership in order to make it more than an aggregation of test scores with performance judgements about a person, a group or organization’ (166, emphases in original). Drawing from people like Smyth (1989), Foster (1989), Bates (1989), Angus (1989), Blackmore (1989), and Anderson (2009), Gunter’s central argument is that leadership is prima facie ‘intellectual work: it is not about “improvement” and “effectiveness” as technologies of confession and control’ (170). Continuing to allow leadership to be construed as a ‘technology of hierarchy’ (168), Gunter (2016) says, is a denial of the activism that lies at the core of leadership – which, on the contrary, is about exposing the ‘the interplay between a situation and how theories of power can bring illumination and understanding’ (169), in redressing social injustices. Samier (2013) continues this activist theme of leadership through her question ‘where have the disruptions gone?’ Samier’s central claim is that ‘the most inspirational forms of educational leadership can be found in subversive movements’ that seek to usurp ‘repressive and oppressive regimes’ (236). Samier attributes the ‘taming’ of leadership, which has occurred over the past half century, to the collapse of the social contract in the 1980s and the rise of New Public Management.

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What occurred was that public organisations were transformed into ‘business actors’ (236), bringing with it all of the shibboleths of neoliberal market ideology including a diminished view of leadership akin to Whyte’s (1956) ‘organization man’, in which leadership equates to ‘compliance with government agenda and contractual specifications’ (Samier 2013: 237) – which Samier says is akin to Benda’s (2006[1928]) ‘the treason of the intellectuals’. When the kind of fictive thinking implicit in what is really the bullshit ideology of the New Public Management, is allowed to go unchecked, then what occurs is a gross displacement of organisational purpose. In other words, the primary purpose of schools to engage in teaching and learning so as to improve young people’s life chances, and universities to do research, becomes completely obliterated by the ‘econobabble’ (Denniss 2016) of the new managerialism that has absolutely nothing to do the social purposes for which these social institutions were created in the first place. While it might seem on the surface as if all of this is a fairly harmless drift of purpose, in reality, absorbing the nonsense weasel words of contemporary managerialism – standards, bench-marks, value-added, mission statements, strategic reviews, targets, deliverable outcomes, league tables, world’s best practice, etc. – really amount to a very serious corruption and corrosion of purpose. As Denniss (2016) argues, the underlying danger is that: Bad economic arguments without the faintest theoretical or empirical foundation dominate public debate. And when nonsense is repeated often enough—especially by well-paid lobbyists, commentators and business people [and we might add politicians and school/university managers and leaders]— it can seem as though everyone believes that black is white, or up is down. (2) While ‘econobabble’ is largely driven by ‘self-interest’, Denniss says there is a fairly simple solution: ‘Just as you don’t need a black belt in karate to call out bullying when you see it, you don’t need an economics degree to call out bullshit when you hear it’ (3). Notwithstanding, this kind of seemingly harmless detachment or displacement actually produces the absorption of what Macedo (1993) refers to as a ‘literacy of stupidification’ (193), in which ‘big lies’ are able to be peddled as if they were substantive truths, through ‘toxic’ forms of leadership’, that lead inexorably to what Samier (2018) calls the ‘total toxic institution’ – organisations that ‘fail psychologically, socially and morally’ in all kind of ways. As she puts it, leadership is thus allowed to masquerade under the rubric of respectability and legitimacy, when in reality it amounts to: … the use of punitive and bullying management practices, lack of compassion and empathy, ‘creeping’ bureaucracy, overemphasis on the ‘bottom line’, performance assessment oriented towards individual rather than team performance, and little evidence of concern for contributions to the community. (19)

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Why Are We Continuing to Have this Bullshit Language Driving the Discourse of Educational Leadership? In a sense, the answer to my question is fairly straightforward – the discourse of neoliberalism has become so ubiquitous and naturalised that it is now part of our linguistic DNA. To speak outside it or to oppose it is to be regarded in educational circles as being seriously deranged, or at best as having lost ones’ marbles. It has become a case of there being no other game in town. Part of the explanation of why my fellow traveller critics, have not stepped out in the forthright way I am doing here in naming the educational leadership discourses for the bullshit they are, is that that they are inherently more polite than I am, but that is only part of the explanation. The advent of Trump with his ‘post-truths’ and his ‘new authoritarianism’ (Babones 2018), have thrown into high relief the imperative to name things for what they are, in the way Frankfurt first urged us to almost three decades ago. Trump’s utterances, banal and meaningless as they are, Jurecic (2016) says, amount to bullshit precisely because they constitute ‘an act undertaken without any relationship to truth whatsoever’. In much the same way, ideas peddled under the mantra of educational leadership – competitiveness, markets, choice, self-management, performance indicators, brand recognition, auditing, metrics, league tables, and all of the other meaningless synthetic mush of modern managerialism – are bullshit, because they bear no relationship to the actual lives of people in educational organisations. More importantly, they are perpetrated without any concern as to their truthfulness or otherwise. Jurecic (2016) captured the point I am making here by recounting an amusing anecdote from Frankfurt (2005) that is worth repeating in some detail, as reputedly told by Ludwig Wittgenstein: When Wittgenstein calls his sick friend to ask how she was doing after a medical procedure, she said, ‘I feel like a dog that has been run over.’ Somewhat callously, Wittgenstein responds: ‘You don’t know what a dog that has been run over feels like.’ The point of the anecdote … is that Wittgenstein is objecting to his friend’s ‘lack of connection to a concern with truth’, as Frankfurt puts it. Wittgenstein’s friend isn’t lying about feeling like a dog that has been run over, because, as Wittgenstein points out, she can’t possibly know how it would feel – so she can’t be intentionally obscuring the fact that she feels differently from said dog. Rather, she doesn’t care whether what she’s said is true or not. She is, to use Frankfurt’s phrase, ‘indifferen[t] to how things really are.’ The crux of my argument about the nature of what passes as educational leadership is that it constitutes a set of systematic and pervasive utterances that are made in a context of indifference as to whether or not they actually stack up in the real lives of the inhabitants of educational organisations. As Jurecic (2016) reminds us, the defining hallmark of a bullshitter, or bullshit discourse, is that it

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‘doesn’t need to know the truth, or even think that [it] knows the truth … [B] ullshit glibly rejects the value and even the existence of knowable facts … because it denies the existence of anything constant in which to have faith’. As Jurecic (2016) poignantly puts it, in our culture we are ‘having a metaphysical moment in which truth seems ‘irrelevant’ – ‘does any of this sound familiar?’ In much the way Trump’s utterances constitute him as ‘the maker of an authoritarian’ (Jurecic 2019), the continued insistence that the shibboleths of neoliberalism comprise the underpinnings of modern educational leadership, amount to the same kind of authoritarianism – which is to say bullshit. Invoking Arendt’s argument that within an authoritarian mindset there is ‘no room for conversation and debate, much less dissent’, Jurecic (2019) reminds us that as with the authoritarian strong man, ‘standing alone in front of the crowd’, he ‘is strong only when there is no one there to tell him differently’. So, too, with the singular discourse of neoliberal educational leadership, as Malik (2019) urges us, we need to present ‘new stories’ with which to challenge ‘the toxic myths behind our age of discontent’.

Arsehole Management… Bullshit Leadership’s Close Accomplice Bullshit leadership would not be possible without a complicit means for its implementation – and there is an emerging philosophical/sociological literature that is speaking back (see James 2014, 2016; Sutton 2010, 2017). While this literature deals with the personage of the arsehole (or in the American lingua, asshole), I want to turn my attention around somewhat, to focus on management theory that underpins educational management theory. Borrowing from James’s (2014) three element definition of an asshole, and applying this to management theory, then arsehole (or asshole) management has the following hallmarks, in that it: 1 2 3

allows [itself] to enjoy special advantages and does so systematically; does this out of an entrenched sense of entitlement; an is immunized by [its] sense of entitlement against the complaints of other people. (5)

What is crucial here, James (2014) argues, and what defines an arsehole, is an implacable and unshakeable belief in its ‘specialness’. Mainstream views of management theory are a classic illustration of this. A standout case are the views encapsulated in the notions of restructuring, downsizing, layoffs, and workforce reduction propagated by Al (‘chainsaw’) Dunlap – the one-time CEO, and since exposed fraudster, of the bankrupted Sunbeam corporation, along with a further subsidiary of Kimberley Clark. Both went bankrupt under the ruthless downsizing of Dunlap, and his version of ‘specialness’ continues to be vigorously and unproblematically pursued, by neoliberal managers worldwide, including those in education.

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Possibly the major way in which mainstream management theory sees itself as being ‘special’ with respect to educational organisations (although this could equally be applicable to any other organisations in the public sector, like hospitals and health care), is that it regards itself as being above and beyond the messiness and specifics of institutional indigenous cultures. In other words, its specialness derives from its unswerving claim to comprise ‘generic’ principles of management that are applicable regardless of the type of organisation. Now, the reason this arrogant reasoning qualifies for arsehole status is that it demolishes and obliterates in one fell swoop any claims to the efficacy of locally developed indigenous institutional cultures. What this does is deny and render invisible, any unique elements that, for example, make schools and universities distinctively different from breweries and supermarkets. This obliteration, based on management’s views of its generic shibboleths as ‘special’, is the metaphorical equivalent of terra nullius – the idea that organisations like schools had no cultural distinctiveness or inhabitants with their own theories of what works worthy of anything, before the invasive colonisation by the hostile, alien interloper (Adorno 1994[1974]) ideas that came in the form of generic management skills. That is to say, before mainstream management rode into educational organisations on their white stallions, these were organisations that were (and continue to be) places bereft of ideas and inhabited only by uncultured and uncouth savages. How arrogant! The second of James’s hallmarks of an arsehole, whether it be an individual or a collective mentality, is its ‘entrenched sense of entitlement’. Another way of putting this was captured in the frequent proclamation of that contemporary celebrant of neoliberalism, Margaret Thatcher, in her claim that ‘there is no alternative’ to market fundamentalism, privatisation and state corporatism – often shortened to TINA. This grandiose and arrogant dismissal of other possibilities is classic stuff of the entitlement to know what is best, without the need for any debate. When everything is seen through the lens of use-value, choice, and market ideology, then what follows is an inescapable panoply of all-embracing managerialist pseudo-econo-babble (Denniss 2016) – performance, missions, targets, outputs, efficiency, effectiveness, excellence, and all of the other weasel words of modern management theory. As to James’s third claim about the immunity of arsehole management to criticism and how it has come to have such power over us, Micklethwait and Wooldridge (1996) put it succinctly when they said ‘management theory, more than any other branch of academia, is propelled by two primal human instincts: fear and greed’ (9). As long as these deeply primal instincts are front and centre, then what follows is an ‘age of anxiety’ that is eagerly filled by management snake oil salesmen. Despite our seemingly insatiable appetite for and consumption of management-speak, they say that ‘management theory is bedevilled by a paradox: how can an academic discipline which matters so much be so unrespected?’ They give two insightful anecdotes from some of managements’ most revered apologists:

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All of this is by way of saying that even the most ardent proselytisers of these fraudulent ideas are amazed at the continuing widespread acceptance of the webs of deceit they spin, despite their pathetic thinness: Talk to virtually any publisher privately about management books and probably you will eventually unearth the attitude: ‘Isn’t it incredible that this stuff sells?’ (14) Similarly, even among the people who are its front-line evangelists – consultants – admit its complete lack of credibility and profundity: … charge him or her up with alcohol, and the chances are that he or she will admit the same thing as the publisher … [and eventually] the word ‘bullshit’ appears. (14) According to Micklethwait and Wooldridge (1996), this whole fake edifice is propped up by four wobbly legs: … that it is constitutionally incapable of self-criticism; that its terminology usually confuses rather than educates; that it rarely rises above basic common sense; and that it is faddish and bedevilled by contradictions that would not be allowed in more rigorous disciplines. (15) The conclusion Micklethwait and Wooldridge (1996) reach is that the management gurus, from whom all educational management is borrowed, are ‘conmen, the witch doctors of our age, playing on … people’s anxieties in order to sell snake oil. … Modern management theory is no more reliable than tribal medicine. Witch doctors, after all, often got it right – by luck, by instinct or by trial and error’ (15). Because it taps into our most basic fears and anxieties about survival, it is this untouchable quality that insulates arsehole management from robust critique.

Remaking Educational Leadership This brings me to my finale! Escaping from the manacles of the current dominant bullshit form of educational leadership and screaming back at it, is going to be a herculean task, and

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beyond the scope of this chapter. That having been said, I can provide an example and some tentative provisional pointers, on where that remaking, restoration, and reclamation might begin to occur. Being somewhat facetious for a moment, we could start with following Edmonds’ (2005) suggestion of undermining meetings in which bullshit leadership language is rife, by providing attendees with bullshit bingo cards that contain a sample of local variants of whatever the flavour of the month bullshit words are – and, hoping that audience cries of ‘bullshit bingo’ will have the effect of sufficiently embarrassing the utterers to see the nature of their institutional stupidity. If this seems like too risky an approach, then on a more serious note, we could do an institutional ‘audit’ (sic), of the extent of what Graeber (2018) calls leadership ‘bullshit jobs’ – what he refers to as: … [jobs] so completely pointless that even the person who has to perform it every day cannot convince himself [herself] there’s a good reason for him [her] to be doing it … a form of employment that is so completely pointless, or pernicious that even the employee [leader] cannot justify its existence. (2–3) Most of the box-ticking, meetings, accountability procedures, PR and marketing spin, of educational leaders fit this bill. Making the existence of these pointless and phoney jobs more public would go a long way towards both highlighting their patent stupidity, as well as exposing the way they disgracefully consume scarce resources. Even more seriously, as Newfield (2019) has noted in his review of Muller’s (2019) book The Tyranny of Metrics, there is a way, for example, of turning the stupidity of the current leadership infatuation with measurement back against itself, in a productive way. Muller claims on the basis of evidence he garnered from a study of the Geisinger Health System in the United States, that there is a sensible place for metrification – but with some very important shifts of inflection, most notably that such metrics must be neither imposed nor evaluated from ‘above’ by ‘managers’ or managerial leaders, nor should such information be in the hands of leaders ‘devoid of first-hand knowledge’. To be effective, leadership based on metrics-type information must be owned and controlled by practitioners at the workface who have as their primary animation overall ‘care’ and welfare of the ‘clients’ of the institution. The essence of leadership based on this way of thinking is, therefore, threefold. First, the people doing the leading are actually deeply embedded in an ethic of the work, are imbued with a commitment to the efficacy of the work of the organisation, and are animated by it. Decisions thus occur through ‘professional’ rather than ‘managerial’ expertise, and to that extent, what is important does not get lost or deflected. Second, the motivation when metrics are deployed in this way, is of a ‘non-pecuniary’ kind, meaning that people are neither rewarded nor punished through fiscal means – the motivating focus instead is on improving the

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circumstances, care, health, and life chances of the ‘clients’ – in this case students. Third, and finally, such leadership is heavily predicated on providing sufficient genuine (not fake) autonomy, so as to allow the exercise of authentic professional judgement. Herein lies the challenge for educational leadership!

References Adorno, T. (1994[1974]) Minima Moralia: Reflections from a Damaged Life, London: Verso. Anderson, G. (2009) Advocacy Leadership: Towards a Post-reform Agenda in Education, New York: Routledge. Angus, L. (1989) ‘“New” leadership and the possibility of educational reform’, in J. Smyth (ed.) Critical Perspectives on Educational Leadership (63–92), London: Falmer Press. Babones, S. (2018) The New Authoritarianism: Trump, Populism, and the Tyranny of Experts, Oxford: Polity Press. Bates, R. (1989) ‘Leadership and the rationalization of society’, in J. Smyth (ed.) Critical Perspectives on Educational Leadership (131–156), London: Falmer Press. Benda, J. (2006[1928]) The Treason of Intellectuals, London: Transaction Publishers. Blackmore, J. (1989) ‘Educational leadership: A feminist critique and reconstruction’, in J. Smyth (ed.) Critical Perspectives on Educational Leadership (93–129), London: Falmer Press. Courtney, S. (2015) ‘Corporatised leadership in English schools’, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 47, 3: 214–231. Denniss, R. (2016) Econobabble: How to Decode Political Spin and Economic Nonsense, Collingwood, Victoria: Black Inc. Dinham, S., Collarbone, P., Evans, M. and Mackay, A. (2013) ‘The development, endorsement and adoption of a national standard for principals in Australia’, Educational Management, Administration & Leadership, 41, 4: 467–483. Eacott, S. (2011) ‘Preparing “educational” leaders in manageralist times: An Australian story’, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 43, 1: 43–59. Eacott, S. (2016) ‘Demythologising “leadership”: The Trojan Horse of managerialism’, in E.A. Samier (ed.) Ideologies in Educational Administration and Leadership (159–175), New York: Routledge. Eacott, S. and Norris, J. (2014) ‘Managerial rhetoric, accountability, and school leadership in contemporary Australia’, Leadership and Policy in Schools, 13, 2: 169–187. Edmonds, G. (2005) Bullshit Bingo, Harpenden, Herts: Southbank. Foster, W. (1989) ‘Toward a critical practice of leadership’, in J. Smyth (ed.) Critical Perspectives on Educational Leadership (39–62), London: Falmer Press. Frankfurt, H. (1986) ‘On bullshit’, Raritan Quarterly Review, 6, 2: 81–100. Frankfurt, H. (2005) Bullshit, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Graeber, D. (2018) Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, London: Simon & Schuster. Gunter, H. (2016) An Intellectual History of School Leadership Practice and Research, London: Bloomsbury. James, A. (2014) Assholes: A Theory, New York: Anchor Books.

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James, A. (2016) Assholes: A Theory of Donald Trump, New York: Penguin Random House. Jurecic, Q. (2016, 23 November) ‘On bullshit and the oath of office: The “LOL nothing matters” presidency’, Lawfare, Available online: www.lawfareblog.com/ bullshit-and-oath-office-lol-nothing-matters-presidency (accessed 21 September 2019). Jurecic, Q. (2019, 11 September) ‘The marker of an authoritarian’, The Atlantic. Available online: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/trump-wants-toreshape-the-world/597841/ (accessed 12 September 2019). Keynes, J. (1961[1935]) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, London: Macmillan. Krugman, P. (2012, 3 November) ‘The ultimate zombie idea’, The New York Times. Available online: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/the-ultimatezombie-idea/?_r=0 (accessed 18 May 2016). Lakomski, G., Eacott, S. and Evers, C. (eds.) (2018) Questioning Leadership: New Directions for Educational Organizations, London: Routledge. Macedo, D. (1993) ‘Literacy for stupidification: The pedagogy of big lies’, Harvard Educational Review, 63, 2: 183–206. Malik, N. (2019) We Need New Stories: Challenging the Toxic Myths Behind our Age of Discontent, London: Orion. Micklethwait, J. and Wooldridge, A. (1996) The Witch Doctors, London: Heinemann. Muller, J. (2019) The Tyranny of Metrics, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Newfield, C. (2019, 7 September) ‘When the metrical tail wags the university dog. Remaking the university blog’ Available online: https://utotherescue. blogspot.com/2019/09/when-metrical-tail-wags-university-dog.html (accessed 9 September 2019). Quiggin, J. (2010) Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Quote Investigator. (2011, 22 July) ‘When the facts change, I change my mind: What do you do, sir?’ Available online: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/ 07/22/keynes-change-mind/ (accessed 5 August 2019). Samier, E.A. (2013) ‘Where have the disruptions gone? Educational administration’s theoretical capacity for analysing or fomenting disruption’, International Journal of Leadership in Education, 16, 2: 234–244. Samier, E.A. (2018) ‘The total toxic institution: When organisations fail psychologically, socially and morally’, in E.A. Samier and P. Milley (eds) International Perspectives on Maladministration in Education: Theories, Research, and Critiques (19–32), New York: Routledge. Smyth, J. (1989) ‘A “pedagogical” and “educative” view of leadership’, in J. Smyth (ed.) Critical Perspectives on Educational Leadership (179–204), London: Falmer Press. Smyth, J. (ed.) (1993) A Socially Critical View of the Self-managing School, London: Falmer Press. Smyth, J. (1994) ‘Expert witness statement to the Federal Industrial Relations Court on behalf of the Australian Education Union, on the effect of the Victorian Schools of the Future on principals’ work’, Melbourne, 3 November 1994. Smyth, J. (2011) ‘The disaster that has been the “self-managing school” – its genesis, trajectory, undisclosed agenda, and effects’, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 43, 2: 95–117.

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Smyth, J. (2017) The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rock Stars, and Neoliberal Ideology, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Smyth, J. (2018) ‘A critical theory analysis of the production of toxic and zombie leadership in the context of neoliberalism’, in E.A. Samier and P. Milley (eds.) Maladministration in Education: Theories, Research and Critiques (33–47), London: Routledge. Spicer, A. (2018) Business Bullshit, London: Routledge. Sutton, R. (2010) No Asshole Rule, London: Piatkus Books. Sutton, R. (2017) The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat you like Dirt, London: Penguin. Teo, T. (2019) ‘Academic subjectivity, idols, and the vicissitudes of virtues in science: Epistemic modesty versus epistemic grandiosity’, in K. O’Doherty, L. Osbeck, E. Schraube and J. Yen (eds.) Psychological Studies of Science and Technology (31–48). London: Palgrave. Whyte, W. (1956) The Organization Man, New York: Simon & Schuster.

Part II

Teaching and Researching Crises

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Out of the Shadows: The Power of Art to Transform Conversations in Leadership Carol E. Harris

Introduction Reminding us of the intrinsic importance of art to all living beings, musician and anthropologist Ellen Dissanayake sets the stage for art‐based learning and aesthetic perception in the work of educational leaders‐‐ in schools, community organizations, and research: The arts, in concert with ritual ceremonies, play, laughter, storytelling, synchronized movement, and the sharing of self-transcendent, ecstatic emotions, are no less evolutionarily salient and intrinsic to our humanness than individual conflicts of interest. (Dissanayake 1999: 12) Political commentator Herbert Marcuse (1978) brings the critical component of art to the fore: Art breaks open a dimension inaccessible to other experience, a dimension in which human beings, nature, and things no longer stand under the law of the established reality principle. … The encounter with the truth of art happens in the estranging language and images which make perceptible, visible, and audible that which is no longer, or not yet, perceived, said and heard in everyday life. (Marcuse 1978: 72) While philosopher/anthropologist Robin Collingwood (1924) emphasises the inextricably relatedness of mind, body, and action: Art is not a quality of objects [but rather] a mode of acting; a necessary mode, in so far as every mind that is a mind at all acts in this way. Our ordinary name for this mode of acting is ‘imagination.’ (Collingwood 1924: 195) Edvard Munch’s The Scream, the metaphor informing this text, in this chapter symbolises deteriorating conditions in the purposes, planning and delivery of the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003145288-7

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corporate university and, in turn, underlines the need for remediation. The ‘shadows’ of my title refer to pedagogical innovations (primarily, but not exclusively, of women) that, by introducing avenues of understanding and action through art, move towards this goal. My suggestions, exploring questions of purpose and application, are addressed to those who plan graduate curricula in Leadership Studies; they add to an expanded knowledge base noted in recent calls for interdisciplinary scholarship (Niesche 2018; Samier 2013; Wilkinson and Eacott 2013).

Personal Positioning Like the majority of Canadian women who enroled in the study of Educational Administration (or Leadership) in the latter half of the last century, I came to my chosen field with an extensive background in educational practice. My own history had taken me to three countries where I taught children and youth from K to school graduation in a variety of subjects, worked in teachers’ unions, and served a lengthy government term in curriculum development. Prior to these positions, however, my educational compass had been set by a single year of working with a team of educators in Nova Scotia’s Department of Education (Adult Education Division). In the latter half of the twentieth century, in Nova Scotia, the influence of the renowned – and socio-politically motivated – Antigonish Movement permeated each aspect of community outreach in the province. One feature of the government effort was to hold residential folk schools in which community members – farmers, fishers, housewives – for ten days learned about consumer and producer co-operatives, credit unions, and other alternatives to capitalistic economies. As a break from study, men and women engaged in singing, visual art, and, particularly, ‘drama’ whereby residents would enact problems of their own lives and suggest how things could be better. A common thread uniting my objective in university work many years later, with those of my women colleagues, was to ‘do things differently’ (Wallace and Wallin 2015). My intention was to explore a wider knowledge base than that offered by management theories of the day and to include the arts as other ‘ways of seeing’ (Berger 1972). Having positioned myself as an advocate of arts-based learning, albeit an unusual topic for Leadership Studies, I begin the theoretical content of this chapter by differentiating between aesthetics and art, and my focus on students’ direct experience with art forms. Next, I frame my arts-aesthetic attitude through Ellen Dissanayake’s insistence on the universal need to artistically mark special life events and Maxine Greene’s critical commentary on the arts as venues for imaginative alternatives to the socio-economic status quo. With this generalised justification of art as potentially both expressive and critical, I then introduce aesthetics historically in the scholarly literature of Educational Administration. Only then do I discuss my personal scream, directed towards HE. This scream, in turn, leads to questions of remediation: in what ways do the arts personally benefit today’s graduate students; and, how can knowledge of the arts assist

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educators in their practice of organisational and community leadership? In exploring these questions, I illustrate art-as-action in the research and pedagogy of two former school principals and community activism of several adult educators. In the final section, I locate the arts within policies of programme design and implementation, that is, of curriculum and pedagogy. Although arguments are formed largely in a Canadian milieu – including a critical method of ‘moderate autoethnography’ (Stahlke Wall 2016) in which I reflect on my own experience – the conditions I describe and recourse I suggest apply globally, as contextually appropriate.

Distinguishing Features Of Aesthetics and Art Aesthetics and the arts tend to be conflated in popular discourse, yet the two have distinct histories and meanings. Aesthetics, identified as such in the eighteenth century, is a branch of axiological philosophy that, along with ethics, concerns human concepts of value. This association of aesthetics with ethics, both value-laden in meaning, is significant for those who consider educational leadership to be a ‘moral art’ (Hodgkinson 1991). Dealing with the values of beauty and taste, aesthetic appreciation encompasses the natural environment and human behaviour as well as architectural design and the arts. Aesthetic perception, on the other hand, refers to meanings generated from sensory experience; perception involves one’s tacit judgement and knowledge, rooted in subjective response (feeling, understanding, and emotion) to works of art or craft, or to environments of beauty and wonder. But, aesthetic experience does not involve beauty and wonder alone. I like to think of it, rather, as sensory experience of importance. An object of experience – for example, a work of art – can also be puzzling, startlingly ugly, or deeply disturbing as is Picasso’s Guernica; but if aesthetic, it must be significant to the viewer. The philosophy of art, a sub-section of aesthetic philosophy itself, explores – among other things – the nature of creativity and response. What happens in our minds and bodies when we create, perform, or respond to art (Sellers-Young 1998; Shusterman 2011)? An artwork critically acclaimed – such as The Scream – calls for the artist’s vision, skill, and creativity. We assume, moreover, that even in abstract art forms, the artist expresses and builds upon his or her own experience for, as Collingwood (1924) claimed, the ‘work of art is an imaginative cutting edge to a mind whose solid backing of factual experience may be forgotten for the moment, but is none the less … distilled into the work’ (79). Discussions of art often bring attention to the creative artist, the intermediary (e.g., the performer in performance arts), and/or the recipient. In visual art, we move directly from the artist to the recipient. It is difficult, for instance, to view The Scream without empathising with the artist. In this work, we perceive the abyss of anxiety, anguish, and despair faced by Munch as he approached the limits of his endurance concerning personal matters, and possible madness. For many viewers today, the image may depict the savagery of contemporary life – perhaps the economic and emotional costs for North Americans of ‘deindustrialization, the

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destruction of democratic institutions, [and] the dark undercurrent of nihilistic violence’ (Hedges 2017), or global costs of climate and environmental crises, pandemics, war, famine, injustice, unemployment, and mass migration. This specific work, thus, evokes emotions and rational concerns relevant to each of us as viewers. It unleashes, in authors of this book, a generalised anger about socioeconomic and political injustice and, in my case, questions about how problems can be addressed in HE by curricular adjustments. Another shade of art’s meaning, equally important to educators, concerns its genesis. A work of art may result from a single effort or a collaborative engagement of two or more people; it may be undertaken by an experienced artist or it may involve the efforts of novices to the particular art form and its materials. While school classrooms provide a common scenario for the latter, another example is found in ‘community art’ as described below. In short, the term ‘art work’ – along with creativity and innovation – can apply to various degrees of innate talent, developed skill sets, and artistic imagination. The important point is that, ideally, definitions accompany usage. I return to the interdisciplinarity of Ellen Dissanayake and Maine Greene to expand definitions of art and the aesthetic and, in doing so, frame my queries.

Framing The Arts-Aesthetic Attitude The search for a suitable framework in which to consider questions of ‘why art education’ and ‘for what purpose’ as related to leadership, leads me to Dissanayake (1999), who speaks of timeless and universal applications of art, and Greene (1981, 1995a) who reminds us of the need for educators to call on a full range of sensory experience as they engage with others in a critical assessment of how societies could be arranged differently. These two theorists, in very different ways, direct our thoughts and actions as educational leaders towards an international perspective on ‘critical competencies’ (Greene 1981: 19). Both invite us to consider cultural understandings of globalism, considered in this chapter as interlocking networks of communication among nations – and distinct from globalisation, defined as socioeconomic change affected by market forces. In all aspects of education, from prekindergarten to graduate school, teachers and other contemporary leaders require a deep understanding of diverse peoples and cultures.

‘Making special’ Dissanayake (1999), elaborating on this chapter’s opening contention that aesthetic ability is innate in every human being, claims that the expression of art is a need as fundamental to our species as food, warmth, or shelter. She shows that humans, from the beginning of recorded time, have ‘made special’ events and objects that are ‘pleasurable’ or otherwise meaningful to them, and that serve evolutionary purposes. Artistic practices begin with the mother-infant relationships, calling for such behaviours as imitation, response, anticipation, attachment, and pretence. Drawing on Darwinian theories of survival, Dissanayake

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(2000) explains that these practices serve the child in developing an awareness of important signals of danger and acceptance, and of the appropriate timing of ordinary activities. Despite these obvious aids to existence, and regardless of ‘occasional report[s] of aesthetic ecstasy’, Dissanayake warns that most modernist discussions of the arts ‘proceed as if the subjects were bloodless and bodiless’ (1999: 26). She thus takes the modernist view of art to task as celebrating mind over body and of postmodernity for its frequent dismissal of art, especially High Art, on grounds of obscurity or élitism. Here she describes the limiting aesthetic position of ‘art for art’s sake’: Our [false] philosophy of art, which [in the modern context] either exalts its subject or [in a postmodern reading] ‘problematizes’ it past comprehension, remains unaware that art’s distinctiveness resides not entirely in its disinterested stratospheric isolation but in its primordial biological rootedness. (1999: 225, my emphasis) The value of art to society through the ages, Dissanayake (1999) claims, is to instil culture, cultivate, civilise and, I would add, educate. To make something special generally implies ‘taking care and doing ones best so as to produce a result that is … accessible, striking, resonant, and satisfying to those who take the time to appreciate it’ (224). In addition, art often appears with a dissonance that jolts one out of complacency, rendering experience ‘heightened, elevated, … memorable and significant’ (224). Literary language, for instance, ‘whether spoken or written, differs from ordinary language not only in being more formed and patterned, but by using special elaborating devices to increase beauty, memorableness, and effectiveness’ (113). Concerning the value of ceremonies past and present, Dissanayake points out that the arts – poetry, dance, music, dramatic performance – ‘have arisen as enhancements, special behaviors shaping and embellishing the things we care about. Without extravagant and extra-ordinary ways to mark the significant and serious events of our lives, we relinquish … our humanity’ (139). Dissanayake summarises society’s debt to a species-centred view of arts and aesthetics and helps us to understand that ‘humans were evolved to require these things. Simply eliminating them [as in many school and university programmes] creates a serious psychological deprivation’ (xix).

Seeing differently Maxine Greene, who bequeathed to us a large body of critical commentary, invites readers to examine the status quo which, when found wanting, inspires action towards a new reality. Greene, much like Greenfield in theorising about organisations (Greenfield and Ribbins 1993), peppers her texts with references to literature and the arts. And, like Dissanayake, she proposed comprehensive forms of aesthetic education that, while not diminishing the contribution of Fine Arts to ‘lives meaningfully lived’, would be available to all educational leaders,

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classroom teachers, and school administrators. Greene, in this catholic approach, attempts to ‘open minds’ to the ‘qualities of things, with a habit of discrimination, sensitized by experience, and responsive to new forms and ideas’ (Greene 1981: 131). Greene is particularly interested in the voices that are not customarily heard in our competitive systems of education where individual grades and institutional rankings take front stage. With a plea that resonates with today’s migrations of displaced persons, she realises that: To learn to ‘recognize the voices’ now is to pay heed where educators seldom paid heed before: to living beings of all classes … We are being asked to recognize the sound of exile, of expulsion, of abandonment, we are being asked, as never before, to attend to the voice of all sorts of women, men, and children too, to empower them to make meanings in the disparate, sometimes savagely unequal lives they live. (Greene 1995b: 11) That these words were penned twenty-five years ago does not diminish their relevance; rather, the marginalisation of which Greene speaks has today become intensified and made public through street protests, social media, and video recording, in ways that school and community leaders can no longer ignore. Unlike Dissanayake, who provides an anthropological view of art, Greene’s perspective focuses on a present and imagined future. This is important in any context, but particularly in the West as institutions of education serve a growing number of international students, including students from countries colonised by nations such as France, Belgium, and the UK, and most with histories of bitter racism. For this imagined new world, Greene (1981) presents a utopian view, not one obscured by preoccupations with ends, objectives, and observable behaviour but, as the title of her 1995a text announces, of a world under construction. In this, she highlights the development not only of critical observation but also of imaginative images for a preferred future. These images, Greene assures us, are imparted and shared as significantly through music, painting, sculpture, drama, poetry, and dance as they are through discursive writings. I would add that, for many people, images, movement, and sound are the primary messages-bearers. Both Dissanayake and Greene, write of the importance of art. They endorse the common plea made by arts educators for its inclusion in school curricula. But, this chapter asks ‘why art for graduate students of leadership?’ Reasons given here couple school curricula with the wider meaning of leadership in this present era of global connectivity. Dissanayake implies that to know a society, one must understand not only its history but also its special contemporary practices of adornment and ‘making special’ important moments of experience. Greene relates precisely how such knowledge is shared by students through encounters with art, providing ‘moments of imaginatively enriched perception’. Participants [in arts activities] report ‘hearing new sounds, seeing colors more vividly, discovering a fuller and more adequate experience of what it signifies to be human

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and to inhabit a multifaceted world’ (Greene 1981: 115). The story of Educational Administration below reveals emergence of artistic and aesthetic means of exploring this world of complexity, uncertainty, and challenge.

Art and Aesthetics in Educational Administration Well before the turn of the present century, scholarship in Organisational Theory and Educational Administration in the West was emerging from the grip of empiricism and structural functionalism (i.e., the Theory Movement) that, as noted by Greenfield (Greenfield and Ribbins 1993: 230/37), had failed in its promise to provide the clarity, answers, and certainty capable of rendering a complex field useful. In recognition of the Theory Movement’s failure to deliver, a few scholars had begun to incorporate in their writing critical epistemologies along with interpretive methods of research and post-positivistic theorising. One such method called upon artistic means to enhance concepts of organisational reality. Although the inclusion of arts-based theorising and inquiry in educational administration, in general, lagged behind that of Curriculum Studies (e.g., Eisner 1991; Gardner 1994; Greene 1981), Greenfield’s writing from the early 1970s opened new perspectives on organisations and leadership with examples from the literary arts of drama, poetry, film, and fiction (Harris 1994). The objective of Greenfield’s interpretive outlook was to understand, rather than explain, the phenomenon of leadership as a complex interaction of personal will, power, intent, and values, not as a series of laws discoverable through statistical models of behaviour. Looking beyond rationality as bounded by objective science alone, Greenfield discovered colleagues in Canada and abroad who were also exploring new vistas of understanding. Among fellow critics of the Theory Movement was Richard Bates (1984) who critically examined its promotion of ‘dominant paradigms’ of practice. Support for the status quo, Bates noted, was accomplished through ‘language, rituals, and metaphors,’ that defined the ‘nature and meaning of the organisation and [celebrated its actors’] purposive intentions’ (262). Bates (1987) drew his critique of congratulatory theorising and creeping corporatism from Critical Theory and the emerging cultural sociology of education. We have, in Greenfield and Bates, two examples of administrative theorising, verstehende, that is, a methodological approach of interpretation and understanding, and the critical that called upon the arts – Greenfield through various literary arts, and Bates through a critical assessment of language - to exemplify and enliven their arguments. Gunter (2020) and Harris (2003) offer a comprehensive evaluation of the first route, while language analysis became the touchstone of Australian discourse theory found in such journals as Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, and scholarly articles critical of the country’s permeating managerialism in education (e.g., Blackmore 2006). Other arts-inspired theorists of leadership drew on art and discourse theory as well, although most accounts referred to skilled – and at times inspired – behaviours as illustrated by ‘the arts of leadership’ (e.g., Hansen et al. 2007; Samier

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and Bates 2006). Grint (2000), for example, exemplifies this pragmatic approach in five case studies highlighting the tactics of well-recognised leaders, linking their insights and advantageous performances to each major task of leadership. Also associated with skills, vision, and aptitude, English and Ehrich (2016), taking a page from Eisner (1991: 6–7), present leaders as connoisseurs of their trade. In other recent arts-informed approaches, theorists call on students and business employees to observe specific art forms in order to draw parallels between their organisations and lessons gleaned from artists-in-action. Powell and Gifford (2016), for instance, ask how particular art forms such as dance symbolise effective aspects of organisational leadership. Their approach, like that of Grint, calls on an analysis of leadership-as-art, rather than a direct engagement with art. The question is whether this aesthetic view of success within organisations will simply ‘be absorbed into a functionalist view like the human relations school before it’ or ‘grow into a grounded intellectual school of organisational and management studies’ (Samier 2011: 273). This depends, she contends, on the ‘field acquiring a fluency in philosophical foundations, conceptual apparatus, and interpretive skills of aesthetics and incorporating it into scholarship and professional graduate programs’ (273). Before building on the conceptual apparatus of Leadership Studies by addressing the content of graduate programmes, I call on the metaphoric anxiety of Munch’s Scream to explore both the promise of education and failure of HE within these neoliberal times, to fulfil these promises, and avoid the pitfalls of corporatisation.

Higher Education: Promise and Pitfalls Although the aura of anxiety imparted by The Scream symbolises, for me, the plight of HE in the present era of corporate management, it also challenges those in HE to consider remediation. My first impulse is to address graduate programmes by their propensity to stimulate reflection about, and action towards, the basic goals of our profession. Although ‘the basics’ are forever debated according to differing contexts of time and place, two trenchant definitions of purpose deserve attention here. The first, attributed to an unnamed secretarygeneral of the ‘World Organization of Teaching Professions’, Hodgkinson (1991) defines education, not as the art of training and subjugating people to serve the profit of others, but rather as helping them … to know themselves, to develop the resources of judgment and skills of learning and the sense of values needed on facing a future of unpredictable change, to understand the rights and responsibilities of adults in a democratic society and to exercise the greatest possible degree of control over their own fate. To educate is to look for truth, to stir discomfort in the placid minds of the unthinking, to shake ideologies, disturb complacency, undermine the tyrant of [anti-intellectualism] which reins in the marketplace and in some of our legislatures, to the disadvantage of all… (16)

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The second, more closely honed to language arts, addresses the value of the humanities to ‘those of us who teach and study’, for they provide: … the ability to think critically and independently; to tolerate ambiguity; to see both sides of an issue; to look beneath the surface of what we are being told; to appreciate the ways in which language can help us understand one another more clearly and profoundly – or, alternately, how language can conceal and misrepresent. They help us how to think, and they equip us to live in – to sustain – a democracy. (Francine Prose in Slayton 2020: 63) Together, the statements direct us to imagine a better world of informed critique and cooperative planning, a need as urgently acknowledged in this global Zeitgeist of market dominance and environmental crises as in any past historical moment (Samier 2018). Any doubts concerning the socio-economic gaps in Canada’s present political and socio-economic system, for instance, have been put to rest by the COVID-19 pandemic which suddenly exposed the precarious plight of many people, including the homeless, senior citizens in ‘care’ homes, small business owners, farmers and fishers, part-time workers, those without health insurance and employment benefits – and university students. The insecure position of post-secondary students today is but the by-product of decisions made decades earlier. In Canada, much of the funding for HE, once the responsibility of federal governments, has been downloaded gradually since the early 1990s to the provinces, the universities themselves, their donors, and, ultimately, students and their families. This has accompanied growing privatisation and deregulation of public domains globally and, in HE as elsewhere, an operational ethos of individualism and competition (Cribb and Gerwitz 2013; Slayton 2020), if not toxicity and corruption (Samier and Milley 2018; Smyth 2017). The neoliberal economic vision that has gripped universities in the western world over four decades continues to be evidenced today in education faculties by ever-expanded class sizes, dramatically increased tuition costs, truncated course offerings, less attention to research, destructive audit cultures, a push for saleable intellectual products, a technological and manipulative discourse of ‘responsibilisation’ and reason (Amsler and Shore 2015; Peters and Jandrić 2018), and increased insecurity among faculty (Berg and Seeber 2016; Brouillette 2013; Childress 2019; Kouritzin 2019; Petersen 2020; Warner 2015). Pertinent to this chapter is the gradual replacement within universities of the arts and humanities by courses in business, technology, and science (Hasinoff and Mandzuk 2015; Hyslop-Margison and Leonard 2012; Slayton 2020). Bogdan (2010), elaborating on the impact of neoliberalism in HE overall, bemoans the university’s tacit acceptance of a two-tiered condition of hiring. She points out that ‘under the dubious academically-constructed umbrella of ‘meritocracy, we see growing numbers of insecure and part-time labourers’. In effect, the university perpetuates ‘systemic injustice within an institution that professes its opposite’ (26). Bogdan refers to this trend as accompanying a ‘scorched earth

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policy regarding the arts in schools, the demise of philosophy of education as a discipline within educational studies, and the erosion of the humanities generally in our universities’ (26). In short, the social-democratic model, which proffers a well-rounded education as a fundamental right, has been replaced largely in HE by a commodified model based on ‘assumptions of individuality, rationality, and self-interest summarised by the notion of homo economicus’ (Peters and Jandrić 2018: 553). Han (2018) summarises the general abyss of our age with the observation that the continuing neoliberal system ‘breaks down temporarily stable structures, fragments living-time and permits the disintegration of what binds us together in the interests of increasing productivity’ (33). Furthermore, the ‘neoliberal politics of time’ fragments people into ‘isolated entrepreneurs of themselves. This isolation, which goes hand in hand with the elimination of solidarity and [with] total competition, produces anxiety. The diabolical logic of neoliberalism is this: anxiety increases productivity’ (33). It is this artificially induced anxiety glimpsed within academe – experienced by teachers and students, occasioned by unrealistic goals of performance, and undergirded by dwindling provisions of time and materials – that encapsulates my personal scream. The neoliberal patterns of organisation, outlined above, have been found wanting and, in their place, societies are struggling with important choices concerning a New Normal. As I write in 2021, the conversations are about coping with COVID 19 but they concern, also, the kind of world we want and need if we are to survive other environmental catastrophes and bring about a more equitable society. As part of the reclamation process, I have recommended elsewhere (Harris in press) a return within graduate schools to foundational studies of history, sociology, and philosophic branches of ethics and aesthetics wherein students can discuss matters of immediate concern: particularly the strengths and failures of present political and socio-economic conditions, and values that best guide future choices and actions. I view these studies – and the larger curriculum of Leadership Studies – through a critical lens, as essential components of a socially and environmentally responsible leadership programme, one that also embeds the topic of this chapter – the doing-of-art that, along with aesthetic sensibility, demands important new ways of seeing and being (Greene 1995b).

Arts-As-Action in The Leadership Classroom Concerned with engaging students with actual art forms, I introduce now the work of two practicing administrators and several adult educators. The administrators, both former principals, based their doctoral dissertations and later practice on administrative theatre. Matthew Meyer (2001) in the late 1990s authored plays designed around critical cases shaped from interview transcripts with practicing administrators. In turn, Meyer called upon administrators – research participants and, later, students and workshop attendees – to enact the plays and respond to problematic issues raises therein. This research technique of participant-inspired theatre (Theatre as Representation) he then extended into

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his faculty practice in HE (Meyer and Young 2013). In these early days of theatre-for-administrators, Mayer realised that a scripted play – in his case, to depict real-life situations as revealed in research transcripts – was less threatening to participants than a personal improvisation would be, and more interesting than a case study in a foreign context. In the second study, feminist and community worker Jane Baskwell (2008) also addressed educational administration as activist practice through theatre. She observed that women school principals of her province were not only underrepresented in top management positions, but also were marginalised in the construction of administrative policy and planning. Dissatisfied with the transcribed words of women principals alone to document and fully present the truth of their experiences, Baskwell experimented with poetry, mask-making, and narrative re-construction as theatre to enlarge and enrich personal stories (39). Baskwell soon noted the value of transference, particularly through wearing masks, in attributing the emotional weight of highly personal and/or traumatic events to stage characters. Like Meyer, Baskwell later applied these dramatic techniques – each critiqued, adjusted, and/or extended by participants – to her graduate teaching, in-service training with teachers, and community workshops. In my own quest for arts-inspired ways of knowing, I also turned to the growing number of adult educators who, with feminist orientation and critical intent, locate ‘community’ arts at the heart of their leadership teaching and research (e.g., Butterwick and Selman 2020; Clover 2010). In most cases, the clearly articulated intention of these educators is to advance socio-economic justice through direct engagement with arts and crafts.1 This objective is facilitated by methodologies of participatory research whereby adult community members, as the term indicates, ‘participate’ in the construction of a more critical view of their society. As indicated above, participation, strongly rooted in adult pedagogy, has over the years gained political strength (Butterwick 2021; English and Mayo 2012). To take my earlier example, the roots planted by leaders of residential folk schools in Canada at mid-century (Parsey and Friesen 1953) have strengthened, and the once implicit purpose of socio-economic and political emancipation of marginalised and oppressed peoples has become explicitly stated in theory (Freire 1986/1970), popular theatre (Boal 2006; Butterwick and Selman 2003; Kennelly 2006), film (Roy 2016), poetry (Vernon 2018), photography (Clover 2006), international arts-based community projects (Clover et al. 2013), and in the leadership classroom (McGregor 2012).

Sharing The Knowledge Base: Educational Administration and Adult Education Adult educators speak of a pedagogy and research orientation that immerses them collectively in the arts. Although I address graduate programmes that, primarily, focus on institutional leadership, the following five lessons from the adult education literature resonate with potential and practising school/community leaders. The lessons, considered in light of my personal experience, also

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implicitly address my first question about whether and why the arts-as-action should be embedded in graduate curricula of Leadership Studies.

Theories of ‘conscientization’ Many practising community educators, as well as students of leadership, acknowledge the importance of Paulo Freire’s theoretical modelling. Forged in underprivileged regions of Brazil, Freire’s orientation to adult teaching and learning recognises that ‘conscientization’ – that is, the developing awareness of one’s socio-economic and political position – must precede plans for change (Freire 1986[1970]). This habit of critical consciousness is particularly important to teachers and administrators who work with racial/ethnic minorities today – first, to encourage an awareness of their own political situation – be it of marginalisation or privilege and, second, to stimulate ideas about a possible and preferred reality. Another Brazilian educator, Augusto Boal (2006), greatly influenced by Freire’s focus on socio-economic oppression, offers a variety of theatre techniques that provide room for spectators, as well as actors, to present scenes of everyday reality and envision ways in which conditions can be altered. Participants involved in such popular theatre, therefore, contrast the status quo with preferred worlds. Boal’s (2002) approach allows actors and non-actors alike to apply sound, image, and words in questioning every day ethics and politics (see Walker 2018).

Ethos of teaching/learning Ideas of a preferred reality are not simply ‘handed down’ from teacher to learner. Ideally, they are cooperatively – though not necessarily consensually – arrived at through discussion, role play, film, drama, and the making of art objects. In the very formation of ideas through discourse, culture, and experience we begin to know one another. Butterwick and Selman (2020: 35), for instance, call upon art-making to create spaces for ‘changing the story’ of divisiveness. In this age of destructive populism and nationalistic fervour, leaders too often enflame their power base by naming and castigating others. To counter this divisive narrative, Butterwick and Selman identify three important actions inherent in an alternative arts-based leadership: challenging binary messages of ‘us and them’; creating ‘opportunities for … building solidarity;’ and using clear language to ‘identify what we are fighting for, not just what we are against’ (36). Although each goal may be accomplished through dialogue alone, I find that sentient insights provide novel stimulants for the imagination. In sharing perspectives, moreover, students appear to prise the concept of information levelling in which they, collaboratively and with their instructor, formulate possibilities for change.

Sensitivity to personal taboos Butterwick and Selman (2020), reporting on case studies in Canada and Kenya, find theatre-based interventions to be ‘particularly significant … when addressing

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taboo, sensitive, or dangerous topics, including issues of justice, personal health, violence, reconciliation, equity, and the [negative] aftermath of colonialism’ (37). As claimed by administrative researchers Meyer and Bakewell above, actors find comfort in attributing expressive meaning to the persona of another, and freedom in becoming one-step removed from personal danger and oppression.

Healing dichotomies of mind and body Art forms calling for physical movement – be they through dance, games, or simple responses while seated – challenge one of the most trenchant impediments to learn in our modern (or post-modern) age, that is the dichotomy of mind and body (Sellers-Young 1998; Shusterman 2011) that has haunted us at least since the time of Descartes. In my professional life as an arts educator, a formidable challenge was to free administrators – especially male, high school administrators – from their desks to engage in improvised movement. The inexperienced participant, quite understandably, tends to be embarrassed by such an expectation. Women administrators, who often bring to their administrative role years of elementary school experience with games and dances, are far less inhibited. Yet we blithely expect all school administrators, as ‘instructional supervisors’, to convey their knowledge and experience to teachers of art, physical education, and other facets of curricula calling for movement. My suggestion here is simply that those who supervise an area of study benefit from personal experience of its subject matter.

Global responsibility The need for people to think globally, even while acting locally, is one of many lessons consolidated during the pandemic of 2020–2022. To think globally and locally, however, requires an holistic knowledge and understanding of the Other; in the broad sense, such understanding includes positive features of the Others’ culture, its arts, philosophies, and histories of social advancement (Dissanayake 1999) and, in contrast, of its military prowess, environmental missteps, and systematic exploitation of marginalised peoples (Butterwick and Roy 2016). Bates, speaking of a possible global curriculum to administrators, notes that in a common ethical commitment to societies ‘disfigured by class exploitation, sexual and racial repression, and in chronic danger of war and environmental destruction, the only education worth [its] name is one that forms people capable of taking part in their own liberation’ (Connell et al. 1982, in Bates 2005: 95). Bates (2005) borrows from Foucault to discuss the ‘insurrection of subjugated knowledges’ needed for freedom (96). Although liberation may be enabled by dominant cultures, the responsibility, ultimately, rests with a people’s ability to see themselves (conscientization) and to imagine and enact alternative scenarios. Bates exemplifies subjugation as experienced by Aboriginal peoples who would retract their voice from the margins of ‘Australian academic knowledge’ (96). In Canada, we think of stories about and by Indigenous and Black populations,

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long submerged beneath widely accepted histories of white settlement and progress. In formulating and sharing these revised histories among dominant as well as marginalised societies, representations through art – visual, (painting and sculpture), music, dance, poetry, and story-telling – play a fundamentally important role (McIntyre 2015). One reason for this is embedded in the first utilitarian purpose (i.e., arts-based research as practice) below, that is, to enlarge the pallet of expressive possibility for people of varied physical and ‘academic’ abilities. But first, let us not by-pass…

The pleasure principle The joy of artistic involvement should not be overlooked in the graduate leadership class. Experiments in symbolising ideas-as-art are simply enjoyable for most students! Smiles and laughter become the evaluative tools. The arts in many schools, for this very reason, are insufficiently valued as mere ‘breaks’ from numeracy and literacy. Rather, I suggest we should expand concepts of literacy – from primary to graduate schools - to include those called for in the expression and appreciation of art. Each of these six links, connecting adult and administrative arts with school and community practice, require familiarisation with art forms, and with generalised activities such as mapping organisational sites, preparing plays about social issues, taking part in or recording cultural music and dance, photographing social reality or, for students of administration, improvising on case studies (e.g., Hasinoff and Mandzuk 2015). Knowledge of art forms, it must be noted, should include some familiarisation with the elements of each. Music, for example, can be appreciated through beat and rhythm, melody and harmony, dynamics, tone colour, texture (number of lines at play), and form (i.e., how themes are introduced, and later repeated and varied). Visual art calls for recognition of colour, line, shape, composition, and texture. Poetic composition highlights yet another set of elements and linguistic devices, and so on. Definitions of needed elements differ, but the search for recognition is almost always appreciated by graduate students who realise that their new learning will be called upon in practice. Each set of elements for the arts, when recognised by students, corresponds or contrasts with those found in prose and academic writing. Although gaps in experience of the arts can be addressed by the provision of in-service training by central offices of administration, gaps are better recognised and repaired as early as possible – as prospective teachers enter university and, certainly, in graduate student classrooms.

Arts in Practice: Research, Pedagogy, and Community Outreach The question related to ‘why arts’ in leadership preparation, asks about the utility of their inclusion: in what ways can experience of arts-as-action enhance administrative practice? Assuming that graduate students of leadership will, later,

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find employment in universities, schools, hospitals, and other community institutions and organisations, I look for examples of utility in three threads of action: research, teaching, and community outreach.

Arts-based research as leveller As implied by several research examples described thus far, tenuous lines separate field research from graduate teaching and community outreach. This is especially the case for faculty members who enjoy secure and tenured positions that, in turn, afford the flexibility needed for experimentation. I illustrate this point using my own research in Newfoundland coastal schools and communities where circumstances called for visual art, music, word-smithing, and movement – for example, in the design of posters announcing workshops, in arts-informed games, in communally designed maps of place, and in the representation of societal problems through poetry (Clover and Harris 2005). My role as a learner – as contrasted with a teacher, leader, or researcher – however, was brought home to me forcibly during school-based research with teenagers to explore food sovereignty in another coastal community in Newfoundland. I was surprised with the willingness – and evident enjoyment – experienced by high school students of varying ages and academic abilities to design world maps of food sources, interview community elders, and compose poetry. Following considerable preparation for data gathering, students talked with senior members of the community and took notes of their responses. From this data, they selected words of personal significance (described by Glesne 2010 and Butler-Kisber 2002 as ‘found poetry’) and, from these, wove verses about the history of their community’s gardening, hunting and fishing practices. My research partner and I were less surprised by the eagerness of elementary children to take part in topic-related songs, games, and visual images (Harris and Barter 2013, 2015) as music and games are integral to the provincial curriculum. In each aspect of arts-based research, the art itself acted as a leveller of socio-cultural privilege; that is, students’ academic records failed to reflect the value (to us) of their spontaneous, enthusiastic, and imaginative involvement.

Pedagogy: Insights into lesser-known subjects Earlier I referred to the advantage accruing to school administrators who have gained experience in the subject areas they are called upon to supervise. Without some knowledge of the arts involved – their expressive elements and form – supervisors must fall back on generalised knowledge of class management. Such supervision runs the risk of capturing little that is meaningful to either teacher or students. With basic understanding of an art form, on the other hand, the supervisor can contribute to the formative assessment of class management, literacy, and artistry. Concerning literacy, are students gaining a knowledge of each subject’s requirements? In music, for instance, can students read, write, and compose, as well as perform? With an understanding of the curriculum, administrators/supervisors will

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be better positioned to comprehend the teacher’s expressed objectives and selfassessment. The learning becomes, thus, a two-way learning experience. This administrative advantage in supervision reaches beyond the usual concept of arts-based learning. Glesne (2010), for instance, having detailed her preparation for graduate students’ poetry compositions, notes several tips for evaluation. Referring to form, she examines the poem’s breaks and spaces, word choices (refrains), storylines, feeling (expressed as mind and body), complexity and depth, and evidence of time in the field. Here we have an artistic exploration that, in important aspects, complements Language Arts. The arts-informed supervisor learns to spot the many ways in which the arts are – or can be – incorporated into existent school curricula.

Community outreach Imagine an Indigenous leader: a politician, entrepreneur, bureaucrat? No, an artist [like me who uses his] abilities for the benefit of my community, and if I am a skilled artist I can use that gift to inspire a vision of the world. (McIntyre 2015: n/a) Those of us who have inherited Enlightenment ways of knowing and understanding have much to learn from First Nations populations of Canada and, I am confident, from Indigenous people worldwide. Ojibway lawyer, faculty teacher, and artist Don McIntyre in the words above reconnects art with community understandings. McIntyre claims that, by letting others see his vision through art, he can provide inspiration and hope about the future. He reminds us that Indigenous artists are not only leaders but also teachers and students who gather traditional knowledge, stories, and artistry in order to create new, inspiring works. Together with other artists, he intends to anchor his people to the past and transport them to the future. Art works get ‘us to thinking about the best and worst of humankind and inspire us to think about the direction we are headed’ (McIntyre 2015). This claim, in the voice of an Indigenous elder, resonates with the activities of school and community leaders who work with culturally, socially, and economically diverse parent/adult groups. In both scenarios of community outreach – institutional and neighbourhood – educational leaders join with adults and children in such generalised (and communal) activities as mapping, researching, and preparing plays about social issues, taking part in or recording cultural music and dance, and photographing social conditions. With McIntyre, the common objective is to assess the past and move on to envisage a preferred reality. In graduate school, as well as in public school scenarios, the arts – if culturally appropriate – consolidate many features recognised as essential to the long-term success of Indigenous students. These include collaborative purpose, attitudes of non-competition, shared emotional support, group camaraderie, and the realised relevance of site-based learning (Classens 2009; Whiteye 2009). Although some artwork is recognised by all students as outstanding, each work speaks of personal meaning and emotion, features often neglected, or underplayed, in many cultures.

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Further Thoughts On Application Curriculum planning involves choices, and many demands are placed on the time allocated for administrative studies. Temporal concerns are particularly problematic in this age of corporate management whereby departments are encouraged to increase class sizes – along with tuition fees - and cut instructional allocations for course delivery. My recommendation for arts-based teaching and learning in graduate schools requires that universities will provide students with high-quality instruction ideally within a rich context for collaborative, on-campus learning. As an alternative to on-campus instruction, indigenous leader Patricia Whiteye (2009) documents several site-based possibilities for variation and enhancement of graduate instruction, even for those who must combine their studies with full-time employment and family duties. These possibilities focus on cohorts of students who share similar needs, benefit from pedagogies of knowledge-sharing, and enjoy easy access to cultural relevance. My own experience of off-campus course delivery corresponds with these points made by Whiteye; in particular, I found that student research was strengthened through the cultural lenses of art. Aware of time limitations for both on and off-campus delivery in my own classes, I allocated from ten to twenty minutes for students (one or two at a time) to present brief ‘aesthetic moments’ of their own performance or presentation. These were followed by relevant connections, suggested by presenters or their colleagues, to the study of leadership. Throughout this chapter, I have made claims about student participation. My impressions are reinforced by two methods of evaluation. One, described elsewhere in some detail (Harris 2008), involved an examination question revealed to philosophy students at the beginning of term, and for which a perfect mark was forthcoming; one cannot validly mark personal expressions of meaning. This asked students to identify and describe the relevance of two aesthetic presentations of personal significance. A second method, for students of organisational theory, was given towards the end of term. This assessment consisted of five questions, explained to students as aids to my own understanding of the aesthetic exercise, and as their ideas for its improvement. Students were asked to identify the following: three presentations that were particularly interesting or valuable, explaining why this was so; connections between the aesthetic sessions and their role (actual or potential) as organisational leaders; if they thought the sessions had changed them in any way, with some elaboration; ways in which sessions could be organised to be more effective; and, finally, the suitability of class time spent on ‘aesthetic’ presentations in an otherwise full curriculum. My file, entitled ‘evaluation of aesthetic happenings’ foreshadowed the questions of this chapter. Inspired by the anxiety-ridden visage presented in Munch’s The Scream, and what I perceive to be the downward spiral of intellectual (and affective) engagement in institutions of HE, I have asked – and suggested answers to – questions of educational purpose and application. My argument has been

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directed towards enriching the interdisciplinarity of graduate studies in leadership by including attention to arts-based teaching and learning in the critical theory and practice of Adult Education. I have always been puzzled that the discipline of community adult education – rich in critical theory and onthe-ground practice – has gained so little attention in the literature on educational administration. Although the work of school leaders concerns the well-being of children, it also deals in considerable depth with relationships among adults, the focus of adult teaching and learning. To build an understanding of art-as-action, I have compared art with aesthetics as significant in the theory and practice of educational leaders. My emphasis on action in this chapter is in no way meant to detract from the significance of skills, sensitivities, and perceptions needed for an aesthetic view of organisational reality. The philosophy and practice of art, however, as a sub-section of aesthetics, enriches the understanding of both forms of sentient knowledge and appreciation.

Coda In conclusion, I return to the two women who frame this position piece, Ellen Dissanayake and Maxine Greene. Dissanayake’s message is simple, although largely overlooked in the history of educational practice: always, people have needed to express themselves through the arts in order to understand and cope with their historical time and circumstances. The obvious truth of her claim fortifies my argument that students of educational administration ought to become familiar with art forms – their elements, their inherent messages, and their significance in the world. In the classroom, I have found that artistry announces its presence, or rests silently, in each graduate student. Although expression may be submerged by social norms, artistic impulses need only to be approached in a non-threatening manner to free students from their inhibitions. The rewards are that students will experience an ability to more clearly perceive the world and, thus, their own potential and that of each adult and child. My purpose in pursuing the specific goal of bringing arts-in-action to the graduate Leadership classroom responds to Greene’s (1995a: 125) statement that simply being in the presence of art forms is insufficient to occasion an aesthetic experience, or change a life. Greene elaborates on a needed ‘going out of energy’, an ability to notice what is there to be noticed in a visual work of art, a poem, a collage. She points out that ‘knowing about’ an artwork, even in the most formal academic manner, is entirely different from personally constituting a fictive world imaginatively and ‘entering it perceptually, affectively, and cognitively’. To introduce students to such engagements is to ‘strike a delicate balance’ between helping them to attend to shapes, patterns, sounds, rhythms, figures of speech, contours, and lines, and liberating them to perceive particular works as meaningful’. I trust that student learners can be assisted in their journey towards liberation by the questions of this chapter, or ones that you, the reader, will fashion.

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Note 1 For my favourite distinction between art and craft, the former creatively inspired without pragmatic intent and the latter consciously designed for a purpose, see R. G. Collingwood (1958: 15–41). In this chapter, however, I draw no hierarchical distinction between the two; both are ideationally expressive of individual or collective meaning. Many crafts are produced with considerable artistry.

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Butterwick, S. and Selman, J. (2003) ‘Deep listening in a feminist popular theatre project: Upsetting the position of audience in participatory education’, Adult Education Quarterly, 54, 1: 7–22. Butterwick, S. and Selman, J. (2020) ‘Community-based art making: Creating spaces for changing the story’, New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 165: 35–47. Childress, H. (2019) The Adjunct Underclass: How America’s Colleges Betrayed their Faculty, their Students, and their Mission, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Classens, L.L. (2009) ‘The effects of guitars in a First Nations classroom’, in R.P. Coulter (ed.) The Gifts Within; Carry Each Other Forward in Aboriginal Education (131–144), Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Clover, D.E. (2006) ‘Out of the dark room: Participatory photography as a critical, imaginative, and public aesthetic practice of transformative education’, Journal of Transformative Education, 4: 275–290. Clover, D.E. (2010) ‘A contemporary review of feminist aesthetic practices in selective adult education journals and conference proceedings’, Adult Education Quarterly, 60, 3: 233–248. Clover, D.E. and Harris, C.E. (2005) ‘Agency, isolation and the coming of new technologies: Exploring “dependency” in coastal communities of Newfoundland through participatory research’, Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 51, 1: 18–33. Clover, D.E., Sandford, K. and Butterwick, S. (eds.) (2013) Aesthetic Practice and Adult Education, Abingdon: Routledge. Collingwood, R.G. (1924) Speculum Mentis: The Map of Knowledge, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Collingwood, R.G. (1958) The Principles of Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Connell, R.W., Ashenden, D., Kessler, S. and Dowsett, G. (1982) Making the Difference. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Cribb, A. and Gerwitz, S. (2013) ‘The hollowed-out university? A critical analysis of changing institutional and academic norms in UK higher education’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 34, 3: 338–350. Dissanayake, E. (1999) Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes from and Why, Seattle: University of Washington Press Dissanayake, E. (2000) Art and Intimacy: How the Arts Began, Seattle: University of Washington Press. Eisner, E. (1991) The Enlightened Eye: Qualitative Inquiry and the Enhancement of Educational Practice, New York: Prentice-Hall. English, F.W. and Ehrich, L.C. (2016) Leading Beautifully: Educational Leadership and Connoisseurship, New York: Routledge English, L.M. and Mayo, P. (2012) Learning with Adults: A Critical Pedagogical Introduction. Rotterdam: Sense. Freire, P. (1986[1970]) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum. Gardner, H. (1994[1973]) The Arts and Human Development: A Psychological Study of the Artistic Process, New York: Basic Books. Glesne, C. (2010) ‘Disappearing into another’s words through poetry in research and education’, LEARNing Landscapes, 4, 1: 29–36. Greene, M. (1981) ‘Aesthetic literacy in general education’, in J.F. Solis (ed.) Philosophy and Education (115–141), Chicago: Chicago University Press.

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The ‘Why’ Matters Most: A Framework for Activist Art Making to Transform School Communities to Promote Social Justice Crista Boske, Mariel Sallee, L. Joshua Jackson, and Leshun Collins

By the time I conclude a piece, whether it be rooted in art or academics, I understand more and more that I am the dreams of my ancestors and the nightmares of my oppressors. L. Joshua Jackson

Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to explore approaches, challenges, and possibilities that have arisen over the last several years from existential crises and threats to promote social-justice-oriented arts-based work in K-12 US public schools. These events stem from a number of causes including neoliberalism, cultural and social shifts, and digitalisation of the socio-cultural sphere. Specifically, this chapter attends to the ongoing art-based work conducted by four co-authors. Together, we explore the influence of social justice arts-based school-community partnerships to promote authentic collaborations among school community members to legitimise minoritised perspectives. It is important to note that leaders, such as ourselves have been excluded from the mainstream because we were are not formally trained as artists. However, as Quinn (2010) noted in her chapter on social justice and arts education, ‘all humans are innately artists’ (24) and challenge linear narratives (see Desai 2010), and understand art is our voice. For the purpose of this chapter, although we were not schooled in formal art processes, our experiences and understandings serve as resources as we serve historically marginalised populations. Although educational leadership scholarship has addressed existential and related humanistic, phenomenological and valuational topics throughout the 1970s and 1980s (e.g., Greenfield and Ribbins 1993; Hartley 1970; Hodgkinson, 1983), little work was done subsequently with the rise of other approaches, such as those related to post-structuralists such as Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu or other more recent sociocultural theories and internationalisation movements

DOI: 10.4324/9781003145288-8

A Framework for Activist Art Making 97 (e.g., McKittrick 2015; Pinar 2013). This dialogue highlights continuing critical discourses around knowledge production and the control of knowledge and how we navigate these waters through arts-based approaches. The concept of art for making meaningful social change dates back to the fifteenth century with the invention of the printing press and using words to raise issues facing poor communities (see Naidus 2007). Art making has the capacity to influence how we understand cultural capital, which may encompass people with privilege gaining access to items perceived as valuable. For some communities, artistic representation of lived experiences may be showcased through the arts and networks of a shared identity (see Farbstein 2013). Art making encourages performance and participation, drawing people together through social activity, discussions, responses, or viewing opportunities. In the twenty-first century, including the arts and critical media literacy, the significance of embodying artistic practice through movement, vision, and mindfulness is increasingly being recognised as essential to influencing social change (see Davis 2008; Marshall and Sensory 2016; Oxford 2014). Art making may represent social relations as well as cues regarding the significance of context and social settings (see Bourdieu 1984). At the centre of the art making process, art is often concerned about generating ideas, the collective process of representation, and the lived experiences of people (DeMarrais 2011). Art has the capacity to not only be visible or experienced by the viewer. However, art making may also reinforce a vision of the ways in which society understands social conduct, aspects of identity, and social position/relations. The process may involve the use of objects, images, sound, or performance encompassing multiple participants. The making of the art may play as much of a significant role as the final product. The combination of medium, as well as participants, may attest to the presence of communities or people who work together to evoke a response to the art. Therefore, art making has the capacity to invite viewers to participate, which creates spaces for relational action (see Fowles and Arterberry 2013). As one may predict, there is no single means for art making to establish, address, sustain, or transform society. In class-stratified or power-laden societies, art making has the capacity to unite, divide, or position people because not everyone is privileged to appreciate art or encode the values of culturally dominant groups (see Bourdieu 1984). Zacharas and Lowell (2008) discovered a small group of wealthy aging constituents often experience the arts whereas a small percentage of art funding is provided to youth. The process of creating, utilising, and showcasing art provides communities with underlying understandings of the world, and for the purpose of this chapter, for social justice-oriented work. Art making creates spaces for expression, performance, social relations, and spaces for healing from trauma (see Craig 2016). Over the last three decades, anthropological perspectives on art radically shifted from being something experienced in high society and individual expression to observing art in galleries, museums, and public spaces. Art is often viewed by archaeologists and anthropologists as symbolic expressions derived from meaning and values expressed (decoded) in conventional symbolic forms.

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However, more recently, various disciplines, including anthropology, wondered if these perspectives somehow encompass the realities of art as it is experienced or art making as something being passively viewed (see Gell 1998; Morphy and Perkins 2006). For example, art making and engagement are up for interpretation (see Moxey 2008) and may include active participation or action (see Miller 2005; Tilley 1999; Tilley et al. 2006). What has emerged is a recognition of existential crises of meaning, values, and personal experience, and how this meaning-making affects participation in society and in one’s profession. As a result of such tensions, educational leaders may experience political strife and conflict that further deepen or create those threats and an accompanying increase in surveillance that may pose challenges in promoting justice-oriented education and human rights (e.g., Awan, Spiller and Whiting 2019). This is an area of growing concern in the general management and leadership literature and within more critical educational discourses; however, very little is found in the field of educational leadership. Although these tensions and challenges may arise in education and in educational leadership literature, they are generally not characterised as existential. Instead, they are often considered to be legal, political, cultural, social, or religious problems. As other fields find the existential dimensions of these forces meaningful to analyse, this critical conversation explores the effects these forces may have on an individual level, existential level, and within school-community environments. Authors recognise many dimensions of their lives can be affected by these concerns, including, but not limited to their sense of self, personality and character, interpersonal relations, meaning and value, and in turn, broad effects on leadership professionalism, organisational culture, and politics. These understandings impact all aspects of education including curriculum, teaching, supervision, collegial relations, community, and society. It is the intention of this chapter to explore this complex set of dimensions in existential experience as it affects school community leaders and organisations in a myriad of ways from personal experiences in US K12 public schools. Although scholars examine social justice in leadership, it is still somewhat unclear in any practical terms what scholars and practitioners mean when they invoke a vision of social justice or the influence of justice-oriented programmes. The extent this work impacts activist work, curricula, educational philosophies, or practicum opportunities is also largely under-recognised. ‘Social justice’ seems to float in the air as though people will recognise the instance justice appears before everyone. They may attempt to define the term and may run into intellectual difficulties, and sometimes the term becomes instrumental in operationalising intimidation, coercion, or what we may need to fight against. Despite current confusion and tension within the schools, youth, teachers, and leaders argue passionately for a call to build a new culturally responsive and justice-oriented culture. They describe these new educational environments as spaces that recognise, address, and empower vulnerable populations in an effort to systematically engage in authentic collective strategies to promote meaningful change.

A Framework for Activist Art Making 99 For the purpose of this chapter, four leading social justice school activists utilise critical dialogue as a biographical methodological approach to explore art making and social justice work in schools (see Shields and Edwards 2005). Reflective practice has a long history in the field of educational administration. Extant literature suggests collaboration and reflective practice should be the field’s primary focus (see James et al. 2007). Few scholars have examined leading for social justice as a reflective arts-based practice. Therefore, this critical dialogue involves diverse members in an open and power-free exchange of ideas and experiences about the influence of art making as meaning-making to promote justice-oriented work in K-12 school communities. We self-identify as justice-oriented activists who utilise art making to interrupt injustices within K-12 school communities. We are members of vulnerable populations; we are often marginalised due to our race, sexual orientation, gender expression, cognitive ability, geographic location, family makeup, and socioeconomic status. We contend to engage in art making to transform our communities and deepen our school communities’ understandings of justice, diversity, and inclusivity. Our diverse lived experiences and identities range from: 1

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the only Black male central office leader within a predominantly White rural community who utilises art making to build solidarity among Black students and building bridges for students navigating their learning differences; a Black male teacher and advisor for a justice-oriented school-communitybased organisation for Black and Brown high school students; a Black LGBTQ male college student musician, poet, and artist studying Africana Studies within a predominantly White institution who travelled the globe promoting peace and community transformation through arts-based work; and a White LGBTQ woman who served predominantly inner-city schools and prepares educators to promote justice and equity-oriented work in schools curating over 16 community-based art exhibitions.

We use this methodological approach because it places value on personal narratives and dialogue. Accordingly, the authors’ narratives form the foundation for this study emphasising the significance of individual experiences and an interactive dialogue regarding activist art making to promote social justice. The critical dialogue focuses on our questioning the extent our lives, roles, and understandings matter to promoting change within their communities and beyond (see Beyerbach and Davis 2011). Together, we discuss ways to express challenges we face, professional and personal experiences, and the capacity to utilise art making as a voice for change. We further discuss the extent to which we were silenced throughout our schooling and employment for addressing social justice in our work. We also explore our experiences in finding refuge through art making. Each of us utilised our voices through music, performance (Adomat 2012; Omasta and Brandley 2016), and visual art (see Lin and Bruce 2013; Quinn et al. 2012).

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Our experiences in utilising art making for justice work offer spaces to respond to ‘why’ art making. We explore the extent art making for justice work offers spaces for us to explore the purpose and power of art making. Throughout our critical dialogue, we ask ourselves, ‘why’ art making? The ‘why?’ in this chapter provides us with a foundation as we critically dialogue about art making as sensemaking. We recognise art making for social justice as a process to create spaces to transform school communities (see Shimshon-Santo 2007). As we engage in school-community and self-art making, we also explore the extent to which art transforms us into active agents. The art making, therefore, inspires us to selfidentify as social justice activists. Together, we explore the extent art making gives voice to those who are often silenced as well as the extent art making provides language and spaces to understand injustice. Throughout our critical dialogues, we engage in art making experiences as a framework for promoting social justice as activist art making to transform school communities. The dialogue honours our invested interest in social justice and meaning-making through art. Art making provides a space for us, a sacred space, to engage in an authentic liberatory dialogue as art activists.

Critical Dialogue The four of us engaged in a critical dialogue, which is a conversation potentially inspiring insights and ways of understanding, as individuals, as well as collectively thinking about art making as a group. We made our thoughts visible to one another, gaining clarity on experiences, understanding, and ideas to broaden and deepen perspectives regarding social justice and art making. The dialogue afforded us the opportunity to become more aware of our convictions, beliefs, and emotions surrounding social-justice-oriented work and engaging in art making to enhance the value of their thinking about this work in school communities. Together, we discovered a shared meaning stemming from their collaborate experiences engaging in art making for justice.

Social critique and action We reconceived what is meant by leading for social justice through art making. The space afforded us opportunities to deepen our understanding of systemic injustices and the influence of injustice on our daily lives as well as those served. Instead of making art about topics per se, we understood the need to engage in the work, to become involved, and to directly work with and for the communities they serve. Below are excerpts from the larger critical dialogue aligned with the significance of art making for social justice as a means of social critique and action.

Mariel We are able to use art making as a tool to make others aware of our story and force conversation and action due to the collective similar experiences. In our era

A Framework for Activist Art Making 101 of social media, the stories of marginalised populations do not have to be suppressed and many athletes are currently supporting a movement to promote the voices of those that historically have been ignored. We as artists utilising film to educate and socially critique injustices, as well as artists that use a variety of mediums such as painting to do the same.

Joshua It’s my hope that educators become less reluctant to facilitate these engagements because in my case, they have led me to my purpose as an individual. They’ve led me to a healthy way to engage with my inner self and the world around me. Therefore, art making has empowered me to engage in social-justice-oriented work through my understanding of self.

Christa Art making to promote social justice is a powerful tool that inspires critical dialogue, self-reflection, and social critique. The content must be relevant to understanding what it means to lead communities as well as giving value to their efforts to promote change through the arts. The process of engaging in art making affords leaders with imaginative possibilities to actively participate in making meaningful social change; in other words, taking action. Art making is influential tool for promoting political and cultural understanding. Engaging in this significant work encourages leaders to raise questions and increase their critical consciousness. The art creates, broadens, and deepens awareness of social issues within our communities as well as around the world. Art making, therefore, has the capacity to reinforce ideas and provides leaders with an entry point to justice issues, and is utilised as a tool to empower the artist as well as those interested in making social change. What’s essential is knowing what you value. Social justice-oriented work is most useful when it is not only valued but integrated into the culture of the community whether it’s within a school’s vision and mission or authentically integrated into practice and policy-making.

Bottom line We have two options. We can either hold back and choose not to express ourselves, or we can respond through a myriad of ways, but in our case, we use art making to reveal our truth. It’s not easy. We may feel beaten up throughout the process because we make ourselves vulnerable; however, art embodies the mind, body, and spirit of this significant work. It’s a release … an extension of ourselves … and transforms our ways of knowing because our art making gives us permission to belong, to speak, to give voice, and imagine what is possible.

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Leshun I know I’ve been misunderstood. But not for a lack of me trying to get my point across but a lack of awareness of the individual I was speaking to. Social justiceoriented art making gives a space to cut out the unnecessary rambling of the conversation and get right to the point. You don’t have to find the words to express what you were saying; you allow the person to view what you create and they ask themselves questions. It allows you to get in contact with yourself, to create awareness and consciousness. It allows those around you to widen their gaze and perhaps see the world from your lens. This in and of itself can be difficult because what they see when they now look through your lands maybe themselves in a very compromising position. It allows individuals and yourself to feel free, to be you, to allow the world to assume, and allows you to correct them after they’ve made their assumptions. Instead of a safe space he creates a brave space to engage in this important work.

Social justice art making and empowerment We also discussed art making as a constructor of hope. Art making creates spaces to deal with stressors, navigate challenges, and deepen understanding of self and others. As we engage in art making, each of us feels more positive about ourselves and speaking our truth as well as our capacity to utilise these arts-based experiences to lead in socially-just ways. The following are excerpts from the critical dialogue identifying art making as a means of promoting social justice work and empowerment.

Mariel There are opportunities to use art making as a way to express your experiences, especially in scenarios where an individual may not have any other form of expression that promotes their truth. Social justice-oriented art making provides a freedom that is not subject to policy and other forms of bureaucracy suppress your voice. It is critical for everyone to be able to have an opportunity to not only speak their truth, but to have that release that art making provides. The result can be therapeutic and healing.

Joshua In my experience in my own K-12 education as well as visiting K through higher education in the United States, Mexico, and Europe, classrooms generally do not integrate art making in the sense of questioning, challenging, or influencing existing injustices. Overall, I’ve seen an educational experience in which most students don’t see the value. In many cases, classes can’t maintain their attention. If the class sustains their attention, it is weak at most like hanging onto a string rather than a strong rope. Students will sit in classrooms and scroll through

A Framework for Activist Art Making 103 Instagram without a second thought towards the curriculum because Instagram has done something that in my experience most institutions and educators hardly do – curate an attractive experience for their viewers that maintains their attention. While our collective attention spans have decreased due to the fast pace of our modern lives, technology similar to that of Instagram can allow our capabilities in the realm of education to far exceed current expectations. We can tell our truth through our art using platforms that not only enable us to engage with an audience but are built around how to maintain attention. Those same platforms are readily available for educators to help in integrating art making into an informal classroom setting. From there, the freedom that must be enabled in art will guide the questioning, challenging, and influencing of existing injustice. When contemplating how to incorporate the freedom of expression through art making with a technology-focused approach, we need only facilitate someone’s personal critique of how they process information and provide them with the freedom to use the technology they have in their pockets. In other words, prompt them to question themselves and how they’ve been trained to perceive the world around them. I understood that I wasn’t allowed to have my phone out in the middle of class because it was a distraction. Yet, that doesn’t have to always be true. In my college courses, my computer is out at almost all times and by the end of class, I have no less than twenty search tabs open to expand on my learning rather than hinder my learning. As educators, and even as people, we’re inclined to empower each other with the tools to engage in our internal and external critiques and understandings. The alternative is not only counterproductive to education, but to creation and personal growth. In middle school, I was given an introduction to poetry and even with a clear understanding by my educators that writing was a passion of mine, nothing was done to go a step further with me. I watched as the abundance of recourses around me were prioritised for more affluent, white, or white-passing students. Today we have an opportunity to take a look at our recourses in tandem with technology and make that next step easier or non-negotiable among educators. We have access to algorithms that calculate the next YouTube video we’d like to see, and the next Instagram post we’d like to scroll through, but what happens when those algorithms take note of our children’s developing skills and interests? If I was as positive at ten years old as I am at twenty years old of what I am to be, knew each of my interests, and began to understand why I am who I am, I’d extend my creative and innovative reach tenfold. One of the keys to this reach or extension of our capabilities is our understanding of self. In 711 CE, the Moorish Empire conquered Italy, civilised and educated the whole of Europe which at the time maintained a literacy rate of 2 percent, and provided the knowledge of mathematics, science, scholarship, and more. If I understand this aspect of history, which I was deprived of during my K-12 education, I am assured that even if I don’t like this Honours Calculus class, mastering it is within my reach. I am also able to acknowledge that my capabilities in the areas I am more inclined to are boundless. If at ten years of age my education has empowered me with this

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truth, enabled me to express my perspective on my environment, and given me an irrevocable sense of self-worth I am likely to reach the fullest extent of my potential. Anything less is depriving me of my right to education, personal value, and life’s potential. In essence, the overall state of the education that I’ve had the opportunity to witness the vampiric in nature while travelling around the United States, Mexico, and Europe. In my experience classrooms hardly, if at all, integrate art making to question, challenge, and influence existing injustices, but the technology and potential are both available for a collective extension of our intellectual and creative capabilities.

Christa As a former school leader, educator, and preparing leaders for twenty-firstcentury schools, art making plays a vital role in my development as a parent, partner, scholar, and educator. I reflected on my willingness and capacity to engage in art making for social justice recognising the need for me to be vulnerable with those I serve. Several of my pieces focused on my lived experiences as a White woman who identifies as a member of the LGBTQ community. I came to understand the relationship between art making and social justiceoriented work. As I reflected on the process, I underwent a transformation, which seemed aligned with experiences school community members and leaders shared with me. I came to understand engaging in art making, just as social justice-oriented work, is about the doing. And within the doing, people develop a stronger sense of self and often realise they have the capacity to make meaningful change. I tell the students I serve to be the pebble and make the ripples. It’s not about the big splash. It’s about making ripples that influence ideas, practices, ways of knowing, and of course, ways of being. Art making is not about simply presenting art or perpetuating dominant ways of thinking or acting. Art making for social justice often contains diverse messages or meanings that may be hidden or layered to contest the status quo. Therefore, art making has the capacity to protest against and resist dominant ideologies. The process of engaging in art making may evoke the existence of power, privilege, and elitism. Throughout my work with schools and communities in generating art, people often reinvent themselves or remake themselves and the ways in which they understand their values, beliefs, and responses to societal injustices. The range and diversity of the art is testament to the significance art making plays throughout their thought processes. Art making explores power relations and recognises the myriad of ways in which people understand their everyday life. Art making explores social ties, existing cultural traditions, solidarity, social action, and agency. For those interested in this work, art making for social justice looks beyond approaches of art as meaning or symbols. The purpose of art making with social justice at its core is for artists/leaders to reconsider the extent their art making may influence people’s behaviours, ways of knowing, beliefs, and/or values. As an artist, the arts provide me with a space to engage in my own learning and reflection. It’s a healing process, art making. The process affords a space for

A Framework for Activist Art Making 105 first-tellings or storytelling to heal from the trauma often experienced in communities. Through my art making, I have opportunities to contribute to the dialogue and promote social change as well as inclusive world. My art making helps me think deeply about my lived experiences and approaches to addressing justice-oriented issues. My art making becomes part of a movement in promoting a vision in which we live in a more socially just, inclusive society. As a single LGBTQ parent raising a child who identifies as Latinx and LGBTQ herself, my engagement in art making illustrates my commitment to this work and deepens my critical literacy as well as my determination to interrupt historically oppressive beliefs, practices, and policies.

Leshun The short answer is that they don’t! They don’t question because if you question you’re reprimanded. If you challenge, then you are reprimanded. And it does not influence anyone in a positive way. It creates and allows the perpetuation of systemic injustice. There is a problem with the educational school system. The system does not allow children to express who and what they are; who and what they want to become; and in some cases, what a higher being wished for them to become. Instead, they tell you or programme you and what they would like you to believe and what they would like you to understand. I’ve taken a lot of courses. Nothing has allowed me to feel or challenge or influence me or the system I serve more than art making. The process allows me to express myself. I become stronger. As James Baldwin said, “If I truly love you I must make you aware of the things that you cannot see!”

Creating spaces to challenge injustices Within this critical dialogue, art making functions as a facilitator for exploring connections among this group, our lived experiences, and the school communities we serve. These connections create spaces among us. These connections bridge injustices inherent in many of our communities as well as within our lived experiences as members of marginalised populations. The process seems to reveal our capacity to engage in this work and reinforces our capacity to not only envision ways to navigate these challenges but to address them in meaningful ways. Below are excerpts from the critical dialogue suggesting art making creates spaces for each of us to challenge injustices we face.

Mariel In public schools, we really miss an opportunity to utilise all the positive effects of art making on learning, specifically how we can use it to understand history and the world around us as we experience it in real time. The heavy emphasis on standardised testing and school report cards has put teachers and administrators in a situation where we look for the typical ways to increase student understanding of

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a topic, be it through universal screening and interventions. We often discount methods that would prove more culturally responsive because we have difficulty breaking away from this universally adopted standard form of learning that promotes presentation of material and answering questions.

Joshua In my personal experience with art making in high school, it felt like I didn’t have much help at all. On a particular project I developed, it boiled down to two educators to provide space for production and administrative backing. Those that did help were few and far between and I didn’t feel their commitment to the degree to which I was committed. As an art maker, especially in such a constricting environment, one must recognise that people have their own priorities. Meanwhile, among educators, art making isn’t valued. I stayed hours after school developing the project then hours completing the same monotonous work. It was a circumstance in which I wasn’t provided the academic space or acknowledgement in completing a piece worthy not only by my standard but the standard of Oberlin College’s Afrikan Heritage House who has accepted the piece as a donation. One can gather a sense of perseverance, and what it takes to develop something under restricted circumstances and limited recourses. In essence, the ability to do such a thing in many cases is the Black experience, the Black female experience, the Black queer experience. The best of us can turn this ability into a positive – being the absolute best in our environment or field. Others watch as their peers’ projects, scholarship, and creativity are facilitated while they are left behind. As teacher Mariel Sallee spoke on the goals of an educator, I realised that from where I stood as an art maker, I’ve already fulfilled those goals via my work with art. Art making requires hard work, vulnerability, and determination to execute a vision – a body of work that fulfils a personal standard. If an educator can properly inspire their students to value themselves enough to value their work, those students will reach their fullest potential as scholars. The art making process blends research elements, evidence-based critical thinking, and enables the student to make their own conclusions on the material/curriculum and world around them. In music, we hear the flow of where the story is going, where the information was sourced, but more importantly, we hear how the creator is processing their environment. This ‘processing’ of one’s environment is essential to critical thinking, personal development, and education. The underlying element of this process is empathy. Art making bridges the gap between the academic and the non-academic due to its empathetic components tied to lived realities. For instance, someone can research how Reagan era politics ravaged Black and Brown communities in 1980s Compton, California. Meanwhile, another person without the access, skills, or resources to examine that environment, but is living through the consequences of Reaganomics, can listen to N.W.A, Warren G, or Snoop Dogg to hear and feel exactly what happened. Art making isn’t always a welcomed format of expressing what we know, and in some cases, it isn’t welcomed because those people outside of that art piece don’t respect, comprehend, or agree

A Framework for Activist Art Making 107 with the art maker’s interpretation. The truth of someone’s research or reality may be expressed as blunt as NWA or as complex as Kendrick Lamar. In any case, this format of expression requires vulnerability and the confidence to stand behind what you know. The process of art making creates an experience that the student will carry with them into their future no matter their occupation because if anything, it elevates the standards of education. Perhaps the reluctance to apply art making in the classroom is a lack of faith combined with a lacking ability to be creative. After all, we’ve collectively been taught in the same redundant manner since the Industrial Revolution. Art making isn’t a simple slideshow project or essay where someone can say anything or take an insincere stance. That art maker has to be positive about what they are saying and have enough faith in what they’ve created that they can courageously display their piece in front of their class. That is a higher standard. Once someone enters the arena of art making and chooses their discipline, they have to back up their creativity and knowledge against other’s who have dedicated their lives to a craft, to scholarship, to creativity. That places the art maker in a position where they must truly understand the curriculum or research and have been critical in their analysis. Otherwise, they will be called out. If not by their educator, then by their classmates who researched similar topics or have even lived through what another person has read through.

Christa Art making, especially art making to promote social justice work and activism, does not seem to be a focus in most K-12 schools. However, if art making were placed at the core of schools, which I consider cultural community centres, we might be able to incorporate a myriad of voices and perspectives through the arts and an integrated curriculum. Art making has the capacity to be a catalyst for meaningful change. The process is central to my life, values, and responses to promote meaning in the lives of those I serve. Communicating with diverse communities, sharing dreams and imaginative possibilities, and lived experiences provide spaces for each of us to understand, interpret, and inform people of social injustices, their existence, and the ways in which it surfaces in our daily lives. Art making encourages social interactions, public conflict, and dissension or may facilitate opportunities to deepen understanding and strengthen communities and societal relations. As leaders focus on social justice issues, their art making may instil values, beliefs, and responses. These interactions may play a significant role in the artist’s sense of self, strengthening their capacity to understand the wider impact of their work on themselves, community, and environment. For me, art making encompasses moments of truth. Art making is not only a means of personal expression, but encourages people to look within, reflect on one’s lived experiences, and develop new ways of knowing and being. The process creates spaces for exploration. We can examine ourselves, social positions,

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uncover injustices, create imaginative possibilities, and utilise our evolving understandings to navigate oppression and prevail. Art making challenges dominant cultural narratives and has the capacity to reframe our understanding of social justice issues facing those we serve in schools. Our art making provides an embodied way of knowing and responding to the world. The process involves multiple senses, especially, emotions. For me, my art making often speaks to the silencing of marginalised voices and creating spaces for those voices to be heard. For example, one of my pieces focused on the need to honour the lived experiences, social context, social movements, and historical narratives of marginalised populations. The painting illustrates the pain, frustration, and isolation often experienced by young Black males in K-12 schools. There is a need to engage in culturally relevant practices to understand history, counter narratives, and the mind-numbing school culture of perpetuating dominant cultural beliefs, attitudes, and ways of being. My art making calls on schools to engage all learners, foster intellectual/social/emotional growth and development, and encouraging youth, especially those who live on the margins, to invent visions that clearly empower school communities to engage in meaningful social change. These imaginative possibilities must be promoted, nurtured, and brought to fruition to raise consciousness about human rights issues, and for this art making, racism.

Leshun I was shocked to find out that our current Administration was trying to put a band on the ability to include diversity and ordered the discussion of diversity training in schools and corporations. The constantly has me ask the question what are you afraid of? A book entitled the tears we cannot stop a Sermons to White America is extremely powerful because just like the artwork it brings about feelings that have been buried so deep to come to the surface and breathe fresh air. Now that it’s here, what do you do with it? So, instead of letting it breathe, they try to suffocate it again.

Discussion We recognise the need to invent new ways of being through art making and the significance of embodying the process to engage in activist work. Each of us emphasise the need to cultivate inner peace and resilience to navigate oppressive systems such as schools. Our active participation in art making and art maker suggests our inward lens and capacity to think systemically, cultivates spaces to utilise art making to influence our school communities (see Oxford 2014). Furthermore, art as performance through developing our first-tellings and stories of self, create pathways toward healing from trauma often experienced as members of marginalised populations (see Craig 2016; Pinderhughes et al. 2016). Art making, therefore, encourages us to participate in art making as a positive, pro-social expression of ourselves and utilise our work as a constructive

A Framework for Activist Art Making 109 outlet for responding to challenging issues we face as members of disenfranchised populations. We work as a collective and utilise art making to shift the focus of conversation from deficit-laden and problem-posing to curiosity, imaginative possibilities, and inherent strengths. As artists, each of us experienced trauma within multiple school communities, including interpersonal interactions, hostile work environments, and structural societal violence. Art making created a means for promoting inclusive spaces in which trauma seemed to infiltrate our daily lived experiences as people who lived on the margins due to race, gender, gender expression, educational attainment, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and other differences. Art making plays a critical role in our development as leaders within educational systems and communities. Our efforts reach beyond our sense of self, embrace our traumatic experiences, and require immediate attention at deep personal level. The art making process represents a place that holds special meaning for each of us. For Mariel, he utilises his rich narrative about interactions marginalised youth to challenge injustice and incorporate the arts as a means to support them in thinking critically about the influence of social justice issues on their lives, as well as his life as a leader. Joshua draws upon his lived experiences in school and within the dominant history narrative. His poetry, music, and performance art promote increased awareness and consciousness to debunk myths about what it means to be Black in the United States. For Christa, her art making explores art as voices for social change. Her art making addresses oppression across cultural backgrounds and generations in an effort to develop and promote culturally responsive work through a range of social justice issues (i.e., race, sexual orientation, gender expression, and learning differences). And finally, Leshun focuses his art making as a cultural exchange between those he serves and himself as an activist. He contends art making not only empowers youth but also encourages the exploration of self. Art making is a deeply sensual engagement process of reflection, synthesis, meaning making, and action. The knowledge gained created spaces for self-growth, moved them in unexpected ways, and documented their lived experiences in social contexts.

Conclusion The organisation of this critical dialogue reflects the general chronology of the creative process of social justice-oriented art making and elements within the arc of art making. As artists and leaders, we recognise social justice art making begins with us: (1) our lived experiences; (2) ways of knowing; and (3) ways of responding. This foundational knowledge plays a significant role in the ‘why’ this work matters. We come to our communities with our hopes, despair, frustrations, emptiness, joy, and other ways of experiencing our truth (see Freire 2000; Hooks 1994). We may be considered outsiders in the world of formally trained artists; however, we utilise our tensions in both leading diverse communities and expressing our creativity and wonderment to capture our inner emotional state and attempt to interrupt oppressive ways of knowing and being. This framework

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provides a means for understanding the extent art making informs an individual’s sense of self, meaning-making, leadership practices, and capacity to engage in authentic social change. In other words, the extent art making matters and influences community transformation. This dialogue is a collection of diverse leaders who utilise social justice art making and arts-based practices to advocate and learn more about us individually as well as those served. Together, we contribute to social movements within our communities including, but not limited to, the integration of equity-oriented policies and practices, inquiry-arts-based curricula, inclusive policies, empowering family and community voices, courageous conversations regarding difference, and building intergenerational communities. Our art making builds bridges among community members and illustrates the need for social change. This vibrant work is an authentic collection of lived experiences, stories, and the desire to create these sacred spaces for public school communities. As social justice leaders and art makers, we suggest educators and leader/ teacher preparation programmes learn more and teach more about global justice movements; actively engage school communities in developing and integrating social justice and equity-oriented curriculum throughout K-12 and higher education preparation programmes; engage diverse learners in arts-based curriculum and pedagogy; afford learners with opportunities to express their understandings and responses through culturally relevant teaching; utilise art as voice and agency to broaden and deepen progressive movements and promote meaningful social change.

References Adomat, D.S. (2012) ‘Becoming characters: Deepening young children’s literary understanding through drama’, Journal of Children’s Literature, 38, 1, 44–51. Awan, I ., Spiller, K. and Whiting, A . (2019 ) Terrorism in the Classroom: Security, Surveillance and a Public Duty to Act, Routledge. Beyerbach, B. and Davis, R.D. (2011) Activist Art in Social Justice Pedagogy: Engaging Students in Global Issues through the Arts, New York: Peter Lang. Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, London: Routledge. Craig, S.E. (2016) Trauma sensitive schools. Learning Communities Transforming Childrens’ Lives, K-5, New York: Teachers College Record. Davis, J. (2008) Why Our Schools Need the Arts, New York: Teachers College Record. DeMarrais, E. (2011) ‘Figuring the group’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 21: 165–186. Desai, D. (2010) ‘Artists in the realm of historical methods’, in D. Desai, J. Hamlin and R. Mattson (eds.) History as Art, Art as History (47–66), New York: Routledge. Farbstein, R. (2013) ‘Making art, making society: The social significance of smallscale innovations and experimentation in Palaeolithic portable art’, World Art, 3: 23–39.

A Framework for Activist Art Making 111 Fowles, S. and Arterberry, J. (2013) ‘Gesture and performance in Comanche rock art’, World Art, 3: 67–82. Freire, P. (2000) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum. Gell, A. (1998) Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Greenfield, T. and Ribbins, P. (eds.) (1993) Greenfield on Educational Administration: Towards a Humane Science, London: Routledge. Hartley, H. (1970) ‘Humanistic existentialism and the school administrator’, in F. Lutz (ed.) Toward Improved Urban Education (1–22), Worthington: Charles H. Jones. Hodgkinson, C. (1983) The Philosophy of Leadership, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hooks, B. (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, New York: Routledge. James, C., Dunning, G., Connolly, M. and Elliot, T. (2007) ‘Collaborative practice: A model of successful working in schools’, Journal of Educational Administration, 45, 5: 541–555. Lin, C. and Bruce, B.C. (2013) ‘Engaging youth in underserved communities through digital-mediated arts learning experiences for community inquiry’, Studies in Art Education, 54, 4: 335–348. Marshall, E. and Sensory, O. (2016) Rethinking Popular Culture and Media, Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools. McKittrick, K. (ed.) (2015) Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Miller, D. (2005) Materiality, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Morphy, H. and Perkins, M. (2006) ‘The anthropology of art: A reflection on its history and contemporary practice’, in M. Howard and M. Perkins (eds.) The Anthropology of Art (1–32), Oxford: Blackwell. Moxey, K. (2008) ‘Visual studies and the iconic turn’, Journal of Visual Culture, 7, 2: 131–146. Naidus, B. (2007) ‘Feminist activist art pedagogy: Unleashed and engaged’, NWSA Journal, 19, 1: 137–146. Omasta, M. and Brandley, A.T. (2016) ‘Student perceptions of high school theatre programs: An investigation of social issues and call for replication’, Youth Theatre Journal, 30, 1: 50–67. Oxford, R.L. (2014) Understanding Peace Cultures, Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Pinar, W.F. (ed.) (2013) International Handbook of Curriculum Research, New York: Routledge. Pinderhughes, H., Davis, R. and Williams, M. (2016) Adverse Community Experiences and Resilience, Oakland, CA: Kaiser Permanante Northern California Prevention Institute. Quinn, T. (2010) ‘Social justice and arts education: Spheres of freedom’, in T. Chapman and N. Hobbel (eds.) Social Justice Pedagogy across the Curriculum (223–235), New York: Routledge. Quinn, T., Ploof, J. and Hochtritt, L. (2012) Art and Social Justice Education: Culture as Commons, New York: Routledge. Shields, C.M. and Edwards, M.M. (2005) Dialogue is Not Just Talk: A New Ground for Educational Leadership, New York: Peter Lang.

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Shimshon-Santo, A.R. (2007) ‘Content in context: Community building through arts education’, Journal for Learning through the Arts, 3, 1, 10.21977/D93110054. Tilley, C. (1999) Metaphor and Material Culture, Oxford: Blackwell. Tilley, C., Webb, K., Küchler, S., Rowlands, M. and Spyer, P. (2006) Handbook of Material Culture, London: Sage. Zacharas, L. and Lowell, J. (2008) Cultivating Demand for the Arts: Arts Learning, Arts Engagement, and State Arts Policy, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.

7

Educating Administrators and the Fear of Freedom in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism Eveline Wittmann and Aldin Striković

Introduction As part of her coursework as a student of ‘Anthropological Education’, the first author of this paper was supposed to choose a book from a comprehensive reading list to read it as part of coursework. She chose Fromm’s 1942 classic The Fear of Freedom and devoured it, fascinated by its analysis of German fascism. Back then, she never saw an existential need for applying its thoughts, until recently. That is because there may be contexts in which thoughts on individuals as they relate to society are needed more than others. Fromm himself writes: This [industrial] society has achieved a mastery of nature through man’s intellect that was undreamed of until only a century ago. Stimulated by his ever-increasing technical capacity, man has concentrated all his energies on the production and consumption of things. In this process he experiences himself as a thing, manipulating machines and being manipulated by them. … There is a danger, then, that man may forget he is a man. Hence, the reconsideration of the tradition of thought about the nature of man was never more difficult, but at the same time never more necessary than it is today. (Fromm and Xirau 1968: 10–11) Universally, this is certainly much truer now than when Fromm wrote it in 1968. According to our first and most important line of argument, ubiquitous computing which enables a new societal architecture, which Zuboff (2019a) calls The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, leads to such a moment because of the kind of pervasive technological modernisation it entails and the digital transformation of all spheres of life enhancing both complexities and uncertainties aligned with free societies and new mechanisms of submission of humanity. The latter include surveillance, data mining and behavioral manipulation, and decision making by artificial intelligence (Winter 2008). The second argument is that anthropological knowledge is required to counter the current status quo, however, it must be taught in ways that allow young people to recognise situations where freedom is at stake at this age, and take the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003145288-9

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decision to act upon it. This requires teachers themselves, both in their roles as educational administrators, policy translators (Perryman et al. 2017) and as prospective senior administrators, to be equipped with relevant anthropological knowledge in order to be able to implement educational measures on these issues and establish organisational cultures suitable to deal with the new environment. The third argument is about the ‘scream’, and it particularly applies to countries where, as in the German context, teacher education lays the only academic groundwork for teachers’ administrative role in the schools. While the ideological thrust of academic teacher education in recent decades has been for evidence-based and competence-oriented curricular changes (e.g., Bauer and Prenzel 2012), the Bologna Process has also left a legacy of heavy regulation, making changes to the academic curriculum on these matters not just a choice of a singular professor or lecturer but of a whole institutional body, and leaves universities ill-equipped for timely responding to these major transformations of the environment. We will start by laying out foundational arguments by Fromm (1942) himself. This will be followed by a section on the relationship between individuals and society in the age of ubiquitous computing, both in general and as they relate to educational administration, and we will particularly lay out threats to freedom as well as tendencies of submission in its wake. We will then make our argument for anthropological knowledge in the academic education of school administrators, and finally lay out institutional obstacles related to the Bologna Process.

The Fear of Freedom According to Wilde (2000), Fromm first outlined a long-term research programme in 1929 when he proposed to investigate connections between the social, particularly economic and technical development, of humanity and human psychology, or in Freudian terms, the ego-organisation of humans. Fromm delivers a major contribution to this programme in his 1942 book on The Fear of Freedom. We will summarise the book to lay the groundwork for our further argumentation, quoting it in some detail, but with the specific and somewhat selective perspective of its relevance to our argument concerning the current digital transformation of society. On the backdrop of the raging World War II, Fromm (1942) argues that … [the first] World War was regarded by many as the final struggle and its conclusion the ultimate victory for freedom. … But only a few years elapsed before new systems emerged which denied everything that men believed they had won in centuries of struggle. For the essence of these new systems, which effectively took command of man’s entire social and personal life, was the submission of all but a handful of men to an authority over which they had no control. … In the years that have elapsed since, … We have been compelled to recognize that millions in Germany were as eager to surrender their freedom as their fathers were to fight for it; that instead of wanting

Freedom in Surveillance Capitalism 115 freedom, they sought for ways of escape from it; that other millions were indifferent and did not believe the defence of freedom to be worth fighting and dying for. (2–3) Fundamentally, Fromm (1942) proposes a psychological perspective looking at the interrelations between the individual and society, including its culture. He defines psychological dynamism as an individual adaptation to external circumstances that leads to new internal creations like drives, anxieties, et cetera. Adapting to new conditions leads to a psychological dynamism of its own, which Fromm intends to explore. Besides survival needs and socio-economic requirements to satisfy them, this adaptability is driven by another fixed condition of human nature – the need to belong in the sense of overcoming isolation and moral aloneness. In the course of his argument, Fromm (1942) distinguishes ‘freedom from’ (26) instinctual determination of human actions from ‘freedom to’ (28) by which he means the freedom to govern oneself, positively realise the prior kind of freedom, and develop individuality. The growing freedom of humanity from its natural ties cannot entirely be reversed. Fromm (1942) thus conceptualises this individuation as a dialectic process of mastery of nature and growing freedom on the one hand, and isolation, insecurity, doubt concerning one’s role in the universe, powerlessness, and insignificance on the other. Phylogenetic ties to groups and clans restrict the evolution of one’s full potential while providing the individual with security, belonging, and structure instead of aloneness and doubt. On this basis, Fromm (1942) draws pointed assumptions on the relationship between society and the individual’s quest for freedom: … if the economic, social and political conditions on which the whole process of human individuation depends, do not offer a basis for the realization of individuality, … while at the same time people have lost those ties which gave them security, this lag makes freedom an unbearable burden. … Powerful tendencies arise to escape from this kind of freedom into submission or some kind of relationship to man and the world which promises relief from uncertainty, even if it deprives the individual of his freedom. (30) According to Fromm (1942), this leads either to a ‘panicky flight from freedom into new ties’ (30) or to indifference. Such processes, Fromm (1942) claims, can be traced through centuries of European and American history, particularly since the Reformation. His writings sound surprisingly contemporary: Then as now a vast sector of the population was threatened in its traditional way of life by revolutionary changes in the economic and social organization; especially was the middle class, as today, threatened by the power of

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While we will spare the reader an in-depth analysis of the Marxist underpinnings of Fromm’s work, knowing that this may be a weak point of our argument, some of Fromm’s (1942) observations on how economic organisation affects human beings merit attention. This is particularly the case for his view on advertising, since it forms a large part of the modern digital societal infrastructure, as is the case for the large internet companies from Google to Facebook and Twitter. Since, again, they seem almost like present-day observations, we quote a longer sequence of Fromm’s (1942) analysis: A vast sector of modern advertising is different; it does not appeal to reason but to emotion; like any other type of hypnoid suggestion, it tries to impress its objects emotionally and then make them submit intellectually. … As a matter of fact, these methods of dulling the capacity for critical thinking are more dangerous to our democracy than many of the open attacks against it. … Like the effect of advertising upon the customer, the methods of political propaganda tend to increase the feeling of insignificance of the individual voter. … All this does not mean that advertising and political propaganda overtly stress the individual’s insignificance. Quite the contrary; they flatter the individual by making him appear important, and by pretending that they appeal to his critical judgment, to his sense of discrimination. But these pretences are essentially a method to dull the individual’s suspicions and to help him fool himself as to the individual character of his decision. (110–112) So how can the mechanisms of flight be categorised? According to Fromm (1942), they take three forms, namely: (1) authoritarianism, (2) destructiveness, and (3) what he calls ‘automaton conformity’ (158): the withdrawal from oneself to adopt a personality offered by cultural patterns and societal expectations, removing the difference between the ‘I’ and the world and hence the conscious fear of being alone and powerless. The first mechanism consists of giving up one’s independent individual self and integrity in the sense that it is fused with something outside oneself with the purpose of acquiring strength by getting rid of the perceived burden of freedom. In the same vein, the lust for power as evident in fascism is an ‘expression of the inability of the individual self to stand alone and live. It is the desperate attempt to gain secondary strength where genuine strength is lacking’ (Fromm 1942: 139). This also includes submission to what is called ‘fate’ as an invisible authority. With the term ‘authority’ (141), Fromm (1942) ‘refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody superior

Freedom in Surveillance Capitalism 117 to him’ (141) or views an institution in this way. Authority can also appear in the internalised form of super-ego, or in the form of ‘‘anonymous’ authority’ (144) which refers to an atmosphere of subtle suggestion: But whereas in internalized authority the command, though an internal one, remains visible, in anonymous authority both command and commander have become invisible. It is like being fired at by an invisible enemy. There is nobody and nothing to fight back against. (144) Destructiveness is found where objects themselves which make a person feel powerless are destroyed, that is the object or other with which the individual feels forced to compare himself. Powerlessness and isolation also lead to anxiety as a source of destructiveness. If vital material or emotional interests are viewed as threatened by a person or the general world outside, anxiety is created and may be followed up by destructiveness. Another possible source of destructiveness is what Fromm (1942) calls the ‘thwarting of life’ (156). Being powerless and isolated leads to a blockade in sensual, emotional and intellectual realisation because it deprives the individual of inner security and spontaneity. As a consequence of a life unlived, destruction arises, albeit mitigated through cultural and societal conditions (Fromm 1942). Automaton conformity is compared by Fromm to animal disguise. With this mechanism, humans adjust to their surroundings in a way that makes them difficult to distinguish from other humans, preventing creativity and spontaneous mental acts. Societal conditions are the often hidden causes for a state he (1942) calls ‘pseudo thinking’ (166), a concept which seems to correspond to forms of Foucault’s concept of governmentality, as discussed in educational administration literature (e.g., Perryman et al. 2017; Hope 2015), where the thought perceived to be one’s own is not the result of one’s own activity of thinking rather than ‘the incorporation of extraneous patterns of thinking and feeling’ (Fromm 1942: 227); it is rationalised, however, as one’s own: The thought that is the result of active thinking is always new and original; original, not necessarily in the sense that others have not thought it before, but always in the sense that the person who thinks, has used thinking as a tool to discover something new in the world outside or inside himself. Rationalizations are essentially lacking this quality of discovering and uncovering; they only confirm the emotional prejudice existing in oneself. (167) In the same vein, humans rationalise decisions as their own. But the substitution of one’s self with a pseudo self or the loss of one’s self leave the individual intensely insecure (Fromm 1942). This also has inherent consequences for the relationship between freedom and democracy: modern democratic societies encourage automaton conformity,

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specifically the thwarting of life. They have ways of discouraging original thinking, as in last decades could be exemplified by the neoliberal model for education and quantitative performance measurement regimes (e.g., Ball 2003). This includes the social and cultural notion that issues are too complicated for the individual to understand. Likewise, modern democratic societies tend to discourage willingness: ‘modern man lives under the illusion that he knows what he wants, while he actually wants what he is supposed to want’ (Fromm 1942: 218). Yet Fromm (1942) considers it difficult to determine to what extent wishes are not one’s own, since, as he writes, authority in modern democratic states is anonymous authority by means of common sense and public opinion. He further argues that the loss of self comes with profound doubt of one’s identity, making it still more imperative to confirm others’ expectations to regain a certain amount of security: [modern] man … desperately clings to the notion of individuality; … handbags, playing cards, and portable radios are ‘personalized’, by having the initials of the owner put on them. … But since … he cannot experience life in the sense of spontaneous activity he takes as surrogate any kind of excitement and thrill … vicariously living the excitements of fictitious persons on the screen. (220) Despite a superficial display of initiative and optimism, it is a profound feeling of powerlessness that makes modern man ‘gaze towards approaching catastrophes as though he were paralysed’ (Fromm 1942: 220): ‘if we do not see the unconscious suffering of the average automatized person, then we fail to see the danger that threatens our culture from its human basis’ (221). The process of growing freedom, however, does not necessarily constitute a vicious cycle: ‘positive freedom consists in the spontaneous activity of the total, integrated personality’ (Fromm 1942: 222), which means the active and spontaneous expression of his intellectual and emotional potential. But spontaneity does not equate to acting compulsively or uncritically adopting outside suggestions; rather, it is displayed in the quality of creative activity in both its emotional and sensuous as well as its intellectual dimension. But why would spontaneity be the answer to the actual problem of freedom? Because, as Fromm (1942) argues, it enables human beings to unite themselves with the world without eliminating individuality either in terms of love, in terms of work, or in terms of participation in political life: ‘For the self is as strong as it is active’ (225), and by embracing the act of spontaneous living, the individual gains a new, dynamic kind of security. While Fromm (1942) views respect for the uniqueness of the self as the most important cultural achievement, he also sees it as threatened by economic tendencies. As he remarks: ‘In our culture, the emphasis is just the reverse. We produce not for a concrete satisfaction but for the abstract purpose of selling our commodity … The emphasis thus shifts … to the value of the finished product’ (226). Furthermore, Fromm (1942) conceptualises individuality as systematically lacking in economic life:

Freedom in Surveillance Capitalism 119 In the relation between the man who buys and the one who sells, the concrete differences of personality are eliminated. In this situation, only one thing matters, that the one has something to sell and the other has money to buy it.1 (228) Finally, he argues that in industrialised societies, only a small number of economic units can act with individual initiative (Fromm 1942). In modern political societies, Fromm (1942) contends, freedom has reached a critical juncture: The future of democracy depends on the realization of the individualism that has been the ideological aim of modern thought since the Renaissance. The cultural and political crisis of our day is not due to the fact that there is too much individualism, but that what we believe to be individualism has become an empty shell. The victory of freedom is possible only if democracy develops into a society in which the individual, his growth and happiness, is the aim and purpose of culture, in which life does not need any justification in success … and in which the individual is not subordinated to or manipulated by any power outside himself, be it the state or the economic machine; finally, a society in which his conscience and ideals are not the internalization of external demands, but are really his and express the aims that result from the peculiarity of his self. (232–233) While Fromm (1942) leaves no doubt that he considers upholding both representative democracy and civic rights as of fundamental essence, he envisions a form of government combining centralisation and decentralisation, combining planning from the top with active participation bottom-up, avoiding problems of over-bureaucratisation and having faith in the people’s capacity. Democracy can triumph only ‘if it can imbue people with a faith … in life and in truth, and in freedom as the active and spontaneous realization of the individual self’ (237). Following Fromm’s line of thought, authoritarianism, destructiveness and conformity could be countered by encouraging originality in a world of digitallydriven rapid transformation. While this might on the surface be perceived to lie at the heart of education, and therefore educational administration, it also creates new insecurities, and, with the rise of surveillance capitalism new mechanisms of submission and flight.

Digital Transformation As The Age of Surveillance Capitalism Whereas some of his considerations sound immediately relevant to modern society, Fromm (1942) could not foresee the rise of ‘surveillance capitalism’ (Zuboff 2019a: 8). While Zuboff (2019a) does not quote Fromm, her thinking looks like a natural conclusion of Fromm’s work on several levels. First, she roots

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her work in assumptions of capitalist development and the relevance of capitalist logic to the tension between new freedoms and the overwhelming forces of submission. Second, she comprehensively lays out the ways in which humans, seemingly increasing individuality, are being used and submit to automation. Third, she highlights the dangers to democratic government and political freedom in the new surveillance capitalist environment. As these propositions seem relevant to understanding the present-day pertinence of Fromm’s argument, we will lay them out in detail. At the outset of her argument, Zuboff (2019a) describes how the development of ‘smart home’ (6), conceptualised as ‘Aware Home’ (5), was originally meant as a symbiosis of people and their homes based on trust, simplicity, and sovereignty of the individual, where the individual was to clearly be knowledgeable and in control of information and its distribution, and information was supposed to be saved inside the networked technology used, such as wearables. In terms of Fromm (1942), the original rise of the smart connected device can thus be interpreted as increased freedom from natural restrictions such as sickness, intrusion of the home, or the like, enabling the individual to lead an effective, yet intimate life. A parallel could be seen in the implementation of digital technology for the purpose of supporting learning in school. As long as it can intimately be used by students, or by teachers to support learning according to individual requirements – like in using the potential of hypertexts – in the light of Fromm’s thinking such arrangements seem fine and require no specific attention from the perspective of educational administration. In the new market form Zuboff (2019a: 8) brands as ‘surveillance capitalism’, however, networked data are extracted by companies such as Google/Alphabet and Facebook/Meta for market purposes outside the reach of the individual inhabitant and for the purpose of wholesome exploitation, opposed to its original intention: Surveillance capitalism unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data. Although some of these data are applied to product or service improvement, the rest are declared as a proprietary behavioral surplus, fed into advanced manufacturing processes known as ‘machine intelligence’, and fabricated into prediction products that anticipate what you will do now, soon, and later. Finally, these prediction products are traded in a new kind of marketplace for behavioral predictions that I call behavioral futures markets. Surveillance capitalists have grown immensely wealthy from these trading operations, for many companies are eager to lay bets on our future behavior. (8) Surveillance capitalism differs from classical capitalism in several ways: (1) in the surveillance capitalists’ demand of both market freedom and total knowledge, which is distributed in classical market economy; (2) in the abdication of the reciprocity inherent in classical contracts; and (3) in its effectively collectivistic

Freedom in Surveillance Capitalism 121 totalitarian orientation (Zuboff 2019a). Zuboff (2019a) describes its claims of total rule over the human, societal and political spheres as a threat to liberal democracies through creeping decay, while promising security through predictability, transparency, confluence and the solution of mankind’s problems instead of chaos, uncertainty, abnormality, and conflict. Hence, the purpose of data extraction is to enable what Zuboff (2019a) calls ‘instrumentarianism’ (8) or ‘instrumentarian power’ (8) over the individual: the development of the market into a project of complete certainty, achieving social dominance through digitally-enabled behavioural modification, in contrast to totalitarianism’s political project of total possession by violent means (also Zuboff 2019b). Laying out the concept of instrumentarian power, she sets her argument up against ideas of behavioural engineering and the rejection of the notion of individual. Such notions, which can be found in Skinner’s utopia Walden II or his more contemporary writing Beyond Freedom and Dignity (Skinner 1973; Zuboff 2019a) are also present-day big data visions in the sphere of the companies of surveillance capitalism. Following Zuboff (2019a), instrumentarianism strives to organise and coordinate society in a machine-like social confluence by means of algorithmically predicted certainty and group pressure, and hence to replace politics and democracy, annihilating both the meaning of felt reality and individualised existence. As Zuboff (2015; 2019a) sees it, this also involves abdicating the right to future to Big Other, by which she means the computer and algorithm-based ubiquitous architecture of real-time data extraction and evaluation. Hence, the new form of capitalism creates what is akin to a new, superior means of production in the form of behavioural data or ‘means of behavioral modification’ (Zuboff 2019a: 11), relevant to both the administration of schools and of other areas of life (Zuboff 2015). A lawsuit brought in the year 2020 by the US Attorney General of New Mexico against Google Education, a technological environment used not only by more than half of American students (State of New Mexico vs. Google LLC 2020: 12) but by schools around the world, provides a good example. It alleges that while offered to schools, parents, and students as a free tool serving purely educational purposes, Google’s education platform is being used to ‘track and monitor students’ web browsing activities and other information not generated for or related to educational purposes what so ever … to vociferously collect childrens’ (and older students’ and educators’) personal and sensitive information for Google’s own commercial purpose’ (11–12), as Google also admitted in a 2016 US Congressional inquiry into the practice of Google Education concerning privacy. And while only the company itself knows the extent of the commercial uses it puts these data to, the lawsuit assumes that there is at least the purpose of creating future customers, and market products. Whereas Google has been a lead contender of purposeful intrusion, in the long term the argument applies more broadly for the integration of digital platforms into the schools’ learning environments, which tech companies in Germany and other countries have broadly succeeded at throughout the pandemic (Corrin 2021). As Kerssens and van Dijck (2021) argue from a Dutch perspective, the

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integration of educational platforms across schools, often lacking interoperability with other systems allows large platforms to pursue a strategy of intraoperability, aiming to connect platforms that can be controlled by one central actor to steer dataflows which are generated across the interconnected ecosystem, and turn them into assets. With her analysis, Zuboff (2019a) makes an argument that is similar to Max Weber’s proposition that technological development follows an economic orientation dictating its implementation (Weber 2013[1922]). But, as the description of the New Mexican lawsuit exemplifies, the new logic of technology-based exploitation differs from traditional market-based contracting in that the knowledge extracted from behavioural data without the individual’s knowledge is created in an asymmetric process. In this division of learning in society, the economic beneficiaries are third-party actors, not the individuals from whom the data is extracted (Zuboff 2015; 2019a), or the schools. Hence, this form of capitalism exploits anxieties of modernity, promoting freedom and unforeseen capabilities while using spaces free from legal regulation to create monopolies, not just within the original internet, but dominating all sectors of society, and transforming humans into inescapable objects of exploitation (Zuboff 2019a). As the New Mexican lawsuit alleges, though Google has publicly promised … that it only collects education-related data from students using its platform [and] … publicly promised never to mine student data for its own commercial purposes. … it secretly uses Google Education as a means to monitor children while they browse the internet, including their private homes, on their private computers and phones, and on their private networks. (State of New Mexico vs. Google LLC 2020: 2–3) According to the lawsuit, this behavioural surplus is being gathered in line with Google’s privacy notice (2021), albeit in a deceptive fashion in order to circumvent discovery: Outside of its Google Education platform, Google forbids children under the age of 13 in the United States from having their own Google accounts. … But Google attempts to get around this by using Google Education to secretly gain access to toves of information about … children it would not otherwise have. (State of New Mexico vs. Google LLC 2020: 3) Overall, as the New Mexican lawsuit also lays out, this approach contradicts the legal purposes of students’ data protection (State of New Mexico vs. Google LLC 2020; cf. Bundesverfassungsgericht 1983): ‘While purporting to offer only educational services, Google instead has stripped children and parents of autonomy and control of their most sensitive personal information, forcing children to acquiesce to constant monitoring, in perpetuity, in exchange for their

Freedom in Surveillance Capitalism 123 education’ (State of New Mexico vs. Google LLC 2020: 16). Zuboff (2019a) describes the result as a ‘Faustian compact’ (11). Despite the sacrifice of positive freedom, this pact involves that it is almost impossible to refrain from it since this would also mean to withdraw from an effective life and social participation and, in Fromm’s (1942) terms, live a life of increased isolation in the face of growing uncertainties related to digital transformation. By implementing such technology into the schools’ environments, school administrators become complicit in this compact (Wittmann 2018). According to Zuboff (2019a), the rise of surveillance capitalism follows a centuries’ long process of individualisation, particularly relevant in the history of education, forming our experience as individuals, which has already been frustrated with a biotope of neoliberal economy, damaging the self-worth of many by increasing inequity, exclusion and, competition, and countering dreams of a life in individual dignity and self-determination. Against this background, companies such as Google re-defined social relations by fundamentally ignoring and disrespecting borders of intimacy, as well as the moral integrity and the right to selfdetermination of the autonomous individual, covered both by a missing legal framework or its ignorance and the often compatible interests of the state. The promise has been one of stewardship and mutuality, seemingly focusing on the interests of the individual, not simply as customers, but also in terms of individual expression, at zero costs or prices affordable even to those left behind by the neoliberal economy. But, while in the sense of Fromm (1942) flattering the individual and dulling its suspicions, as Zuboff (2019a) lays out, surveillance capitalism bypasses the individual’s consciousness to create knowledge, and excludes the individual from control: Even when knowledge derived from your behavior is fed back to you in the first text as a quid pro quo for participation, the parallel secret operations of the shadow text capture surplus for crafting into prediction products destined for other marketplaces that are about you rather than for you. … Knowledge, authority, and power rest with surveillance capital, for which we are merely ‘human natural resources’. (327) And not, one might add, with teachers and educational administrators entrusted with this power. Hence, the world may be divided into those who are in a position not just to observe but to carry out behavioural experiments on a large scale by means of their own will, and the masses driven into the arms of guaranteed results for the purpose of other people’s profit (Zuboff 2019a). In Zuboff’s (2019a) view, ‘personalization’ (19), which is at the heart of the learning analytics discourse (Ifenthaler and Schumacher 2016), is the culmination of surveillance capitalism and commodification in the real world, while it factually removes and obliterates anything personal: instead of trust and mutuality of real-world contracts or professional relations, it promises to provide comfort, security and an effective life through predictive analytics and ensuing

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behavioural modification for the purpose of commodification. It must be notified that this concerns students, but also teachers, and as a consequence school administrators, not only in their custodian roles but since the teachers’ most private data may be collected in the process as well (e.g., State of New Mexico vs. Google LLC 2020). Zuboff (2019a) considers the result of the exercise of power of surveillance capitalism as, in her own terms, ‘automating’ (338) not just information on our behaviour, but our selves. When asked, individuals revolt against the intrusion of their private space and control over their personal data (e.g., Ifenthaler and Schumacher 2016). But paralleling Fromm’s (1942) thoughts on automaton conformity, we use rationalisation to justify our submission to the seemingly inevitable regime of surveillance capitalism: Our dependency is at the heart of the commercial surveillance project, in which our felt needs for effective life vie against the inclination to resist its bold incursions. This conflict produces a psychic numbing that inures us to the realities of being tracked, parsed, mined, and modified. It disposes us to rationalize the situation in resigned cynicism, create excuses that operate like defense mechanisms (‘I have nothing to hide’), or find other ways to stick our heads in the sand, choosing ignorance out of frustration and helplessness. In this way, surveillance capitalism imposes a fundamentally illegitimate choice that twenty-first-century individuals should not have to make, and its normalization leaves us singing in our chains. (Zuboff 2019a: 11) The prime remedy against this, writes Zuboff (2019a), is the will against the tyranny of digitally-predicted certainty, and the will for the fallibility of mutual promises and collaborative solutions to problems, that is – in the words of Fromm (1942) – positive freedom. She proposes the ‘right to sanctuary’ (Zuboff 2019a: 475), by which she means the refuge necessary to develop identity and creativity, particularly in the unobserved home, or, one might add, education. Because what matters, Zuboff (2019a) argues, is an understanding by young people – and, one might add, teachers and school administrators – that … effectiveness without autonomy is not effective, dependency-induced compliance is no social contract, a hive with no exit can never be a home, experience without sanctuary is but a shadow, a life that requires hiding is no life, touch without feel reveals no truth, and freedom from uncertainty is no freedom. (522–523) Whereas, particularly in the context of the European GDPR, it may be debated to which extent the problems outlined by Zuboff (2019a) exist for the introduction of personalised analytics in the European and German contexts (for a comprehensive and differentiated debate cf. Hoel 2020), the problem persists, if only because of the intraoperability thematic. Yet, as Hoel (2020) argues, based

Freedom in Surveillance Capitalism 125 on empirical findings, teachers’ interest in the technological intricacies of such problems may be limited. For school administrators, but also for teachers in their respective administrative roles this matters because school principals are likely to play a significant role in engaging in public administration discourses, at least at the community level, selecting technological environments for the school, weighing them with the students right to participate in school without resigning on privacy, and guiding the use of these environments. But teachers in their roles as administrators and policy translators may also play a significant positive role in discovering their own positive freedom by the shaping of policies through the influence of their unions, with regard to discussions about the question of which systems are implemented in the schools, or what role freedom and privacy play in the organisational culture of the school when it comes to privacy requests for themselves and their students (Ifenthaler and Schumacher 2016).

Educating School Administrators and Teachers in The Age of Ubiquitous Computing: The Need for Anthropological Education But how are students in education, both in their roles as teachers and as novice educational administrators supposed to acquire an understanding of these essential aspects of being human, the new reality, and the requirements and intricacies of their future roles within it? And who is supposed to convey such an understanding to the new generation? First of all, both educators and educational administrators themselves are unequipped to frame the new reality theoretically. Whereas historical frameworks of education have often drawn from a broader framework of anthropology, questions of what constitutes humans, under which conditions they strive, and what this implies for education from a normative point of view have been largely cut out of educational frameworks in favour of the enhancement of a narrow psychological orientation. Sweeping away traditional programmes in the name of outcome orientation (e.g., Darling-Hammond 2006), the preparation of novice teachers and educational administrators, as well as research surrounding it, have in recent decades become dominated by psychological notions, specifically of teaching and learning. One might note that this narrow psychological orientation may itself to some extent be an expression of the pursuit of security described above. As Fromm and Xirau (1968) put it, ‘Determinism has generally been opposed to freedom. … Such is also the case in some aspects of behaviorist psychology whenever it reduces human actions to conditioned reflexes and sets of conditions reflexes’ (13). We would argue that here is no need to restrict this criticism to behaviourism. For example, whereas Nobel laureate and well-known representative of cognitive psychology Herbert A. Simon (1977) states that ‘Perhaps the most important question of all about the computer is what it has done and will do to man’s view of himself and his place in the universe’ (1190), he concludes:

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Eveline Wittmann and Aldin Striković The empirical evidence provides no support for the claim sometimes made that the computer ‘mechanizes’ and ‘dehumanizes’ work. Perhaps the greatest significance of the computer lies in its impact on Man’s view of himself. No longer accepting the geocentric view of the universe, he now begins to learn that mind, too, is a phenomenon of nature, explainable in terms of simple mechanisms. Thus, the computer aids him to obey, for the first time, the ancient injunction, ‘Know thyself’. (1191)

Whilst we agree that the computer and all of its societal consequences today challenge us to reconsider the nature of what makes us human, by claiming that knowing ourselves equates to knowledge of the human mind and its ‘simple mechanisms’ (Simon 1977: 1191) this reasoning falls short not only of recognising the social and cultural meaning of experience and the complexities of human development but our own existential quest for meaning. The behaviouristic and computationally-oriented cognitivist view of man negates differences between man and computer and promotes – in Zuboff’s (2019a) view – the promise of the tyranny of certainty. By excluding other social paradigms (Ladson-Billings 2006), particularly by falling short of philosophical and anthropological foundations, creates a void regarding the resulting knowledge base in a phase of fundamental threats to free and democratic societies. It must be noted that Fromm himself warned about shortcomings in this area in his 1968 writings on the industrial society in the computer age; warning that computers should not become an end unto themselves, but a means for enlightened ends, based on knowledge of ‘human nature, its various possible manifestations, its optimal forms of development, and the real needs conducive to this development. That is to say, human beings, not technique, must become the ultimate source of values’ (Fromm 1968: 96). In a similar vein, Kereluik et al. (2013) identify ‘humanistic’ (127) knowledge as a core demand in the context of technological modernisation, and conclude that it should also be required as part of the knowledge base for teacher education (see Hassan, Mingers and Stahl 2018; Rowe 2018). However, as Wittmann and Neuweg (2021) argue in-depth, even if an anthropological knowledge base were agreed upon, an anthropologically grounded understanding of the digital world would be unlikely to emerge, taught by educators, or applied by school administrators for that matter, in ways that translate into action, mostly because the digital world evades our frame of experience. What discerns the new state from previous human experience is that, whereas internet companies have arrived in the new order and are able to exploit it, for ordinary citizens the data-driven reality mostly defies any kind of palpable experience. Whilst anthropological knowledge is required to counter the current situation, it must therefore be taught in ways that allow young people to experience and recognise concrete situations where freedom is at stake in this age, and take the decision to act upon it. Finally, the Bologna Process has also left a legacy of heavy regulation, leading itself to the submission of many scholars in education, making curricular changes

Freedom in Surveillance Capitalism 127 not just a choice of a singular professor or lecturer inclined to exert the possibilities of positive freedom but of a whole institutional body. As Matei (2020a) argues more broadly, the Bologna Process has led to standards and institutions for quality assurance and accreditation, credit transfer and a new degree structure, as well as, in its wake, institutional autonomy. What has been missing in this process from the beginning is an intellectual underpinning of academic freedom of the individual academics, to the effect that not only institutional policies for academic freedom at the university levels are mostly missing, but even the academics themselves lack a conceptual understanding of academic freedom (also Matei 2020b). This leaves universities ill-equipped for making major, fast changes required to confront the lack of an anthropological underpinning in educational programmes, specifically when the thrust of reform with regard to digital transformation in the European Higher Education Area mostly refers to skills development for the digital age (Orr et al. 2020). Hence, the lack of anthropological education in the modern generation of educational administrators themselves, as well as teachers in their roles as educational administrators, the non-palpable nature of the digital world, and both the nature of Bologna-based university regulation and the digitalised environment compelling submission all make it unlikely that such an effort can succeed.

Note 1 A related understanding can be found in Marx’s writings: ‘But here individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are the personifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class-relations and class-interests’ (Marx, 2007/ 1867: 15).

References Ball, S.J. (2003) ‘The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity’, Journal of Education Policy, 18: 215–228. 0.1080/0268093022000043065 Bauer, J. and Prenzel, M. (2012) ‘European teacher training reforms’, Science, 336: 1642–1643. 10.1126/science.1218387 Bundesverfassungsgericht (1983) Begrü ndung v. 14. Dezember 1983 zum Urteil des Ersten Senats vom 15. Dezember 1983 (1 BvR 209/83, Rn. 146). [Federal Constitutional Court (1983) Rationale for the 14/12/1983 ruling of the First Senate, 15 December 1983] Corrin, L. (2021) ‘Shifting to digital: A policy perspective on ‘Student perceptions of privacy principles for learning analytics’ (Ifenthaler and Schumacher 2016)’, Educational Technology Research and Development, 69: 353–356. 10.1007/ s11423-020-09922-x Darling-Hammond, L. (2006) ‘Constructing 21st century teacher education’, Journal of Teacher Education, 57: 300–314. 10.1177%2F0022487105285962 Fromm, E. (1942) The Fear of Freedom, London: Routledge & Kagan. Fromm, E. (1968) The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology, New York: Harper & Row.

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Fromm, E., and Xirau, R. (1968) ‘Introduction’, in E. Fromm and R. Xirau (eds.) The Nature of Man. Readings (3–24), New York: Macmillan. Google Workspace for Education Privacy Notice (2021). Online at https:// workspace.google.com/terms/education_privacy.html (accessed 6 May 2021). Hassan, R.H., Mingers, J. and Stahl, B. (2018) ‘Philosophy and information systems: Where are we and where should we go?’, European Journal of Information Systems, 27: 263–277. 10.1080/0960085X.2018.1470776 Hoel, T. (2020) Privacy for learning analytics in the age of big data – exploring conditions for design of privacy solutions. Doctoral Dissertation. University of Jyväskylä. Online at http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-39-8190-7 (accessed 10 May 2021). Hope, A. (2015) ‘Governmentality and the “selling” of school surveillance devices’, The Sociological Review, 63: 840–857. 10.1111/1467-954X.12279 Ifenthaler, D. and Schumacher, C. (2016) ‘Student perceptions of privacy principles for learning analytics’, Educational Technology Research and Development, 64: 923–938. 10.1007/s11423-016-9477-y Kereluik, K., Mishra, P., Fahnoe, C. and Terry, L. (2013) ‘What knowledge is of most worth: Teacher knowledge for 21st century learning’, Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 29: 127–140. 10.1080/21532974.2013.10784716 Kerssens, N. and van Dijck, J. (2021) ‘The platformization of primary education in The Netherlands’, Learning, Media and Technology, 46: 250–263. 10.1080/1743 9884.2021.1876725 Ladson-Billings, G. (2006) ‘It’s not the culture of poverty, it’s the poverty of culture: The problem with teacher education’, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 37: 104–109. 10.3102%2F0013189X035007003 Marx, K. (2007[1867]) Capital: A Critique of Political Economy – The Process of Capitalist Production (Vol. I – Part I), New York: Cosimo Inc. Matei, L. (2020a) ‘Charting Academic Freedom in Europe’, in A. Curaj, L. Deca and R. Pricopie (eds.) European Higher Education Area: Challenges for a New Decade (455–464), Cham: Springer. 10.1007/978-3-030-56316-5_28 Matei, L. (2020b) ‘Academic freedom in the European Higher Education Area: Crisis or celebration?’, in S. Noorda, P. Scott and M. Vukasovic (eds) Bologna Process beyond 2020: Fundamental Values of the EHEA (21–25), Bologna: Bononia University Press. Online at http://bolognaprocess2019.it/wp-content/uploads/ 2020/07/bologna-process-beyond-2020.pdf (accessed 27 November 2020). Orr, D., Rampelt, F. and Knoth, A. (2020) ‘Bologna digital – Actively shaping the digital transformation in European higher education’, in A. Curaj, L. Deca and R. Pricopie (eds.) European Higher Education Area: Challenges for a New Decade (583–596), Cham: Springer. 10.1007/978-3-030-56316-5_28 Perryman, J., Ball, S.J., Braun, A. and Maguire, M. (2017) ‘Translating policy: Governmentality and the reflective teacher’, Journal of Education Policy, 32: 745–756. 10.1080/02680939.2017.1309072 Rowe, F. (2018) ‘Being critical is good, but better with philosophy! From digital transformation and values to the future of IS research’, European Journal of Information Systems, 27: 380–393. 10.1080/0960085X.2018.1471789 Simon, H.A. (1977) ‘What computers mean for man and society’, Science, 195: 1186–1191. 10.1126/science.195.4283.1186 Skinner, B.F. (1973) Beyond Freedom and Dignity, London: Penguin.

Freedom in Surveillance Capitalism 129 State of New Mexico vs. Google LLC (2020) 1:20-cv-00143. Online at https://www. nmag.gov/uploads/PressRelease/48737699ae174b30ac51a7eb286e661f/AG_ Balderas_Sues_Google_for_Illegally_Collecting_Personal_Data_of_New_Mexican_ School_Children.pdf (accessed 6 May 2021). Weber, M. (2013[1922]) Economy and Society (Vol. 1), Berkeley: University of California Press. Wilde, L. (2000) ‘In search of solidarity: The ethical politics of Erich Fromm (1900–1980)’, Contemporary Politics, 6: 37–54. 10.1080/135697700109958 Winter, J.S. (2008) ‘Emerging policy problems related to ubiquitous computing: Negotiating stakeholders’ visions of the future’, Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 21: 191–203. 10.1007/s12130-008-9058-4 Wittmann, E. (2018) ‘Systemic maladministration in the digital age: Serving the individual or bureaucracy in educational administration?’, in E.A. Samier and P. Milley (eds.) International Perspectives on Maladministration in Educational Administration(63–74), London: Routledge. Wittmann, E., and Neuweg, G.-H. (2021) ‘Die digitale Transformation als Herausforderung für den Hintergrund unseres Wissens’ [‘The digital transformation as a challenge for the background of our knowledge’], in K. Beck and F. Oser (eds.) Aktuelle Resultate und Probleme der Berufsbildungsforschung(265–277), Bielefeld: Wbv. Zuboff, S. (2015) ‘Big other. Surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information civilization’, Journal of Information Technology, 30: 75–89. 10.1057/ jit.2015.5 Zuboff, S. (2019a) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, London: Profile. Zuboff, S. (2019b) ‘Surveillance capitalism and the challenge of collective action’, New Labor Forum, 28: 10–29. 10.1177%2F1095796018819461

Part III

Contemporary Issues and Cases Internationally

8

The Meaning of Voice in our Search for Authenticity Christopher Bezzina

‘Life is like a path you beat while you walk it’ - Antonio Machado

Introduction When one writes about issues related to qualities, attributes essential for life, we are exploring what it means to be human – to pursue a particular way of life, a life based on moral principles calling for an ethical behaviour that is central to our lives and that of others. The main thrust of this chapter resonates with the call made by Don Soderquist (2006) who encourages us to ‘live, learn and lead’ to make a difference. As we strive to live an authentic life, we are open to others – whether through our daily encounters, our readings, our daily recollections – hence linking our thoughts, words, and actions. Preparing for this chapter has provided me with another opportunity to engage with some articles I have recently read and also an opportunity to think of my past, my upbringing. Maybe it’s the age factor creeping in! Or, more likely, how what we have experienced over the years, starting from our childhood, leaves not only an imprint on us but eventually on others – family, friends, colleagues, and strangers. Two central issues that are behind this chapter and that, I believe, have helped shape who I am today is the importance of leading an authentic life, one based on moral values and, linked to this, is that of voice, the importance behind the nurturing of opportunities for all those in a community to share their views and opinions openly and thus creating opportunities for mutual influence. I grew up in a family where my brother and I were encouraged to listen to each other, to share our views, our opinions, our feelings openly. No one held back. I have fond memories of the time we spent together in the evening over dinner. It was a special time when we all came together. It was a time to share all that we had been through that particular day, to share our experiences, our concerns, our dreams. The moral behind that experience was to appreciate the importance behind sharing; the openness towards each other and others; the importance behind reflecting on our actions; of being ‘better’ tomorrow. As I grew older, I realised that this time was not just about listening to each other, but an opportunity to foster those values, attributes, qualities needed for

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life – for our growth as we learnt from and with each other. This upbringing also influenced my role as a teacher as I used pedagogies that encouraged children to come together, listen to each other, challenge each other, ask questions, learn collaboratively. The effective teacher is one who aims to influence the child as a whole person. As Quaglia (2016) so beautifully articulates it, ‘You have a gift of opportunity – the ability to positively influence the lives of students’ (48). It is also a way of relating with my friends and colleagues in whichever community I formed part of. It influenced the way I looked at the importance of relationships in teaching and leading. I still cherish such moments both as a son and as a father. However, in a world that is too focused on the relentless pursuit of materialistic things, on individualism, we may neglect what Dhiman (2017) describes as ‘the inner workings of the human spirit’ (1). This is where authenticity becomes intricately linked to our pursuit of the collective voice. Dhiman (2017) argues that: Never before in the history of humankind has there been a greater need for exemplary leaders – leaders who are both good and great, leaders who can show us a way out of our current moral morass and spiritual chaos. We need holistic leaders and holistic systems that are able to integrate the spiritual and the material perspectives in a dialectical manner. The traditional forms of leadership and organizational structures are proving inadequate to deal with changing reality that is complex, multidimensional, and virtual. We need new thinking, new structures, and new metaphors of resonance to dance with the emergent reality. We can no longer afford to view leadership as a position to wield authority or power. Leadership signifies a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, mutuality, commitment, and a shared vision of the good of the broader society. Holistic leadership splendidly fulfils all these requirements. (1–2) As various authors attest, leadership is most challenging during difficult times. In a world characterised by uncertainty, a world where issues of social injustice, the flight of immigrants from Africa into Europe, acts of terrorism, growing poverty, an overwhelming number of scandals, and more, inflict our societies, many believe that there is a blatant abuse of power and unethical behaviour that has resulted in the public losing trust in organisations and their leaders (Covey 2005; George et al. 2007). Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the way it has upended the very way teachers practice their profession, is, as I write, posing a threat to the health of those involved. Whilst, as the editor in chief of Scientific American, Laura Helmuth (2020), states ‘the world will emerge from this crisis with a better understanding of pathogens, public health, the research process, and the importance of making decisions based on the best evidence’ (3), within the educational arena it presents us with an opportunity to stop, reflect and

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explore the values, attributes, actions that need to take place to foster engagement, involvement, that sense of care and sense of inclusion that Bourke and Espedido (2020) describe as essential in these unprecedented times. Whilst we do need to rediscover these ‘moments’ in our communities, the challenge is to ensure that the concerns raised by Ball (2003) that relationships between workers no longer have value or meaning, professional judgement is subordinated to the requirements of performativity and where there is no place for a ‘shared moral language’ (226) is addressed. The challenge is to work within this pervasive culture. The points raised so far resonate with a recent article I read by Peter Cappelli (2020) on people management in companies. He argues that whilst over the past four decades the belief in worker empowerment has been ascendant, recent years have seen a movement to treat ‘labor as a commodity, and the goal is to cut it to a minimum by replacing employees with contractors, gig workers, and software. … Ideal behaviors are dictated to the remaining employees, who are closely monitored for compliance’ (59). Cappelli argues that companies should not choose optimisation over empowerment. Instead, organisations should make an effort to find the right mix of the two and that treating people like machines is dangerous. His concluding statement says it all: ‘It may be easier to ignore people, but we’re still here. It matters greatly to consider our needs and interests, and effective leaders have to take that into account’ (63). This reminds me of the work of Michael Apple (1987) who argued against deskilling the teaching profession (Wong 2006). If we want to take ‘adult’ learning seriously then issues of voice, trust, empowerment, growth become fundamental principles that are upheld and lived by all. This is what this chapter emphasises and explores. In numerous research studies conducted over the years in varied contexts, involving a variety of cultures, effective leaders share various traits/characteristics, namely self-awareness, honesty, humility, openness, presence, empathy, patience, cultural intelligence, communication, and motivation (Collins 2001; Day et al. 2016; George 2003; Goleman 2011; Harris 2008; Harvard Business Review 2018; Schein and Schein 2018). The search for authenticity, integrity, trust, an ethical stance in and among members within institutions is very much a reality (Avolio and Gardner 2005; Bennis 2009; Bourke and Espedido 2020; Unal 2019; Zenger and Folkman 2002). As Duignan (1998) points out, ‘authenticity in leadership calls for a radical shift away from much of the traditional, conventional wisdom about leadership’ (20). It is a move away from a quest for personal greatness to one that focuses on a belief in human potential and development – both one’s own and other people’s. As Henna Inam (2015) put it: ‘Authentic leadership is the full expression of “me” for the benefit of “we”’ (7). Leaders are needed who are true to themselves and who can then, in turn, be true to others. One of the major exponents of authentic leadership, Bill George (2003), argued that there are five dimensions to authentic leadership, namely passion, values, relationships, self-discipline, and heart. And throughout their lives, authentic leaders do their utmost to develop them. This perspective, this

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belief, aims to challenge the sense of professional isolation that embraces the life of educators, to challenge the fixed mindset that can hinder institutions from fostering collegial practices, and nurture a growth mindset (Dweck 2017) that gives meaning and relevance to teacher ‘voice’. This resonates with the point raised by Covey (1992): We see that people are not just resources or assets, not just economic, social, and psychological beings. They are also spiritual beings; they want meaning, a sense of doing something that matters. People do not want to work for a cause with little meaning, even though it taps their mental capacities to their fullest. There must be purposes that lift them, and bring them to their highest selves. (178–179) This quote highlights the importance of principle-centred leadership, a leadership that has its source in the intellect, heart, mind, and souls of individuals and is sustained through meaningful relationships (Fullan 2017; Glaze 2018). At the same time, it illustrates some of the central ingredients behind the type of educational leadership needed in our countries and our educational institutions to act as a driving force that can spur us through this millennium and create more value for society. The paradigm shift that is taking place is one that focuses on the whole person, on people who want to be seen as having an important part to play in the field of educational development in their respective institutions. They are therefore searching to give meaning to their existence as individuals (Duignan 1998; Zepeda 2019) and as part of the learning community (Brazer et al. 2019; Hargreaves and O’Connor 2018; Kruse and Johnson 2017). Covey’s quote also highlights that leadership and how it is defined and practised very much depends on the cultural conditions in which we work at the micro and macro levels; the field we are dealing with; the context in which it has developed over the years; the nature of its constituents; the issues involved; the agendas and predispositions of our leaders and policy makers; and the unique personalities which make up our organisations at the systems and school levels. This is the discourse that applies to all those – researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners – who believe in the need to break down existing practices, modes of thinking, and leading; develop webs of learning relationships within, between, and across different levels of the education system. The concept of leadership has to be understood within this wider context if countries/institutions want to make leadership not only directly meaningful but relevant to people’s lives. The main argument I am putting forward is that leaders need to open windows of opportunity and nurture the internal capacity of all teachers in our schools. In such a context Munch’s The Scream (1893) symbolises the ‘voice’ of our educators who need to become central to development and improvement. Munch’s art, and, more importantly, his message represents a call for expression, a determined effort to engage, to allow educators to nurture a collaborative spirit, build a community that is both relevant and meaningful in a context that is

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weighed with anxiety and uncertainty. Munch’s work represents a break with the contemporary dominating style of naturalism with an emphasis on inner vision rather than observation of nature. He believed that an artist should not transcribe external reality but should record the impact a remembered scene had on his own sensibility (Lubow 2006: 1). It is with this in mind that we are presented with the challenge to express our views, our opinions – to be or rather become authentic in our encounters: encounters that help us to reflect and challenge the context, our current leadership styles, current engagements, the pedagogies of teaching and learning. Our becoming who we are comes from our intentions and actions. It resonates with the view of Aristotle, the influential Greek philosopher from the first century BCE who said, ‘We are what we repeatedly do.’ Only in this way can we be true to one’s self.

Theoretical Framework In a context in which values, attitudes and behaviour are critical to address the various challenges we face in society in general the way we look at teacher professional learning is crucial. The argument put forward here, which is far from new, shows a move from professional development to professional learning, one where learning is at the centre of our endeavours as educators, hence moving away from ‘being trained or developed to becoming active learners’ (Easton 2008: 755), to shift from professional development to job-embedded professional learning, learning that occurs as teachers and school leaders engage in their daily work activities (Islas 2010). As argued elsewhere (Bezzina and Bufalino 2019, 2014), a society that is based on what Somerville (2004) described as ‘intense individualism’ can lead to a sense of isolation and disengagement. This, together with an educational context that is compliance-driven and with highstakes accountability leads educators to set ‘aside personal beliefs and commitments and live an existence of calculation’ (Ball 2003: 215). The argument put forward in this chapter is one that recognises the important role that learning can bring to each individual within a learning community, one where educators learn by doing, reflecting on experiences, generating and sharing new insights, and learning with oneself and others (Wood and McQuarrie 1999). Indeed, individuals discover a deeper sense of meaning and relevance only within a community (Crippen 2010). Over the past three decades, a professional learning community (PLC) has taken root as one of the ‘most prominent features of teacher organization in schools’ (Kruse and Johnson 2017: 589). Though definitions of the term PLC may vary, I argue that the quest of school leaders should be to establish PLCs in order to foster and harness collaborative practices that lead to what Lambert (2003) described as ‘leadership capacity.’ This quest is a journey that helps us to appreciate where we are and to work towards where we want to be. Leadership capacity is about understanding, communicating with one another, and establishing ways and means of taking our moral purpose forward.

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Professional Learning Communities The first ideas of professional learning communities (PLCs) started circulating under various banners around three decades ago – learning organisations (Senge 1990), deliberately designed collaborative cultures (Fullan and Hargreaves 1992), communities of practice (Wenger 1998), and professional communities (Hord 1997; Talbert and McLaughlin 1994), and more recently collaborative professionalism (Hargreaves and O’Connor 2018). Whilst there is no universal definition in the literature about what a PLC is, Stoll et al. (2006) refer to it as ‘a group of people sharing and critically interrogating their practice in an ongoing, reflective, collaborative, inclusive, learning-oriented, growth-promoting way; operating as a collective enterprise’ (223). It involves the collective capacity of all people in the organisation (DuFour and Eaker 1998; DuFour et al. 2006). Myers and Simpson (1998) described learning communities as ‘cultural settings in which everyone learns, in which every individual is an integral part, and in which every participant is responsible for both the learning and the overall well-being of everyone else’ (2). Collay et al. (1998) took this a step further, arguing that in a learning community, individual, and collective growth are not only cherished but the processes for attaining that growth is valued. Seashore et al. (2003) stated that: By using the term professional learning community we signify our interest not only in discrete acts of teacher sharing, but in the establishment of a schoolwide culture that makes collaboration expected, inclusive, genuine, ongoing, and focused on critically examining practice to improve student outcomes. (3) Through collaborative efforts, a community of learners creates synergy where the power of the group is more profound than that of any one individual (Covey 1992; Senge 1990). In the learning community structure, all ‘teachers participate in decision making and take joint responsibility for outcomes of their work’ (Harris 2003: 321). Given the recursive nature of mutual inquiry on practice, members can ‘discover, create and negotiate new meanings that improve their practice’ (Skerrett 2010: 648). A review of the literature shows that there are core principles, what DuFour et al. (2017) call ‘big ideas’ (11) that are behind a PLC, and these are a focus on learning, a collaborative culture, and collective responsibility, and a results orientation. The literature abounds as to the characteristics that need to be nurtured for the core principles to bear fruition. In the next section, a brief review of these characteristics and dimensions is reviewed. This will serve to highlight how voice is central to the way we can conceptualise development of our educators, and that leaders need to solicit authenticity for learning to take place. For PLCs to flourish the way we look at leadership and how it impacts individuals and institutions, we need to focus on relationships and how relationships are central to personal, collective, and cultural development. For, as

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Hoerr (2005) argued ‘leadership is about relationships’ (7). This is further reinforced by Spillane (2005) who promotes a concept of leadership as a ‘product of the interactions of school leaders, followers and context, rather than a result of the knowledge and skills of leaders’ (144), and therefore the need to focus on what can be done to unearth the potential of all educators. Different leadership models can be brought to life so that we can improve ourselves, our schools, and student success (both cognitive and affective). These leadership models are not new to us and have been discussed extensively in the research literature, including models such as teacher leadership (Brazer et al. 2019; Reeves 2008), distributed leadership (Hargreaves and O’Connor 2018; Harris 2008), transformational leadership (Avolio et al. 1999; Stringer and Hourani 2015), and followership (Bernerth and Walker 2009; Thody 2003). In fact, authentic leadership can be described as a multi-dimensional leadership theory (Covelli and Mason 2017), that whilst having similarities to other models, the focus naturally is on authenticity and how to foster development in self and others within a positive ethical climate (Walumbwa et al. 2008). Authentic leaders consistently use ethical reasoning and a moral compass to make and support their decisions, which support a moral organisational culture that is self-sustaining; followers then work to emulate the ethical behaviour of their leaders (Datta 2015). The main argument behind such models is that educators need to be deeply committed to cultivating their capacity to serve an ideal, a moral purpose (Begley 2001; George and Sims 2007). The dynamic proposed by such models shows a focus on the way educators generate ideas and seek to reflect on the many and varied situations they encounter and engage in, building and creating meaning as life unfolds. As people search for meaning and engage in meaningful encounters, the value of authenticity stands out as vitally important. It is not the place here to discuss the role of meaningfulness (i.e., the meaning of work in our life) as a construct; however, studies (e.g., Saĝnak and Kuruöz 2017; Schnell et al. 2013) have helped us to appreciate that one of the basic mechanisms that make work meaningful is authenticity (Lips-Wiersma and Morris 2009; Rosso et al. 2010; Zhou 2014). That is scope for another paper. However, the value of authenticity, integrity, and trust among members of institutions becomes important as people come together to build the learning community which is first and foremost a ‘community of minds’ (Sergiovanni 2001: 177). Here, leaders play an essential role in cultivating shared leadership. The literature has shown how that whilst good leaders change organisations, it is great leaders that change the people who are at the heart of any organisation and especially a school community. And, it is through the change of people that an environment that facilitates learning can be developed (Day et al. 2016).

The Characteristics of A Professional Learning Community If schools are to develop into PLCs they would need to develop the structural conditions that would help the school nurture the characteristics necessary for

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improvement and strengthened through a moral commitment based on a strong core of ethical values. Given the focus on voice, the voice of both the individual and the group as a community, I will mainly explore the elements that are behind the PLC, namely reflective dialogue, deprivation of practice, collaboration, shared values and norms, collective focus on student learning (e.g., Caine and Caine 2011; DuFour and Eaker 1998; Kruse et al. 1995; Roberts and Pruitt 2009), networked PLCs (Hargreaves 2007; Katz and Earl 2010; Prenger et al. 2019) and system-wide collaboration and networking (Harris and Jones 2010). I will not go into an explanation of these characteristics but highlight the main thread that has emerged over the years that brings out the importance behind nurturing a leadership that encompasses the potential capacity of teachers and school leaders, and now taking us beyond the school as a community to potential networking with other schools and organisations. With such an orientation, leadership has a desired impact on the person who reaches out to others – adults and students alike. The importance behind teacher leadership thus extends beyond the individual classroom as leaders work alongside, with, and for teachers. Once we decide to explore current practices, we are engaging with practical implications. This understanding is necessary, as it will lead to increasing the level of collaboration in our schools. As school leaders and teachers reflect on the following aspects it will help them see what really matters in their day-to-day practices and whether they see themselves as learners who wish to give of themselves to a worthy cause, a cause that requires that we lead authentic lives together as a community. As Goffee and Jones (2018) note, ‘when people care about something … they are more likely to show their true selves. They will not only communicate authenticity … but they will show that they are doing more than just playing a role’ (93).

Nurturing A Collaborative Culture As suggested here, leading and learning are deeply intertwined. Relationships are ‘reciprocal’ and rely on ‘purposeful learning in a community’ (Lambert 2003: 2). Reciprocity helps all educators to connect and to build relationships that emphasise co-learning. It is here that building the collective capacity of staff comes in, leading to collective action. The definition I subscribe to is the one proposed by Walker and Riordan (2010) who state: Collective capacity refers to the ways people work together in schools to improve student learning and lives. We hold that building this capacity hinges on the personal and professional relationships formed within the school and the development of a shared set of values and understandings that guide action. Leaders in both formal and informal roles play a pivotal role in nurturing these relationships and the development of shared values. (51)

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Wasonga and Murphy (2007) described this as co-creating leadership through which people’s values, knowledge, experiences, relationships, and intuitions are worked and evolved. How can we go about co-creating leadership? To do this, we need to develop what can be described as professional growth options. School leaders and teachers need to come together to reflect on their own current practices and to engage in ways that achieve the ultimate goal of developing and sustaining teacher leadership. The intent is to help educators come together, nurture empowerment, and engage in networked learning – all of which help to energise, strengthen self and collective efficacy, and nurture meaning and community (Tschannen-Moran and Barr 2004). The growth options that need to be explored highlight the importance of making connections (Bezzina 2020; Crippen 2010) as educators are provided varied opportunities to come together to engage in structured dialogue, observing each other, co-preparing, and co-teaching. Teacher leadership is about modelling, and educators need to create opportunities to put teacher modelling into practice. Within this context, the way we look at professional development both at the school level and systems level has to change. As noted by the OECD (2016) report, high-achieving nations treat teachers as professionals, and they do so by providing sustained and extensive opportunities for teachers to work collaboratively and collegially. If we are focusing on working well with others, we need to look into teacher efficacy. DeWitt (2020) states that there are four areas of efficacy, namely selfefficacy, leadership efficacy, collective teacher efficacy, and collective leader efficacy. These four aspects are interrelated and intertwined. Naturally, self-efficacy is critical. A positive growth mindset allows us to look at the issues that confront us as challenges that alone and/or with the help of others we can address and overcome. I believe that this growth mindset can be enriched if the collective is strong. Self-efficacy can be seen as the confidence we have in ourselves, and collective teacher efficacy is the confidence we have in and as a group. DeWitt notes that whilst it may be easy to define collective efficacy it may be hard to build. He argues that ‘while most of us [teachers] share a passion either for teaching children or for a particular subject’ (100), working with adults can be both challenging and frustrating, and to work effectively in a group we have to have a great deal of trust. Trust is an essential factor in building the high-quality relationships needed to foster that collective efficacy. It is the social glue that will keep the education community intact and effective (Venables 2018). Where trust exists, teachers demonstrate a greater willingness to collaborate with each other to achieve stated goals. In fact, the study of teams has shown that a group will achieve more collectively than its members can working individually as in this type of environment leadership does not belong to an individual but to groups of people (Celeste 2016; Searle and Swartz 2015; Tait and Faulkner 2019). When individuals pool their efforts and ideas an added dimension is created. Each member within the group is both a resource providing expertise and ability and a recipient. People working in teams are able to extend each other’s potential. Sharing ideas, values,

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feelings, knowledge, attitudes, and thoughts is extremely productive in dealing with tasks and handling innovation and change. This type of climate helps all members of the team to pool in their expertise (Gronn 2002) and makes them more committed towards the organisation (Dee et al. 2006). The central role that school leaders play here is unquestionable. They need to make sure that they foster diverse voices in school endeavours. They can promote trust within the school by first fostering trust between themselves and their staff. Teachers need to have a tremendous voice – they need to be heard and supported in their learning endeavours (Zepeda 2019). Calvert (2016) situates teacher agency within the context of professional learning, asserting that within that context, ‘teacher agency is the capacity of teachers to act purposefully and constructively to direct their professional growth and contribute to the growth of their colleagues’ (4, emphasis in original). By championing voice and agency, there may be a greater chance that teachers will engage in the type of learning that leads to change and development in their practices. However, such practices can only take place if we make time for collaboration if we create the ‘context beliefs’ (Leithwood and Mascall 2008) which will help teachers in what they do. As DuFour et al. (2017) argue: Reciprocal accountability demands that leaders who ask educators to work in collaborative teams provide those educators with time to meet during their contractual day. We believe it is insincere for any system or school leader to stress the importance of collaboration and then fail to provide time for it. (64) Therefore, the ‘structural conditions’ that Kruse et al. (1995) identified as critical for PLCs to succeed are essential. At the same time, we have to acknowledge that many school systems across the globe face real-world constraints in providing such time for collaboration. This implies that whilst school leaders need to set up the dynamic in which teachers feel adequately supported to ensure that they engage collegially, system leaders must provide schools the leeway to create the learning opportunities that are needed. This can only happen when the education authorities and teacher trade unions agree that learning is an integral part of teaching and not an add-on. This is critical if we want to encourage networked learning not only within schools but across schools, across networks, and involving other organisations within the community. Bazerman (2020) emphasises the value of time and argues that we need to use time to ‘create value’ (7), value for those who come together. Viewed in this way, time is not just a structural construct which is needed but as an opportunity to take responsibility for relationships, for opening doors for communication to flourish. Biraghi et al. (2017) argue for ‘conversational leadership’ as a means of crafting relationships with people especially in times of disruption and growing complexity. Communication allows people to learn and understand each other, respect each other, and nurture the trust essential to take organisations forward.

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End Note This chapter has been about the importance of nurturing ‘voice’ to create a learning community. Getting people to do what is best – for themselves, their school, the community – is a difficult undertaking. The principles that school leaders will need to uphold are based on personal integrity, credibility, and trusting relationships (Frei and Morriss 2020; Hallam et al. 2015; Sundheim 2020), and a commitment to ethical and moral values such as compassion, humility, and service (Begley 2001; Bufalino 2015). It is through the authentic witness of such qualities that school structures, processes, and practices will be built, nurtured, and sustained. Such leaders are therefore providing the encouragement, the time, and other conditions that permit teachers to engage in collaborative and collegial initiatives. The culture of a community of learners permits the teachers in a school to view themselves as members of a team of learners and leaders, rather than as participants in the traditional leader-follower roles (Roberts and Pruitt 2009). Such leaders help to instil a sense of excitement in educators and ‘stir our souls’ as Teal (1996: 42) so rightly states. Authentic leaders help to identify and celebrate the social core of human nature. They help to bring individual talents to fruition, create values, and combine these activities with enough passion to generate the greater possible advantages for every group member. The message of this chapter can be summarised through the words of George et al. (2007): For authentic leaders … no individual achievement can equal the pleasure of leading a group of people to achieve a worthy goal. When you cross the finish line together, all the pain and suffering you may have experienced quickly vanishes. It is replaced by a deep inner satisfaction that you have empowered others and thus made the world a better place. That’s the challenge and fulfilment of authentic leadership. (138)

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9

The Scream and the ‘Dependent Beauty’ of Betsy DeVos Fenwick W. English

Introduction Of all of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s 1,700 paintings, The Scream is by far the most famous (Nairne 2020). When he painted it in 1893, he was dealing with the terrible fear of losing one’s mind. Munch lived on the edge because by the time he was 26, ‘he had already grieved the deaths of his mother, his sister, and his father and he was prone to alcoholism and nervous exhaustion’ (Nairne 2020: C2). When The Scream was first publicly shown, it caused such a commotion that the exhibit was closed (Strickland and Boswell 2017: 123). The Scream has engendered a huge range of non-aesthetic functions, so much so that it created a kind of ‘double aesthetic functionality (Zangwill 2012: 118) in which the non-aesthetic attributes transformed the original painting, creating a new form of the aesthetic work. Kant (1928) called this phenomenon a kind of ‘dependent beauty’ in which the beauty of the original work becomes dependent on the ascendant non-functions. This chapter posits that in national educational leadership today in the United States, the federal Education Secretary, Betsy Devos (dehVOSS), had come to embody at least a co-dependent or interdependency between the Scream’s emotionality and despair mingled with the leadership of an ideologue and her anti-public education, neo-liberal agenda based on the ideology of privatisation and profit from the world of business.

Background: The American Federal Department of Education The Constitution of the United States allocates education to the respective states in the Tenth Amendment. Although there had been a Department of Education in the US federal government since 1868, it was often located within other larger departments. However, as a result of a political agreement between President Jimmy Carter and the National Education Association (the nation’s largest teachers’ union), Congress created a separate Department of Education in 1980 (Tallerico 2006).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003145288-12

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Almost immediately, the Republicans made the abolition of the Department of Education a masthead public goal. When Ronald Reagan assumed the Presidency, the Republicans acted on their promise to disband it. They appointed Ted Bell, a moderate Republican as Secretary of Education with the express goal of abolishing the Department of Education, even though he had publicly testified in Congress in support of the concept of a Secretary of Education. Bell’s Reagan Cabinet Memoir The Thirteenth Man (1988) reveals Bell’s change of heart when he wrote, ‘We needed [italics original] a cabinet department and a secretary of education’ (70). The Secretary of Education position became over time a hotly contested battleground. The position became the jumping-off point for Republican education goals such as charter schools, vouchers, and various schemes for privatisation of public schools as well as finding a way to funnel public funds for education into private and religious schools. And since its beginning, the Education Department has been a place where the political party in power used some of its offices to comfortably place their political cronies, keeping them on the government payroll and out of the limelight (Schmidt 2017: A24). In fact, there are approximately 4,000 career staffers at the Department of Education along with 150 political appointees (Klein 2017: 1–12) supported by a $68 billion budget (Collins 2017: A21).

The Royal Rich in Western Michigan Even before her nomination to become Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos had established herself as an effective spokesperson, advocate, agitator, and sponsor of neoliberal propositions, a funder and backer of neoliberal politicians and causes, largely in her home State of Michigan. In this journey, DeVos was aided by being linked to two of the wealthiest families in the nation, the DeVos’ and the Princes of Holland, Michigan. Edgar Prince became one of the super-rich individuals who created a fortune manufacturing auto parts. His religious views came to be one of the most influential supporters on the hard Christian right. Betsy DeVos attended private Christian schools in Holland, Michigan, as did her brothers and sisters. When working at the 1976 Republican Convention in Kansas City, Missouri she met Dick DeVos. They were married in 1979. Dick was the son of Richard DeVos, one of the two founders of Amway Corporation, and grew it with his partner Jay Van Andel, ‘into a global enterprise with more than $8.6 billion in sales in 2017, more than 17,000 employees, and hundreds of thousands of independent sales people’ (Schneider 2018: B15). Today the DeVos/Prince combined fortune is estimated to be worth $5 billion (Rizga 2017). The DeVoses became active in funding organisations that complied with their religious and political views or creating them from scratch. In addition The DeVoses were devout members of the Dutch Reformed Church, a renegade branch of Calvinism brought to America by Dutch immigrants … By the 1970s, the church had become a vibrant and, some would say,

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vitriolic center of the Christian Right. Members crusaded against abortion, homosexuality, feminism, and modern science that conflicted with their teachings. Extreme free-market economic theories rejecting government intervention and venerating hard work and success in the Calvinist tradition were also embraced by many followers. Within this community of extreme views, no family was more extreme or more active than the DeVoses. (Mayer 2016: 230) This mixture of fundamentalist religious beliefs stirred together with free market economic theories proved to be a toxic concoction for the idea of government regulation of the environment and education among many other functions. Bourdieu (1993) refers to the impact of neoliberal ideologies on state programmes for the poor as leading to the desertion of services which assisted the disadvantaged and as ‘the destruction of the idea of public service’ (182). In order for their money to make a difference in politics, the DeVoses created many political organisations that encapsulated their religious and political views. No goal was more important than reversing or erasing the one that put limits on political spending in elections. The DeVoses funded the James Madison Center for Free Speech where Betsy DeVos served as a founding board member. This DeVos think tank was instrumental in ending federal campaign law in the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision:‘Recently the DeVoses disclosed a lifetime giving tally of more than $1 billion, spread across five family foundations’ (Reitman 2017: 17).

Christian Nationalism: Doing God’s Work The DeVoses are fervent believers in dominionism. This perspective has also been described as ‘Christian Nationalism’ anchored in an apocalyptic vision of a basic struggle against an ideology ‘that is anti-Christ, anti-Biblical to its core’ (Stewart 2020: A23). Christian nationalism is grounded on ‘the theocratic idea that regardless of view, means, or timetable, Christians are called by God to exercise dominion over every aspect of society by taking control of political and cultural institutions’ (Clarkson 2016: 2). Dominionists believe that: (1) the United States was once a Christian nation and should once more become one; and (2) they should promote religious supremacy, ‘insofar as they generally do not respect the equality of other religions, or even other versions of Christianity’(2). Finally, dominionists adhere to the belief that the country should be run by ‘biblical law’ based on the Ten Commandments (3), and only when the nation was totally Christian for a thousand years would Jesus return (4). Stewart (2020) cautions that while Christian Nationalism looks like a grass roots movement from the ground up, ‘it is in fact a political movement that operates mostly from the top down’ led by leaders who are ‘profoundly hostile to democracy and pluralism’. These leaders ‘are as committed to free-market fundamentalism as they are to reactionary religion’ (A29). Their main agenda is to tax low and restrict regulation in order to maximise profits.

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The DeVoses reveal their national religious biases in how they frame their lives and work. When Betsy began to climb the political ladder in Michigan she found herself first the county ‘Grand Old Party’ (GOP) (the Republican Party) and then serving four terms (1996–2005) as the State GOP chair. ‘If anybody had asked me a few years ago if I had ever wanted to be a state party chairman of a partisan party, I would have said “no,”’ Betsy said in 2001. ‘God put me in those places’ (Reitman 2017: 8). Similarly, the private charitable donations of the DeVoses clearly reveal their preferences. From 1999 to 2014, the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation gave out $2.39 million to the Grand Rapids Christian High School Association, $652,000 to the Ada Christian School, and $458,000 to Holland Christian Schools. All told, their foundation contributed $8.6 million to private religious schools-a reflection of the DeVoses’ lifelong dedication to building ‘God’s kingdom’ through education. (Rizga 2017: 33) During that same fifteen year period, the DeVoses gave $59,750 to public schools. Dick and Betsy also revealed their Dominionist beliefs in remarks that have become public, and the motive behind their lack of support for public education. They advocated school choice because it ‘leads to “greater Kingdom gain”’ and were critical of public schools because ‘… public schools have “displaced” the Church as the center of communities, and they cite school choice as a way to reverse that troubling trend’ (Wermund 2016: 2). The evangelistic major goal of Dominionism: Is a sweeping overhaul of society and a merging of church and state: elevating private charity over state-run social services, returning prayer to school and turning the clock back on women’s and LGBTQ rights. It would also be a system without a progressive income tax, collective bargaining, environmental regulation, publicly funded health care, welfare, a minimum wage – a United States guided by a rigorously laissez-faire of ‘values’ rather than laws. (Reitman 2017: 5) Doing’s God work does not include paying taxes or trying to avoid paying them. Amway co-founder Richard DeVos (Betsy’s father-in-law) pleaded guilty to defrauding the Canadian Government of $22 million in customs duties. He paid a $20 million dollar fine. Dick and Betsy DeVos were also facing fines for transgressing Ohio’s campaign finance law to the tune of $5.2 million (Mayer 2016: 15). In Michigan, Scheiber (2017) said of Betsy DeVos and her husband Dick: They have this moralized sense of the free market that leads to this total program to turn back the ideas of the New Deal, welfare state … she

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represents the combination of wealth, free-market ideology and political hardball associated with a better known family of billionaires: Charles and David Koch. (2; see also Schulman 2014) Betsy DeVos became a legend in Michigan. One veteran Republican lawmaker in the State Senate once remarked, ‘I would never underestimate Betsy DeVos in a knife fight’ (Scheiber 2017: 4).

Becoming Trump’s Federal Secretary of Education When Donald Trump nominated Betsy DeVos to be the Federal Secretary of Education, a near spontaneous negative outcry, akin to the Munchian Scream, echoed from national and state educational and political groups with the loudest protests from teacher unions. In 2012, the DeVoses had worked to defeat an effort promoted by unions that would have inserted collective bargaining rights in Michigan’s State Constitution (Kelderman 2017c: A20). Randi Weingarten, the President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) called Mrs. DeVos ‘the most ideological, antipublic education nominee for education secretary since the position was created by President Jimmy Carter’ (Schmidt 2017: A24). Later, Ms. Weingarten tinged her criticism by noting, ‘Unfortunately, just like climate change deniers deny the facts, Betsy DeVos is a public school denier, denying the good in our public schools and their foundational place in our democracy’ (Taranto 2017: A11). Still, many other groups found much to worry about with Mrs. DeVos’ attitudes towards gay rights ‘including some members of Congress, and survivors of sexual assault have also raised concerns about Ms. DeVos. They question whether her conservative religious upbringing and free-market ideals will lead her to weaken enforcement of Title IX’ (Kelderman 2017b: A21), the United States federal law prohibiting gender discrimination or bias in an institutional setting. The New York Times wrote on its editorial page headline ‘Big Worries about Betsy DeVos’ (2017a: A20): … Ms. DeVos and her husband Dick DeVos, have investments in some 250 companies registered to a single … address … Beyond erasing concerns about her many possible financial conflicts, Ms. DeVos also faces a big challenge in explaining the damage she’s done to public education in her home state, Michigan. She has poured money into charter schools advocacy, winning legislative changes that have reduced oversight and accountability. About 80 percent of the charter schools in Michigan are operated by for profit companies, far higher than anywhere else. (A20) DeVos denied she was out to destroy public schools, but in her past, she has called them a ‘monopoly’ and ‘a dead end’ (Wermund 2016: 1). And her staunch

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neoliberal perspective propelled her to say in one of her speeches in 2015 that, ‘Government really sucks’ (Kelderman 2017c: A20). The sentiment at least is embodied in the neoliberal economists F.A. Hayek (2011) and Milton Friedman (1962). The thinking of these two economists has supplied the intellectual ideology behind the kind of neoliberalism now at work in dismantling public education, and Betsy DeVos is the point person to make it happen and using federal (taxpayer) funds to support this disruptive agenda and hollowing out of public financial support for public education (Zernike 2016: A1, A23). When her disclosure of her interests in various companies was finally filed, it consisted of 108 pages of financial disclosures, ‘Longer than the one Mr. Trump himself filed last year’ (Goldstein et al. 2017: A21). One of the ventures near and dear to the DeVoses was Neurocare, a biofeedback company, ‘that operates drugfree “brain performance centers” that ‘promotes results that are nothing short of stunning: improvements reported by 91 percent of patients with depression, 90 percent with A.D.H.D., 90 percent with anxiety’ (Fink et al. 2017: A1). The main method of approach to such claims is the practice of showing films to patients and then interrupting them when they become divorced from the films in order to retrain their brains. Neurocare has not published its results in peer-reviewed medical literature. Its techniques – including mapping brain waves to diagnose problems and using neurofeedback, a form of biofeedback, to treat them – are not considered standards of care for the majority of the disorders it treats. Social workers, not doctors, diagnose patients, and low-paid technicians with little training apply the methods to patients, including children with complex problems. (Fink et al. 2017: A1–A21) Mrs. DeVos indicated that, if confirmed, she would resign from Neurocare’s Board but retain her financial interest in the company. Neurocare was founded by a ‘licensed psychologist with a master’s degree’ who worked at the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was originally called ‘Hope 139 after Psalm 139 from the Bible’ (Fink et al. 2017: A21). The cost for Neurocare is $2000.00 for 30 treatments. However, the Michigan State Department of Insurance and Financial Services upheld a judgment against paying for Neurocare for migraine headaches announcing that the ‘treatment was under investigation’ (Goldstein et al. 2017: A21). One of the major concerns of the claims made by Neurocare rested on a recent study of its methods that was released to the public. However, experts who have examined the study found that the evidence was ‘misleading at best’ (Herold 2017: 24) and noted four major flaws with it. First, the study was undertaken by Neurocare staff and not an external group of non-involved outsiders. Second, there was no control group or even a matched comparison group so it was not possible to really know if the effects were caused by the Neurocare treatments. Thirdly, the study failed to acknowledge if the participants were receiving other

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kinds of treatments along with the Neurocare ones. Fourthly, the journal in which the study was reported did not have a solid reputation for publishing reliable research in the neuroscience field. Todd Thompson, a neuroscientist and researcher at MIT also pointed out, ‘it’s impossible to know if the Neurocare treatment is genuinely novel and effective, or if it is instead a very expensive placebo’ (Herold 2017: 24). The next venture of the company was to create twelve-week boot camps to help senior citizens who were experiencing memory problems. Rebecca Maynard, a professor of education and policy at the University of Pennsylvania was especially concerned that the touting of such a study did not signal that the Department of Education was abandoning a commitment to highquality research. ‘At the very least, I hope [DeVos] will leave in place people who actually understand research and the ways to judge the credibility of evidence’ (Herold 2017: 24).

The Devos Debacle Before The Senate Sub-Committee Once nominated, Betsy DeVos had to appear before the Senate Sub-Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to engage in what is known as a confirmation hearing. Within this process it was revealed that she had engaged in plagiarism in the answers she submitted to the sub-committee. In answering a question concerning the bullying of LGBT students DeVos wrote, ‘Every child deserves to attend school in a safe, supportive environment where they can learn, thrive, and grow’ (Torrence 2017: 2). These were the same words which appeared ‘in a press release from an Obama administration official, department materials and a trade magazine, and were not cited by DeVos in her answers to the committee’ (Torrence 2017: 2). Another factor in considering Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education was that when the public hearings were held, she had not completed a required ethics review. Concern was raised about the tentacles of the DeVos’ empire being the subject of a conflict of interest in the 250 companies they owned. Among them was Social Finance in which ‘there are reports that the DeVoses are indirect investors in Social Finance, Inc., a private company that refinances student loans’ (New York Times 2017a: A20). Sensing the vulnerability of Betsy Devos’ lack of knowledge of education, the Chairperson of the Senate sub-committee, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, took action to limit each Senator to only five minutes of questioning with no followup questions allowed and no second round of questions permitted (Zernike 2017). Clearly, this was not going to be an occasion for a lengthy exploration of the nominated Secretary of Education’s philosophy or priorities if confirmed. In her actual sub-committee hearing that dismayed followers and emboldened critics, her answers left even her supporters aghast. When asked if she agreed with the principal that schools are no place for guns, she declined to support that idea remarking, ‘I will defer back to Sen. Enzi and the school he was talking about in Wyoming, I think probably there, I would

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imagine that there is probably a gun in the schools to protect from potential grizzlies [bears]’ (Strauss 2017: 1). In the next set of questions, Mrs. DeVos was asked if she would enforce a federal civil rights law regarding students with disabilities. She answered that she would leave it to the states to determine that. When she was informed that IDEA [the title of the federal law] had to be enforced from the federal level because it was a federal and not state law, Mrs. DeVos replied, ‘I may have confused it’ (Hughes 2017: A3). Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia posed a question regarding the type of oversight she would provide as Secretary when he queried, ‘If confirmed will you insist upon equal accountability in any K-12 school or educational program that receives taxpayer funding whether public, public charter or private?’ Mrs. DeVos declared, ‘I support accountability’ (Strauss 2017: 2). Then the two danced around one another with Kaine continuing to insist on a response. Finally, Kaine pressed her, ‘Let me ask you this. I think all schools that receive taxpayer funding should be equally accountable, Do you agree?’ DeVos finally retorted, ‘Well no’ (Strauss 2017: 2). One of the most contentious issues facing the Department of Education is the growth of for-profit universities. Several had recently gone bankrupt leaving thousands of their students to fend for themselves. Even President Trump got involved in a lawsuit when students who had purchased education at Trump University sued and won a settlement in court for defrauding some 3,730 students. Trump University was then closed (Eder and Medina 2017). The for-profits receive a huge percentage of their income because their students have applied for federal loans. Many of the students then appealed paying off the loans to the Department of Education saying that they were defrauded by false promises and outright lies. When queried by Senator Elizabeth Warren if she [DeVos] would ensure that there was no waste, fraud, or abuse from the forprofits she replied she would be vigilant in reviewing such issues. This response drew a petulant Senator’s rebuke that there were already rules on the books and all DeVos would have to do is to enforce them (Strauss 2017: 3). On a matter of understanding some matters of current pedagogy, Mrs. DeVos was asked by Senator Franken that if in the current debate about using test scores for accountability purposes she would use them to measure student proficiency or student growth? Mrs. DeVos drew a blank to which Senator Franken remarked, ‘It surprises me that you don’t know this issue’ (Rizga 2017: 32). Despite these clearly insufficient and in some cases embarrassing responses, Mrs. DeVos was approved by the sub-committee in a 12-11 vote falling along party lines to go to the full Senate for confirmation. When two Republican Senators indicated that they were going to vote against Mrs. DeVos in the confirmation vote the New York Times declared in an editorial: ‘Needed: 1 More No Vote on Ms. DeVos’, and made an urgent plea for one more Republican to cross the aisle and vote not to confirm her. There are few more telling examples of Mr. Trump’s disdain for the federal government’s critical

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role in lifting up America’s schoolchildren than his choice of Ms. DeVos … Mr. Alexander [the Republican chairperson of the Sub-Committee] didn’t give senators much time to question Ms. DeVos, but it was sufficient to reveal her near total unfamiliarity with public education law, standards and even problems. A conservative ideologue, she fell back on most policy questions to an assertion that states should make their own rules even on matters of federal law, like access for handicapped children. She robotically refused to answer whether she would hold charter schools and other public schools equally accountable. She drew national ridicule when she rejected the notion of gunfree zones around schools, saying guns might come in handy for shooting ‘potential grizzlies’. (New York Times 2017b: A26) In the brief interim period between her initial sub-committee testimony and the final confirmation vote, long time billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad who had himself invested millions in public school reform came out against confirming Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education calling her ‘unprepared and unqualified for the position’ (Savage 2017: 2). When the full Senate vote finally occurred the result was a 50-50 tie. It was clear that the necessary one more vote never materialised. In this case, Trump’s Vice President, Mike Pence, cast the deciding vote to confirm her. ‘Mr. Pence’s vote marked the first time a vice president has broken a tie to confirm a cabinet secretary’ (Mitchell et al. 2017: A1). Betsy DeVos basically bought her job. Behind the scenes, a Washington Post analysis of campaign financial records revealed that ‘she and her family members had given more than $800,000 to a total of 20 U.S. Senators during the 2014 and 2016 election cycles, including at least $250,000 to five members of the Senate sub-committee that will consider her nomination this month’ (Kelderman 2017c: A20). If you think that this was all in the interest of unbiased support for the good of public education one must think again about what she wrote in a Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call in 2016: I know a little something about soft money, as my family is the largest single contributor of soft money to the national Republican Party. I have decided, however to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect somethings in return. We expect to foster a conservative governing philosophy consisting of limited government and respect for traditional American virtues. We expect the Republican Party to use the money to promote these policies, and yes to win elections. ‘People like us,’ she concluded archly, ‘must surely be stopped’. (Mayer 2016: 235–236) ‘Mrs. DeVos was sworn in by Mr. Pence [the Vice President] Tuesday evening’ (Mitchell et al. 2017: A1). In an editorial in the New York Times, they opined,

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‘Betsy DeVos’ nomination is not about making public education more effective, or helping publicly schooled children succeed; it’s about blowing up the system without a clue as to what comes next’ (2017b: A26). After her razor-thin confirmation vote of 51-50, she wrote on Twitter, ‘I am honored to work with the president elect on his vision to make American education great again. The status quo is not acceptable’ (Zernike 2016: A23). Several months later Mrs. DeVos thought back on her botched confirmation hearing and blamed her staff for being ‘under coached’. A former Department of Education senior staff member retorted, ‘This is a pattern where DeVos throws staff under the bus’ (Harris 2017a: A40). Mrs. DeVos’ performance as an Education Department Secretary was marred by a non-profit group report, American Oversight, that in her first six months she had ‘frequent days off’ (Harris 2017a: A40). In the case of Betsy DeVos, she came to her office as a thirty-year advocate and philanthropic funder of school choice, vouchers, anti-teacher union opponents, and privatization of public funds into non-public schools, even if those nonpublic schools were religious. … Mrs. DeVos’ efforts to expand educational opportunity in her home state of Michigan and across the country have focused little on existing public schools, and almost entirely on establishing newer, more entrepreneurial models to compete with traditional schools for students and money. Her donations and advocacy go almost entirely toward groups seeking to move students and money away from what Mr. Trump calls ‘failing government schools’. (Zernike 2016: A1–A23) And with a thirty-year track record of prodigious lobbying and funding in her home state of Michigan the results are plain to see. First, the number of charter schools in just three school districts in Michigan (Detroit, Flint, and Grand Rapids) have the tenth largest share of students in charters in the nation, and 80% of these are operated by for-profit organisations. The amount of money that is involved in the operations of those charters is about $1 billion annually (Zernike, 2016). ‘The DeVoses, the most prominent name in state Republican politics, have been the biggest financial and political backers of the effort’ (Zernike, 2016: A23). The DeVoses’ efforts have not been successful in improving the schools either, as ‘most charter schools perform below the state average’ (Zernike, 2016: 23). What’s even more compelling is that the DeVoses were responsible for lobbying for the defeat of legislation in Michigan that would have established accountability for those charter schools and closed those which were failing. Their political/religious/economic agenda is to promote choice and advance/avoid or defeat attempts to regulate their businesses and for-profit or religious centred schools, even if they are failing.

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Betsy Devos At Work The neoliberal portrait of Betsy DeVos which emerged during her Senate confirmation hearing began to unfold almost immediately as she took office. The neoliberal ideologies that were manifested in DeVos’ initiatives and activities were the bedrock beliefs that: • • • • • •

Political freedom and economic freedoms are conjoined Political freedom is compromised by monopolies Unions and professional schools restrict voluntary exchange The role of government is to foster competitive markets Government interference works against creativity and progress Change will entail creative destruction of current institutional frameworks (English and Papa 2018: 5–8)

Some of the issues to which she responded were peculiar to higher education, namely the federal regulations pertaining to for-profit colleges and universities and student debt. Another issue were the rules involving sexual assault or discrimination on the basis of gender under Title IX, the federal law which prohibited sex discrimination. When it came to issues in the world of elementary and secondary education, DeVos’ allegiance to using public funds for private and religious schools was tested in her approach to budgeting for the Department of Education’s activities.

The issue of for-profit universities and student debt The Higher Education Act of 1965 ‘which created the federal student loan program, authorizes the education secretary to ‘compromise, waive or release’ federal student loan debts’ (Cowley and Siegel 2020: B3). Kelderman (2018: B20) announced his view of Devos’ higher education policy early in her tenure at the Department of Education as that of relentless de-regulation. DeVos framed her support of de-regulation in a speech she gave some three years earlier when she said, ‘Government prefers control and tightly defined systems. It fears entrepreneurs, open systems, and crowd sourcing all of which they find threatening’ (Kelderman 2018: B20). Her support for the for-profit sector of higher education was made clear in one of her early administrative choices to assist her as Secretary of Education. She brought to her office Robert Eitel as special assistant, a lawyer who had spent eighteen months defending a for-profit company, Bridgepoint Education Inc., which was facing several government investigations and later settled a $30 million lawsuit for deceptive advertising (Cohen 2017: A1). Mr. Eitel’s employment in the Education Department did not have to have Senate approval. Bridgepoint Education Inc. operated two for-profit universities, Ashford University and University of the Rockies that enrolled approximately 50,000 students for online programmes and degrees. It was under investigation by the Securities Exchange

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Commission for exceeding Education Department guidelines that limit its revenue from federal student aid to no more than 90%. If this figure is exceeded for two years in a row, then the Department can cancel its avenue to operational funds. Also, Bridgepoint agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by the Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ‘to refund students $23.5 million and pay an $8 million civil penalty to resolve an inquiry into whether students were deceived into taking out private student loans that cost more than advertised’ … Rohit Chopra, a former assistant director of the CFPB commented, ‘There’s no question that there’s a fastmoving revolving door between the Education Department and the industries that it regulates’ (Cohen 2017: A1). One of Mr. Eitel’s major responsibilities was to help the Department ‘roll back regulations governing the for-profit college sector’ (Cohen 2017: A1). There were at least two major issues facing the Education Department as it pertained to the for-profit universities. The first was the fraudulent advertising approaches used by many of the for-profit colleges to deceive potential students about the credibility of the programs they offered and the degrees obtained from them. The second was the amount of student debt that students of the for-profit institutions accepted in order to graduate, only to discover their degrees were not valued nor did they deliver on their promise of employment as a result of obtaining them. The Obama administration put into place two provisions. The first was called the ‘gainful employment’ rule which penalised ‘programs whose graduates’ loan payments exceed a set percentage of their earnings’ (Harris 2017b: A21). The second was known as the ‘defense-to-repayment … gives borrowers who say they have been defrauded by their colleges a simpler process for having their loans forgiven by the federal government’ (Harris 2017b: A21). For-profit colleges found both of these regulations obnoxious and discriminatory against them. A nasty confrontation emerged between House Democrats and Betsy DeVos in 2019 when they threatened to subpoena her because officials of her Department were engaged in obstruction of their investigation into why the Education Department permitted the operators of two for-profit institutions to receive funds when they were losing their accreditation. The nexus of the dispute centred on why the Education Department had funnelled some $10 million in student aid to Dream Center Education Holdings, a Christian charity that had purchased the ownership of approximately 100 schools and 50,000 students. The Dream Center was notified that their accreditation was about to be cancelled. If a for-profit school is not accredited it cannot qualify to receive federal loans to its students. According to Camera (2019), ‘Dream Center continued operating the schools and, according to documents … enrolled new students while misrepresenting its accreditation, allow it to bank millions in federal financial aid dollars’ (3). The Devos approach – a political strategy to limit liability – was to take a threepronged response. First, disengage from all other federal agencies in pursuit of the excesses of the for-profit education sector so that only the Education Department would be involved in oversight. Secondly, to the greatest extent

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possible, de-regulate the for-profit sector so that there were fewer and fewer criteria for them to fail on compliance. Thirdly, limit the liability of the for-profit members by eliminating or diminishing the grounds upon which a student could seek recompense for being duped by a for-profit institution. It wasn’t long before career workers in the Education Department noticed that work within the Department on dealing with abusive practices of the pro-profits had ground to a halt (Cohen 2017). Some of the upper levels of Department administration were now staffed by former executives of the for-profit sector ‘to free the industry from oversight’ (Green 2018b: A14). Aaron Ament, the president of the National Student Legal Defense Network warned, ‘With the stroke of a pen, Secretary DeVos and her team of former for-profit college executives have proposed giving fraudulent institutions de facto immunity while effectively stripping their victims of a realistic path to debt relief’ (Green 2018b: A14). DeVos executives then took steps to curtail work with other federal and state agencies from regulatory enforcement and collaboration without upper-level approval. The DeVos Education Department also took steps to ‘sever ties between the Education Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’: The bureau has had surprising success identifying some of the worst cases of fraud and abuse in the for-profit industry. Since its establishment in 2011, it has successfully investigated institutions like ITT Tech and reached multihundred million settlements with mega-institutions like Corinthian Colleges. Key to the success of the bureau was data sharing with the Education Department, allowing careful tracking of abuses. (Angulo 2017: A52) When it came to dealing with student debt and loan forgiveness, the Devos approach was to set the standard higher than they were before in the prior Obama administration. Her proposal would only make institutions responsible if they could show ‘reckless disregard’ through false and deceptive claims. The Devos rules were anticipated to save the government some $700 million per year but, Advocates for student borrowers said that savings was nothing to cheer. The new rules would establish insurmountable barriers to relief for many vulnerable students, and would eliminate accountability for institutions that employ predatory tactics in recruitment and advertising. (Green, 2018b: A14) The for-profits said that student lawsuits could be brought against them for what they complained were possibly frivolous excuses. Mrs. DeVos inserted herself in the middle of this dispute by blocking the Obama rules announcing she would rewrite them. One consequence was, as federal enforcement was being scaled back, some states began picking up the slack and moved to crack down on loaning abuses by for-profit institutions. The Education Department then moved to block the states from doing so by announcing that ‘Federal loans are federal

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assets and therefore must be controlled and regulated by the federal government’ (Thrush 2018: A18). This assertion brought a sharp response from a former employee in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: As state law enforcement officials and legislators across the political spectrum stand up for student loan borrowers who have been ripped off at every turn, Donald Trump and Betsy Devos have instead chosen to protect companies engaged in rampant illegal practices… At stake is the financial future of millions of Americans and a trillion dollar black hole in our financial markets. (Thrush 2018: A18) The DeVos’ revised rules were criticised heavily by students who had accrued huge debt because it made it that much harder to qualify for loan forgiveness. Trump had said that he would forgive loan debt for permanently disabled veterans so the DeVos rewrite regarding student debt provoked ire and resentment and a potential loss of a block of voters to Trump. In the past, veterans have been considered an easy target for predatory for-profit inducements and suddenly went broke and left their students with no degrees or worthless degrees and mountains of debt, increasing the requirements for loan forgiveness was tantamount to a declaration of war. At one point in the battle for whose rules would prevail the ‘… Education Department [had] approved 51,000 loan-relief applications – nearly all of them during the Obama administration – and eliminated some $535 million in debt. About 170,000 applications still await a decision’ (Green and Cowley 2020: A21). Mrs. DeVos had called the debt relief plan used by the Obama Administration as ‘a free money giveaway’ and ‘DeVos’ department added further restrictions, adopting a complicated formula for calculating relief that limits nearly all applicants to only partial relief and requires the majority to repay most of their loans’ (Green and Cowley 2020: A21). When Congress was confronted with a resolution to negate the DeVos rewrite of the standards for loan forgiveness, it presented President Trump with a political dilemma. Either he supported his Secretary of Education by vetoing the resolution (if it passed) or approving it (Green 2020d). When it came to Congress, they rejected the DeVos criteria. When the Senate voted it down by a 53-42 margin, ten Republicans sided with the Democrats. Since the resolution was defeated Trump had no grounds to veto or approve it.

The issue of sexual assault on college campuses The next challenge was to confront and work to repeal Obama administration rules on confronting and reducing college campus sexual assaults. According to federal records, there were 8,529 rapes on college campuses in 2018. A Justice Department study in 2013’ found nearly 28,000 students had reported rapes, attempted rapes and assaults’ (Powell 2020: A20). The Obama administration had issued so-called ‘Dear Colleague’ letters in 2011 and 2014. These were intended to provide ‘guidance’ to universities on

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how to handle sexual assault cases on their campuses under Title IX, a law that prohibited sexual discrimination at institutions receiving federal money. The way the law was to be regulated was for universities to establish their own Title IX offices and tribunals that pursued appropriate punishments ‘under a low preponderance of the evidence’ standard of proof (Johnson and Taylor 2017: A17). The Obama approach was indicted by some as ‘… a crudely run jihad by left-wing lawyers in the Obama Education Department and the network of ideological enforcers their order created on the nation’s campuses’ (Henninger 2017: A15). Under the Obama ‘Dear Colleague’ letters providing guidance for sexual assault, the accused could not have legal representation, could not cross-examine or question the accuser, which constituted a denial of due process. One result was that ‘… schools felt pressured to side with accusers without extending sufficient rights to the accused. And dozens of students have won court cases against their colleges for violating their rights under the Obama-era rules’ (Green 2020f: A24). Mrs. DeVos called these non-due process university panels kangaroo courts for the accused. However, women’s rights groups saw it differently: ‘We refuse to go back to the days when rape and harassment in schools were ignored and swept under the rug said Fatima Goss Graves, the president of the National Women’s Law Center’ (Green 2020f: A24). When the new DeVos rules were unveiled, which raised the bar substantially for the accused and provided them with the opportunity to question their accuser, well-known feminists weighed in on both sides. For example, Harvard Law professor Janet Halley believed that Title IX rules represented ‘dangerous overreach’ (Powell 2020; A20). Even Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ‘has said in speeches and interviews that the Obama-era regulations deny due process and a fair hearing to the accused’ (Powell 2020: A20). Despite pleas from college and public school leaders urging Mrs. DeVos to wait to implement her new rules, she refused saying, ‘The reality is civil rights really can’t wait’ (Green 2020f: A24). ‘Victims and advocates have said that Ms. DeVos’s rescission of the campus sexual assault guidance, which she replaced with interim guidance that changed the standard of proof for investigations, has had a chilling effect on victims who are reluctant to report assaults’ (Green 2018c: A10). As the Devos rules were about to take effect, various student rights and education groups, such as the National Women’s Law Center, sued the Education Department saying that when they are implemented, they ‘stand to derail their cases or deter them from pursuing them altogether’ (Green 2020b: A20). One case involved ‘a fifth-grader in Michigan who fears that her elementary school will not be required to formally investigate and punish her classmate for assaulting her four times over two months’ (Green 2020b: A20). The rules were challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union and the attorney generals in 18 states, ‘including California, Michigan, and Oregon, sued last month calling the rules arbitrary and capricious’ (Green 2020b: A20).

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A failure to take a stand on guns in schools In her confirmation hearing, Betsy DeVos would not say whether she would ban guns in schools or guns purchased with federal funds. Under her leadership, the Education Department was thinking about ‘whether school districts could tap into a $1 billion program intended for academic and enrichment programs after states asked whether school safety measure – including providing firearms and training – would be an allowable expense’ (Green 2018a: A18). The Department was also criticised for not providing any leadership on this issue.

A refusal to cut funding to schools that discriminate As she prepared to defend her budget for the Education Department in 2017, Ms. DeVos had to testify before the House Appropriations subcommittee. That budget chopped 20 existing Department programmes out in order to redirect monies to ‘include a $250 million program to give students publicly funded scholarships to attend private schools’ (Green, 2017: A19). The scholarships are a euphemism for vouchers. During the subcommittee’s questioning of Ms. DeVos, she was asked ‘how she would respond to a state that gave federal funding to a school that denies admission to students from lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender families?’ She ducked a response by indicating those decisions would be made by the states and by parents at the local level. This answer provoked a reply by a committee democrat who exclaimed, ‘I’m shocked that you were unable to find one example of discrimination against students that you would be willing to stand up to’ (Green, 2020d: A19).

Withdrawing support for transgendered students Secretary DeVos’ prejudices regarding serving students who had different sexual orientations again surfaced several years later when the Office of Civil Rights within her Education Department threatened to withhold millions of dollars of federal support to Connecticut schools because they elected to allow ‘transgendered students to compete on teams that correspond with their gender identity’ as allowed by Connecticut law (Broadwater and Green 2020: A15). The DeVos Education Department had already scrapped Obama administration guidance ‘that encouraged schools to allow transgender students to choose bathrooms that match their gender identity’ (Broadwater and Green 2020: A15).

School choice pushed even in the midst of a pandemic Betsy DeVos’ devotion to educational choice lies at the cross-section of her specific theological vision, her embrace of free-market ideology, and aversion to government regulation. This combination of secular and sacred agendas backed by a huge family fortune which had been weaponised in targeted philanthropy

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both in backing for choice initiatives and opposing unions and regulation and accountability made her a seasoned and formidable political warrior. However, at the same time, DeVos’ unfamiliarity with the history of public education, her lack of experience in it, and ignorance of its development produced one of the more embarrassing moments early in her Secretariat. In prepared remarks, she cited the existence of historically black colleges as ‘real proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality’ (Kelderman 2017a: A22). The almost immediate outcry of her example as being ignorant of the fact that black colleges were not the result of ‘choice’ but one of ‘no choice.’ Since black students could not attend white schools and colleges, they were forced to establish their own. A New York Times (2017b) editorial excoriated Betsy DeVos’ ‘insulting distortion of history, which she tried to pull back after furious criticism, grows out of her obsession with market-driven school policies, including the idea of a publicly funded voucher program that public school students could use to pay for private education’ (A26). In the midst of a pandemic, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES), a $2 trillion law which among other things set aside $30 billion for education institutions, $14 billion for higher education, and $13.5 billion for elementary and secondary schools with the remainder for state governments (Green 2020e). One of the approaches which involved $180 million dollars to ‘create “microgrants” that parents of elementary and secondary school students could be used to pay for educational services, including private school tuition. She has directed school districts to share millions of dollars designated for low-income students with wealthy private schools’ (Green 2020e: A1). Betsy DeVos insisted on providing guidance to school districts on how to spend CARES funds, ‘There is nothing in the Act suggesting Congress intended to discriminate between children based on public or nonpublic school attendance… The virus affects everyone’ (Green, 2020c: A11). Congressional leaders fired back that ‘Ms. DeVos’ interpretation was flawed’ (Green, 2020c: A11). Democrats were especially outraged that millions of taxpayer dollars specifically targeted for public schools students would be diverted to private school students.

The End of The Existential Scream Betsy DeVos’ strategic financial support of Republican party candidates brought her to the pinnacle of national political power in education. Yet her agenda was not universal. Her antipathy towards public schools, teachers unions, and government regulations and her theological crusade for choice, vouchers, charter schools, and privatisation made her a lightning rod in the ebb and flow of contested national policy initiatives. Towards the end of her rocky tenure, Betsy DeVos came under investigation by the Office of Special Counsel for possibly violating the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act prohibits political activity by federal employees. If found guilty she could face fines,

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demotion suspension, or outright dismissal (Lippman and Stratford 2020: 2). With the end of her national political career insight, she is unlikely to be punished at all by the defeated Presidential incumbent, Donald Trump. The existential crises in educational administration as represented by a Secretary of Education hell-bent on re-establishing the church instead of the school as a community centre, a billionaire neoliberal road warrior who despised all government regulation and accountability, had become the dependent beauty in an educational policy scream. Fittingly, with the election of Joe Biden, many of the directives and biases of Betsy DeVos’ will be cancelled out and ended. Stef Feldman, Biden’s policy director said, ‘Mr. Biden has promised to appoint a secretary with teaching experience and a deep knowledge of the challenges schools and students face’ (Green 2020a: A16). Among the pledges of the new Biden administration are: (1) restore the Obama civil rights guidance; (2) allow transgender students to choose their own bathrooms; (3) address the issue of disproportionate discipline infractions of Black students; (4) make the rules for sexual misconduct even stronger; (5) change the rules on loan forgiveness for students in debt. Many of these directives do not need Congressional approval. They are within the authority of the Secretary of Education to formulate and implement.

References Angulo, A.J. (2017, 1 December) ‘Selling swampland: For-profit colleges in the age of Trump’. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 65, 14: A52. Bell, T.H. (1988) The thirteenth man: A Reagan cabinet memoir, New York: Free Press. Bourdieu, P. (1993) ‘The abdication of the state’, in P. Bourdieu (ed.) The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society (189–202), Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Broadwater, L. and Green, E.L. (2020, 19 September) ‘Transgender athletics prompt DeVos threat to cut aid to schools’. The New York Times, A15. Camera, L. (2019, 22 October) ‘House democrats threaten to subpoena Betsy DeVos’, U.S. News and World Report, 1–8. Available online: https://www. usnews.com/news/education-news articles (accessed 23 October 2019). Clarkson, F. (2016, 18 August) ‘Dominionism rising: A theocratic movement hiding in plain sight. Available online: https://politicalresearch.org/2016/08/ 18/dominionism-rising-a-theocratic-movement-hiding-in-plain-sight (accessed 18 August 2016). Cohen, P. (2017, 18 March). ‘DeVos adviser is tied to firm under scrutiny’, New York Times, A1. Collins, G. (2017, 28 January) ‘Trump’s war on public schools’, New York Times, A21. Cowley, S. and Siegel, B. (2020, 14 November) ‘Biden could change the math for education loans,’ New York Times, B3. Eder, S. and Medina, J. (2017, 1 April) ‘Settlement is approved in Trump university suit,’ New York Times, A16. English, F. and Papa, R. (2018) ‘A discursive analysis of neoliberal policies and practices in education’ in R. Papa and S.W.J. Armfield (eds.) The Wiley Handbook of Educational Policy (3–28), Medford, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

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Fink, S., Eder, S. and Goldstein, M. (2017, 31 January) ‘Weak support for treatment tied to DeVos’, New York Times, A1, A21. Friedman, M. (1962) Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Goldstein, M., Eder, S. and Fink, S. (2017, 21 January) ‘Education pick won’t shed stake in biofeedback company, filings show’, New York Times, A21. Green, E.L. (2017, 25 May) ‘DeVos refuses to rule out providing funds to schools that discriminate’ New York Times, A19. Green, E.L. (2018a, 7 September) ‘DeVos avoids a decision on school funds for guns’, New York Times, A18. Green, E.L. (2018b, 26 July) ‘DeVos proposes curtailing loan forgiveness for defrauded students’, New York Times, A14. Green, E.L. (2018c, 10 February) ‘Education chief grades her first year on the job’, New York Times, A10. Green, E.L. (2020a, 14 November) ‘Biden eager to dismantle DeVos’s school rules’, New York Times, A1, A16. Green, E.L. (2020b, 10 July) ‘Students as young as 10 join suit to block rules on sexual misconduct’ New York Times, A20. Green, E.L. (2020c, 28 May) ‘DeVos will push for public schools to share aid with private institutions.’ New York Times, A11. Green, E.L. (2020d, 21 May) ‘Pushback on DeVos debt policy puts pressure on Trump’, New York Times, A19. Green, E.L. (2020e, 16 May) ‘DeVos funnels relief to revive stalled agenda’, New York Times, A1. Green, E.L. (2020f, 7 May) ‘“DeVos” rules bolster rights of students accused of sexual misconduct’, New York Times, A24. Green, E. and Cowley, S. (2020, 12 March) ‘Senate rejects DeVos rule limiting debt relief for defrauded students’, New York Times, A21. Harris, A. (2017a, 10 November) ‘In magazine profile, DeVos blames staff for rocky confirmation hearing.’ The Chronicle of Higher Education, A40. Harris, A. (2017b, 23 June) ‘What DeVos’s “reset” on 2 rules means for colleges’, Chronicle of Higher Education, A21. Hayek, F.A. (2011) The Constitution of Liberty, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Henninger, D. (2017, 14 September) ‘Sexual politics’, Wall Street Journal, A15. Herold, B. (2017, 23 August) ‘New DeVos family investments concern researchers’, Education Week, 37, 1: 24. Hughes, S. (2017, 6 February) ‘DeVos comments fuel pushback’, Wall Street Journal, A3. Johnson, K.C. and Taylor Jr., S. (2017, 8 September) ‘DeVos pledges to restore due process’, Wall Street Journal, A17. Kant, I. (1928) Critique of Pure Judgement, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kelderman, E. (2017a, 24 March) ‘What “school choice” means for higher ed policy’, Chronicle of Higher Education, A22. Kelderman, E. (2017b, 27 January) ‘DeVos draws fire at confirmation hearing’ Chronicle of Higher Education, A21. Kelderman, E. (2017c, 20 January) ‘DeVos moves from wealthy outsider to cabinet insider’, Chronicle of Higher Education, A20.

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Kelderman, E. (2018, 9 March) ‘Era of Deregulation,’ Chronicle of Higher Education, B20. Klein, A. (2017, 18 January) ‘Ed. dept. facing culture shift under Trump’, Education Week, 36, 18: 1–12. Lippman, D. and Stratford, M. (2020, 21 September) ‘DeVos under investigation for potentially violating Hatch Act because of Fox News interview’, Politico. Available online: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/21/betsy-devos-hatch-actinvestigation-419471 (accessed 21 September 2020). Mayer, J. (2016) Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires behind the Rise of the Radical Right, New York: Doubleday. Mitchell, J., Hughes, S. and Hobbs, T. (2017, 8 February) ‘Trump’s education pick squeaks by’, Wall Street Journal, A1. Nairne, E. (2020, 7 December) ‘No “scream,” just a double shot of angst’, New York Times, C2. New York Times. (2017a, 10 January) ‘Big worries about Betsy DeVos’, A20. New York Times. (2017b, 3 February) ‘Needed: 1 more no vote on Ms. DeVos’, A26. Powell, M. (2020, 25 June) ‘Some feminist scholars say new policy is fair to the accused’, New York Times, A20. Reitman, J. (2017, March 8) ‘Betsy Devos’ holy war’, Rolling Stone,17. Available online: https://www.rollingstone.com/politis/politics-features.betsy-devosholy_war-126026 (accessed 6 March 2017). Rizga, K. (2017, March-April) ‘Heavens to Betsy’, Mother Jones, 30–35. Savage, C. (2017, 2 February) ‘Billionaire “education reformer” Eli Broad comes out strongly against billionaire “education reform” Betsy DeVos’, Eclecta Blog, 1–2. Available online: https://www.eclectablog.com/2017/02/bionnionaireeducation-reformer-eli-broad-comes-out-strongly-against-billionaire-educationreformer-betsy-devos.html (accessed 6 March 2017). Scheiber, N. (2017, 9 January) ‘Betsy DeVos, Trumps education pick, plays hardball with her wealth.’ New York Times. Available online: https://nytimes.com/2017/ 09/us/politics/betsy-devos-education-secretary.html?-r=0 (accessed 1 January 2017). Schmidt, P. (2017, 3 February) ‘The battle lines over Betsy DeVos’, Chronicle of Higher Education, A24–A25. Schneider, K. (2018, 7 September) ‘Richard DeVos, 92, dies: Titan who grew Amway’, New York Times, B15. Schulman, D. (2014) Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers became America’s most Powerful and Private Dynasty, New York: Grand Central. Stewart, K. (2020, 17 November). ‘Christian nationalism is here to stay’, New York Times, A23. Strauss, V. (2017, 18 January) ‘Six astonishing things Betsy DeVos said – and refused to say – at her confirmation hearing’, Washington Post, A2. Strickland, C. and Boswell, J. (2017) The Annotated Mona Lisa, 3rd edn, Kansas City: Andrews McMeel. Tallerico, M. (2006) ‘Department of education’, in F. English (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Educational Leadership and Administration (280–281), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Taranto, J. (2017, 2–3 September) ‘The teachers union’s public enemy No. 1’, Wall Street Journal, A11.

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Thrush, G. (2018, 7 September) ‘Trump administration battles states’ efforts to police student loans’, New York Times, A18. Torrence, M. (2017, 31 January) ‘Betsy DeVos approved for senate vote following “plagiarism” revelation’, Across America, US Patch. Available online: http:// patch.kcom/us/across-aermica/betsy-devos-plagiraism-allegation-made-cnn (accessed 31 January 2017). Wermund, B. (2016, 2 December) Politico ‘Trump’s education pick says reform can advance God’s Kingdom’. Available online: https://www.politico.com.story/ 2016/12/betsy-devos-education-trump-232150 (accessed 2 December 2020). Zangwill, N. (2012) Aesthetic Creation, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zernike, K. (2016, November 24) ‘For education a backer of shifting funds away from public schools’, New York Times, A1–A23. Zernike, K. (2017, January 13) ‘Billionaire pick for education may face a steeper Challenge’, New York Times, A15.

10 The Stoic Leadership of Dialogic Engagement: Expressionist Reflections on Surviving the Scream Against Toxic Leadership and Management in Higher Education Jill Jameson Introduction An astonishingly vivid representational texture of inner psychological anxiety and emotional pain is captured in Edvard Munch’s expressionist painting of The Scream, composed in Oslo, Norway, in 1893. The painting is stark in its selfconfessional portrayal of the artist’s interior state of existential psychological terror (Lipman 2005), resembling the moment of an agonisingly severe panic attack captured in tempera and pastel. The staring hollow eyes, the drawn-out, tortured skull-like face, the abject misery of its tormented subject, hands clutching the ears in despair to block out the terrifying noise of screaming, are captured against a fiery, molten orange-red-yellow sky in a desperate flight across the bridge – all speak to the horror of a living nightmare. Munch composed four versions of the painting on board and cardboard as a series of paintings of his interior state, ‘the study of the soul, that is to say, the study of my own self’, saying that it captured his unstable mood on one particular sunset outing with friends in Oslo, in an incident which likely occurred around 1883–1884 (Olsen et al. 2004: 29): I was walking along the road with two friends. The sun was setting. I felt a breath of melancholy – Suddenly the sky turned blood-red. I stopped, and leaned against the railing, deathly tired – Looking out across the flaming clouds that hung like blood and a sword over the blue-black fjord and town. My friends walked on – I stood there, trembling with fear. And I sensed a great, infinite scream pass through nature. (Lipman 2005: 1, citing Munch’s diary, January 22, 1889)… … And for several years I was almost mad – that was the time when the terror of insanity reared up its twisted head. You know my picture, The Scream? I was

DOI: 10.4324/9781003145288-13

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being stretched to the limit – nature was screaming in my blood – I was at breaking point … After that I gave up hope ever of being able to love again. (Prideaux 2005, p. 168, citing Munch’s diary, 1892 and Aftenposten, 5 October 1889) It is interesting that, in all four depictions of the painting of The Scream, the mundane urban orderliness of the road, the fence and the two figures at a distance from the screaming figure, can be contrasted with the panic of its subject tortured from hearing this ‘scream of nature’, alarmed into a state of pale-faced terror, panicking against the swirling lines of the blood-red sky. Yet nothing is attacking the screamer directly in the painting. The figures in the background seem remote: they are well-dressed, apparently walking in a sedate, ordinary way; the road is clear, its railings seem secure and stable; there is no obvious external horror apparently there to torture the subject except the strangely coloured seemingly threatening sky and the dark waters below. The terrorised state seems to be depicted as an internal vision of the subject’s imagination, not caused by any evident physical threat to life. Some art critics have therefore observed that, in order fully to understand the terror depicted in the painting, one needs to have heard an example of a blood-curdling scream first. Ostensibly, it might be possible otherwise to interpret the subject as panicking about nothing: the redorange-gold sky and dark blue of the water could be seen as nothing more alarming than an attractive, unusually vivid sunset. The existential anxiety portrayed seems mostly internal to the subject, as seems appropriate for this expressionist work self-confessedly capturing in a painting the artist’s soul.

The Scream as Metaphor of Resistance in Higher Education Workplaces Munch’s painting of The Scream has, over the intervening century or so, come to be interpreted as an iconic, unusually valuable representation of the inner psyche of profound existential angst in an uncertain, dystopian modern age (Prideaux 2005). The painting has captivated the public imagination as one of the most well-known, recognisably meaningful, and important depictions of the zeitgeist of both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Increasingly, the psychological terror and pain depicted in The Scream can be compared with the accumulating interior tension of emotional and psychological alienation and pain suffered by many different types of people in an increasingly disturbing twenty-first century. This includes the interior states of those struggling to cope with the emotional pain caused by organisational toxicity. Such dysfunctional organisational toxicity is frequently linked to the kind of poor leadership, management, and organisational culture that not only tends to ignore the importance of emotional intelligence in organisations (Warneka 2005) but is also a significant source of personal anxiety, workplace stress, and ill-health (Wilde 2016). Amongst those dysfunctional and toxic workplaces are some institutions and selected inter-institutional working situations in the higher education sector (Samier and Milley 2018; Smyth 2017; Smith and Fredricks-Lowman 2019).

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This chapter considers the particular case of academic staff in selected international higher education workplaces who self-reported themselves to be the past or present victims of meaninglessly cruel, alienating toxic management situations. In low trust higher education workplaces, this can include, for example, academic employees at subordinate levels of power in the institutional hierarchy who seem to work ever harder and more dutifully to meet incessant demands but yet find that, despite ever-increasing workloads, their salaries are in constant decline, within a continually uncertain contractual status, as they struggle to pay increasing bills, taxes, and expenses. Although such academics may be highly dedicated to carrying out academic work, they are frequently exploited, overworked, and undervalued, facing also multiple psychological anxieties caused by constant financial pressure, possibly exacerbated by bullying at work, worries about potential unemployment, ill health, poor housing, and additional burdens from children, families, and relationship problems. Such anxieties can also be compounded for these employees by a sense of unfairness about being treated unfavourably in comparison with others, possibly exacerbated by feelings of shame that they are not providing well enough for children and partners, despite being constantly busy and stressed from overwork. Increasing burdens of unrelenting anxiety can lead to profound long-term psychological pain and breakdown from unrelenting stress. Such academic staff in higher education organisations have for decades been vulnerable to an increasing intensification of bureaucratic workload pressures to perform at ever higher, continuously audited standards of excellence in highly complex areas of research, teaching, and service (Ferris 2021; Houston et al. 2006). The accumulation of years of mistreatment and suppressed emotion in such situations may lead to the ‘toxic emotions’ identified by Gallos (2008) and others (e.g., Smith and Fredricks-Lowman 2019). One solution to this problem may reside in the ability to express the toxic emotional pain experienced in such situations truthfully and unreservedly in creative outlets, for example, in an artistic work such as The Scream. This provides a metaphorical or literal form of screaming vocal resistance and thereby a potential expressive liberation from entrapment in a terrorised internal state. Through higher levels of metacognitive awareness and creative expression in a supportive way of one’s suffering within a toxic organisational situation emerges a potential for release from pain. To engage in an alternative form of expression in a safe space is to engage creatively in truthful, egalitarian, and open dialogue with colleagues about one’s suffering, the causes of it, and the potential for release from it (Jameson 2018).

Methods This chapter captures self-reported subjective reflections from staff in higher education suffering through toxic leadership and management situations collected during a longitudinal trust and leadership research project. Amongst these reflections, emerged fragments of stoic leadership that were enabled through collegiate dialogic engagement in higher education. Echoing Munch’s expressionist

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style as a painter who depicted suffering subjective states, the chapter applies an expressionist longitudinal narrative method to capture lived participant experiences, based on a phenomenological critical realist perspective (Archer et al. 2013; Coole 2005). This new method focuses not on particular individuals, institutions, job roles or time periods in the externally objective world of organisations, but on symbolic types of interior painful experiences of the research participants, the academic survivors who withstood darker sides of higher education management. It therefore aims to capture uniquely subjective portraits; momentarily recording the state of mind of each participant. The narrator reflects on instances of stoic leadership survival captured in dialogues during interviews (n = 23), from surveys (n = 163), and a trust and leadership forum (n = 7), drawing also from diary reflections and notes of survivors recorded during more than thirty years of work with staff at a variety of levels in multiple different higher and post-compulsory education institutions based in numerous countries. The expressionist narrative method deployed draws on phenomenology as a method (Heidegger 2010[1953]) to capture subjective lived experiences which exemplified, ‘the essence of things as they are appearing in the conscious awareness of the first person’ (Ranse et al. 2020: 945), in this case, the participants. These expressions are also blended with an appreciation of critical realism, as embodied in the narrator’s and participants’ sceptical critique of the organisations in which participants worked at the time of these reflections (Archer et al. 2013; Coole 2005). The timeless nature of this expressionistic narrative is both pragmatic, for ethical purposes of confidentiality, and idealistic, being a phenomenological reflection on the ‘essence’ of the phenomenon of suffering from toxic leadership and management.1 The composite summary of participants’ expressions are displayed in this chapter, like miniature portraits of each person’s momentary inner state of mind in an exhibition of stoic survival from ‘the scream’. They are fleetingly spontaneous expressions, captured as timeless iconic exemplars of institutional survival through suffering.

At risk of Disappearing: Critical Thinking, Freedom of Speech, and Resistance Why is such a release in dialogic self-expression so important for academics to attain individually now? Arguably, the liberties of higher education as a site of critical thinking, freedom and resistance are at risk of disappearing. For thousands of years, the wider environment of higher education has historically been a site of intellectual and cultural resistance to controlling encroachment against critical thinking and expressive freedom, but now, in the twenty-first century, it seems that these liberties may be at risk of gradually disappearing (Watts and Rogers 2018). In earlier eras, for example, during my days as an undergraduate student at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, at a time of protest in the 1970s against the apartheid government regime, I witnessed the university acting as a champion of liberty, free speech, and human rights in offering a safe, protected space

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of freedom for critical student anti-apartheid protests. This was a vital sanctuary enabled by the university, a place of refuge for critics of the government of the day, as access to the police into the university campus private property to pursue and arrest anti-apartheid protesters was barred. Yet in the current era, such courageous resistance by universities to government political pressure seems less and less likely, as spaces for dissent and critical thought are gradually closing down in favour of compliant, economically focused approaches of corporate managerial bureaucracies that, more often than not, may keenly be serving the entrepreneurial interests of various governments of the day. Some managers who have risen to power in particular universities are, in tandem, sometimes pursuing private self-aggrandising agendas in which critique of state authorities and the neo-liberal economic focus of academic capitalism has little place. In such situations, in effect, excessively positive2, vacuous interpretations of leadership may allow toxic management regimes in higher education to thrive, despite the best intentions of institutional rhetoric3 enshrined in strategic aims and policies.

Toxic Leadership and Management in Higher Education In effect, ‘bad leadership’ in higher education institutions is sometimes manifested in destructively arrogant actions by positional leaders who have management roles within toxic situations that demonstrate, knowingly or not, an authoritarian self-serving sense of perpetual entitlement to power. Such destructive leadership behaviours may be manifested in corporatist managerial forms of ‘imperial hubris’ (Waite 2014) displayed by those in positions of power whose actions compound an already highly overloaded academic labour situation (Samier and Milley 2018). In such higher education situations, the autonomy of academic staff may have been increasingly eroded by the symbolic violence (Schubert 2014) of rule-based measures of corporatist managerialism (Deem et al. 2007). But what behaviours are demonstrated by such toxic leaders and managers, and by what traits might they be recognised? Lipman-Blumen (2005: 44) defines toxic leadership in this way: … the term ‘toxic leaders’ covers a multitude of leadership sins. Here, we shall use ‘toxic leaders’ as a global label for leaders who engage in numerous destructive behaviors and who exhibit certain dysfunctional personal characteristics. To count as toxic, these behaviors and qualities of character must inflict some reasonably serious and enduring harm on their followers and their organizations. The intent to harm others or to enhance the self at the expense of others distinguishes seriously toxic leaders from the careless or unintentional toxic leaders, who also cause negative effects. While Pelletier (2010), in her later typological analysis, observes that ‘… toxic leaders exhibit destructive behaviors that work to decay their followers’ morale, motivation, and self-esteem’ (376).

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A number of researchers have identified that, despite disarmingly charismatic surface appearances, toxic leaders and managers may deliberately lie and distort facts to appeal to people’s deepest psychological needs. While abusing power to serve their own ends, they may also engage in self-deceptive manoeuvres of ‘ethical fading’ to excuse their own behaviours (Tenbrunsel and Messick 2004). Lipman-Blumen (2005: 45) presents a range of destructive behaviours of toxic leadership on a continuum that may include ‘deliberately undermining, demeaning, seducing, marginalizing, intimidating, demoralizing, disenfranchizing, incapacitating, imprisoning, torturing, terrorizing, or killing – many of their own people, including members of their entourage, as well as their official opponents.’ The behavioural characteristics of such leaders are mapped out by Pelletier (2010), who draws out comparisons from the work of numerous researchers to distinguish between abusive, tyrannical, destructive, bullying, and laissez-faire leadership theories against toxic leadership theory. Within Pelletier’s (2010: 372) comparative grid of harmful leadership behaviours and related theories, it is clear that toxic leadership as a behaviour and explanatory theory encompasses almost all harmful behavioural elements identified in other forms of destructive leadership. As noted above, even in more positive, healthy higher education environments, an intensely challenging combination of pressures on academic staff over-stretches even the most resilient, talented staff, despite the continuing high intrinsic motivation of most academic staff towards their work (Houston et al. 2006). However, in addition, in institutions encumbered also by toxic management situations, in which incompetent bullying authoritarian staff enforce unfair working conditions, the additional stresses encountered by academic staff frequently threaten to become unbearable. In these situations, a ‘scream’ of protest, whether loudly or silently made, whether literal or metaphorical, can be a cry for autonomy, releasing the sufferer from the unbearable oppressions of inhumane management. Fromm’s (1981) ideas on ‘disobedience as a psychological and moral problem’ (5) are resonant here in the context of stoic leader-followers who adopt tactically astute forms of disobedience by ‘screaming’ in their own way in protest against managerial maladministration (Samier and Milley 2018) in order to make sense of their suffering and claim the right of human freedom to happiness and freedom from unjust treatment. Such survivors live through the struggle to cope with emergent issues of performance anxiety and stress in higher education caused by deteriorating working conditions that evoke ‘screaming’ responses of emotional, psychological, and physical pain. The definition of ‘stoic leadership’ in this context incorporates to varying degrees strong, calm, helpful leadership of both self and others in difficult workplace situations, by those who can handle toxic institutional situations in beneficial ways that off-set the damage caused by toxic leadership and management. This kind of ‘stoic’ leadership style and behaviour is characterised by strengths that incorporate the virtues of classical and modern Stoicism, such as equanimity, fortitude, integrity, resilience, emotional intelligence and selfregulation, humility, independence of mind, tactical diplomacy, astute reasoning,

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empathetic patience, and moderation (Inamori 1997; Lachs 2005; Rist 1969). As Gallos (2008) notes of those who successfully alleviate and reduce the institutional harm unleashed by toxic leaders, ‘toxic handlers’ are exemplary staff who help others in toxic workplace situations: It is important … to distinguish toxin handling from toxic leadership. Toxic leaders (Kellerman, 2004; Lipman-Blumen, 2005; Whicker, 1996) are destructive individuals who abuse their power, role, and followers for immoral or narcissistic purposes. Toxic handlers are exemplary workers. They are distinguished by their empathy and emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995), and they foster productivity by ministering to others in need. (356) Captured below are some notes from survivors, collected together from reflections on low trust higher education situations from which some selected glimpses of exemplary stoic leadership emerge as part of the dialogic exchange of knowledge.

Results This chapter now draws together some instances of dialogue collected from interviews, surveys, a forum, and notes of survivors of toxic management situations recorded from thirty years of reflections on leadership, management, and trust. Ethical permissions were granted several times for the trust and leadership data collection involved in this work. All respondents, institutions, dates of events, and situations are anonymised and scrambled together where appropriate to maintain anonymity and privacy, in view of the potential sensitivity of some of these reflections. Interviews (n = 23), surveys (n = 163), a trust and leadership forum (n = 7), and a collection of diary notes, journals and reflections were carried out with staff at a variety of levels in multiple different kinds of higher and post-compulsory education institutions from numerous different countries internationally. A collection of insights from survivors of toxic leadership and management situations are considered below.

Trust and Leadership Forum In a trust and leadership higher education research forum that met intermittently throughout some two years, composed of academics (n = 7) from different workplaces, cultures, and subject backgrounds, including an academic teaching staff union representative and several expert researchers and practitioners on leadership and management, extensive confidential discussions were held to debate the nature of workplace trust, or lack of trust, and its link with higher education leadership and management. Amongst the verbatim notes captured and analysed for this chapter were the following thoughts from Forum Members (FM) who participated in extensive, searching discussions on trust and leadership, opening up

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4

an inclusive and truthful dialogic space (Wegerif 2019). In these discussions, meanings were created together to understand the phenomenon of trust/distrust as it links with good/poor leadership from a critical perspective. From this dialogic space, there spontaneously emerged unexpected reflections on toxic management and distrust: FM#1: The trust and leadership forum provides support, given cycles of mistrust between the unions and management, teaching us about leadership. There is a dynamic that emerges between trust and control. FM#2: The trust and leadership group was insightful last year. It is partly therapeutic, partly supportive to have a space where people were caring and committed enough to trust and to discuss leadership and management. It would be possible to do an anthropological study of poor management [in my institution]. There is lying at every level, with everyone covering each other’s backs, even though there is a duty of care to staff. We are therefore having to work in an environment which is destructive without being destroyed. It is interesting to raise issues differently [in this forum], for example to consider work-related stress and the duty of care to staff. All energy goes into survival. We could look at [such a study] as an observation of managers. There is frustration that inept management is allowed to complain. The top people lie5; mistrust will stay. Will need to be very cautious. FM#3: I was part of a similar trust and leadership group in my previous job – it was the only activity from which they learned anything. The dehumanising effect of large organisations can lead to pragmatism, but human decency can be top of the list. FM#4: I am a world-weary cynic who trusts no-one. I have seen so many incompetent managers. So now I am in a state of enclosure within the self, a loner. I note the drift away from academic collegiality, and I advocate the creation of the small within the big, the creation of a ‘cordon sanitaire’ between a university and its smaller units in the … [research] … I developed, speaking truth to power. I inherited a Stalinist culture that I changed, but some staff did not want a collegial enterprise culture: rather, they favoured a corporate bureaucracy culture. If one looks at the Dearing report on how people should be in higher education, we fail on all counts, in having created a culture of distrust. Referring to 1 Corinthians 13, in respect of Charity, we have by contrast a power-coercive model which is rationalist/empiricist, sacrificing autonomy and distrusting this as a ‘loose cannon’ and ‘an enemy within’. Accountability is therefore renamed as ‘the enemy within’. FM#5: The university where I work crushes its staff, with a closing down of opportunities. How to understand the place of the institution? The interior institutional schools/academies need to encourage freedom and independence. Part of the problem is bureaucracy, in terms of the cascade model of communication from top to bottom.

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Forum members described their lived experiences with toxic management in a logical, rational, pragmatic way, recognising clearly that they were ‘having to work in an environment which is destructive without being destroyed’. The different situations in which they individually found themselves were damaging in many ways, being low trust work environments, whether this was described as a ‘power-coercive’ model of management or a university which ‘crushes its staff’. Yet forum members recognised the benefits of dialogic engagement in a collaborative peer group to support each other in ‘playing the long game’ of ‘supreme skill’, applying a ‘means-end’ approach, leading the situation themselves in a stoic fashion to achieve greater freedom and creativity.

Trust and Leadership Interviews In response to the following question about trust and leadership in his/her higher education workplace, ‘Who do you trust and who trusts you, and what is the basis of this trust?’ Interviewee #17 said, For the most part, although a bit sceptical about management, I am generally quite trusting of them. Since I’ve been here, I’ve discovered that that’s not, actually, not, necessarily a good way to be, and I’ve often found myself being tripped up by the fact that I have trusted – I’ve been quite open with management. And then I have found that, for example, initiatives that I’ve been interested in have been given to other people, possibly even that ideas that I have had have been given to other people, and that I wished that I’d kept my mouth shut, and just gone ahead and done things until – and kept quiet ‘til the last minute. So, in terms of who do I trust, increasingly, I am not trusting many of the managers I work with. Certainly, I don’t trust them to deal with very many of the very knotty problems that we have got going on with personnel. I don’t trust them in that. I don’t trust them to be even-handed in the way that they approach their members of staff, I don’t trust them to manage the department appropriately, I don’t trust them to – [laughs], God! – manage their programmes appropriately. So, right the way down to affecting my everyday work, I don’t trust them in terms of competence, and I don’t trust them in terms of motivation and appropriate behaviour either. So, yes, it’s not very promising. … I am a bit dismayed at my experiences … The favouritism aspect is just appalling and is not dealt with. And the other one about taking

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ideas really reduces trust. I am going to be protecting people so that good behaviour can flourish. We need some very strong leaders who are capable of protecting people. Interviewee #17 describes his/her lived experience as a response of ‘dismay’ and sinking disappointment to the toxic managers in the organisation, who demonstrated incompetence, untrustworthiness, poor behaviour, favouritism, theft of ideas, and a general lack of integrity. Despite this, however, the interviewee demonstrates strong resilience, stoically insisting on taking on a protective role to support other staff. In response to the same question about trust and leadership in her higher education workplace, ‘Who do you trust and who trusts you, and what is the basis of this trust?’ Interviewee #13 said, I think you do need to have someone you can open up to. I would like some acknowledgement … if you don’t give that acknowledgement, that person could just say, ‘Tough’ … It makes you very distrustful. You need to have things clear, and open and clear-cut and achievable. There are an awful lot of people ploughing their own furrows and there is not a lot of communication between them. The systems are crazy. I think the way to build trust is to acknowledge, to praise, and to help people to develop themselves and this is where we are sadly lacking. We get knocked down more than we get supported. Not keeping you in touch with what’s going on. When a leader goes off, just does something, and tells you and doesn’t involve you in any way. The other thing that reduces trust is micromanagement. That then changes my attitude, disempowers me … I didn’t trust the last senior leader … I didn’t like her attitude to me on various occasions; had a workrelated stress incident – only need one person to cause problems. It felt as though people were climbing over each other to get to the top … Interviewee #13’s subjective reflection on his/her lived experience of ‘crazy’ systems in their micromanaged organisational environment is of destructively competitive situations in which s/he feels ‘knocked down’ by a leader who is unsupportive, dislikeable, uncommunicative, and alienating, surrounded by colleagues who are ‘ploughing their own furrows’ with little communication. And yet, despite this, s/he is very clear what is needed ‘to help people develop themselves’, observing that acknowledgement, praise, support and good communication are necessary to build trust. A further response comes from Participant #101, who had decided to selfmanage the emotional suffering involved in a toxic management situation quietly by leaving their institution as a result of poor treatment they had experienced, engaging in a private conversation about the senior manager in charge. This participant reported that they were tired of the ‘infantile discipline’ they had experienced in the organisation and wanted to escape to live a happier, freer life, saying, in amused truthfulness, ‘I would rather slit my throat than carry on’ in

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their current role. When Participant #101 conveyed their decision to leave the higher education institution, the senior manager’s reaction was ‘incompetently handled’ … the manager had behaved ‘like a mean fairy, or a mean stepsister in a fairy-tale’ … ‘not responding professionally at all’, but replying, ‘why are you telling me this?’ The manager then said, ‘please don’t go’ and ‘looked as if it hurt.’ Participant #101 was astonished by the self-centred nature of this highly inappropriate and unprofessional senior management reaction, and felt it was a ‘response from a dark place.’ They were glad to have found the strength to resist and escape into a happier, calmer work-life situation in the future.

Selected Trust and Leadership Survey Responses The following collection of selected participant responses to two questions from several trust and leadership surveys collecting data over different time periods highlight ‘difficult’, critical, sceptical, or despairing responses to low trust situations in higher and post-compulsory education. They were by no means the only responses from the total number of participants (n = 163). Numerous respondents replied positively from high trust situations, others indicated a conflict of interest, as they were managers themselves, others were more neutral in their views, and yet others skipped these questions altogether. These responses were specifically selected to capture experiences reflecting lower levels of trust in leaders and managers, for the purposes of the focus of this chapter (Table 10.1). Captured above in these selected responses are moments expressing lived experiences self-reported in two surveys during different time periods. Negative responses to low trust situations are reported in reply to ‘Q12: Do you feel that those with a top management role in your institution are trusted? Why or why not? Give an example, if possible, please’, given that the focus of this chapter is on toxic management situations. The responses varied according to the participant and situation, but in the main very poor management is reported in which respondents struggled to cope with negative situations involving distrust, a lack of communication, and a culture of discrimination or bullying under self-serving, ambitious management. In response to ‘Q24: What kinds of leadership behaviours have reduced trust between staff in your team and/ or organisation? Can you give examples?’ a larger number of replies indicated clearly that respondents had a strong awareness of untrustworthy behaviours and reported this from toxic management situations in which leaders and managers displayed poor communication, incompetence, anger, arrogance, hypocrisy, and deceit. And yet numerous responses to Q23: building trust in the same survey indicated that there was also strength in an emergent stoic leadership amongst many participants, including the following reflections from survey respondent numbers S#89, S#92, S#94, S#95, who thought that ‘discussion and gaining a shared understanding’ were key behaviours to build trust in the work team and/or organisation more generally:

S#10: No. Too many decisions are taken outside the organisation in agreement with external partners. The good of the institution is almost always subservient to short-term needs of partners. Much needed funding regularly diverted to achieve external political gains. S#13: No. They try so carefully to steer a course between all conflicting interests that everyone is endlessly analysing the “small print” of even the most trivial remark. S#21: Not always – I think some staff believe there is information that is known but not shared, this is one of the results of the current uncertainty around education and public sector generally. S#25: Not at all. Reckless use of redundancy at risk letters. Poor management of reported culture of bullying.

S#74: No. They betray individuals or sacrifice them. S#77: No, because they do not value staff, they are reported to frequently say discriminatory things and publicly criticise staff. They show incompetence in their roles and display unprofessional behaviours. S#79: They unsuccessfully hide strong personal ambition and ego under a cloak of altruistic tendencies. S#80: No – very secretive at the moment, especially as far as the future is concerned. S#82: Not universally due to competence and self-interest S#89: Very good politicians, smile sweetly whilst not giving out anything. S#90: Some are trusted implicitly others are openly branded as liars.

Q12: Do you feel that those with a top management role in your institution are trusted? Why or why not? Give an example, if possible, please.

Table 10.1 Selected Trust and Leadership Survey Responses

S#21: Gossip; backbiting between staff…. S#25: Imposing changes rapidly. Disregarding outcome of consultation. Not responding to staff surveys. Inappropriate relationships resulting in biased judgements on key development decisions. S#27: Saying one thing and doing another. Showing complete distrust of staff by actions/ behaviour or lack of action/ behaviour. When staff give their time or make an extra effort, there is no acknowledgement or reward. Saying ‘everyone’ is getting a certain percentage bonus and top management taking significantly more than ‘everyone’. Amending minutes and notes that go to Governors. S#29: Surprises, i.e., problems that had no warning.

(Continued)

S#59: Not going through with agreed plan fully. Compromised at last minute. S#60: Change they feel is imposed on them such as redundancy. Lack of communication. Bureaucratic systems which do not appear to support their everyday work, [and] often conflict with each other. S#61: Concern with poor communication and senior managers that will not take responsibility that their position requires them to take – frequently the responsibility is placed on lower managers to resolve situations which they do with the knowledge that they are unlikely to be supported for the actions they might take. S#66: Perceived hidden agendas.

Q24: What kinds of leadership behaviours have reduced trust between staff in your team and/or organisation? Can you give examples?

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Unfortunately, the rewards S#27: No. There’s a general feeling seem to go to those without of distrust within the organisation standards and [those who] [and] a feeling of staff being are willing to lie. disposable and under-valued by S#101: No as above. They get senior management. bonuses while we get larger S#30: No – many interim class sizes, less research funds appointments with little personal and teach in under-resourced interest or stake in our success. schools. Sure, they achieve S#54: Mostly, although I have seen nice budget bottom lines, but a senior manager acting numbers only impress the inappropriately. uninformed. S#60: It varies from issue to issue. They appear to be trustworthy and present this as important but in reality, this is not always the case. S#61: No – poor communication, conflicting information- giving instructions and then later changing decision after action has been completed. S#70: Due to the changes necessary as a result of funding/population cuts, many staff are not certain they can trust the top management. This is probably due to the extent of changes that have been necessary in order to

Table 10.1 (Continued) S#30: 6 Principals in 6 years plus the regular use of interims has led to a loss of confidence… S#31: When a commitment has been made to do something, but it often does not get done. S#35: Inability to consult adequately due to time pressures etc. S#40: Inconsistent decision making. Lack of ownership of decision. Inability or reluctance to make decisions where difficult. S#41: Poor communication, arrogance, inconsistency. S#44: Anger, arrogance, pursuing personal agenda, failing to listen, lack of consideration for others, domination, hypocrisy. S#47: Behaving secretively and being duplicitous. S#52: Tension between wellbeing of staff and their life/work balance and the need to ask staff to do ever more and more. S#55: … Exclusion, One rule for some - different rule for others.

S#71: Hiding mistakes. S#74: Senior staff not consulting, senior staff lying. S#76: Not embracing inclusivity and engaging others in making decisions that directly impacts on an individual’s livelihood. S#77: Shouting, throwing things, lying, making arrangements for the benefit of favourites, incestuous nature of department, not sharing opportunities, making decisions that fail to consider student needs, managers setting staff against each other, managers criticising other staff publicly and behind their backs, covering incompetence, managers who snap at staff when criticised…, scapegoating, failure of mangers to show any comprehension of how to manage and lead…

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remain financially viable, and the lack of realisation that education is a business, not an automatic right at-any-cost…

S#56: Ineffective communication S#100: Withholding at some levels at [in]appropriate information. Different times versions for different S#58: Dishonesty and unfairness audiences. S#101: Neo-liberal performativity. Measurement of performance by nos; simplistic reading of data. Management forgets what it is like at the other end. S#104: Decisions made behind my back. S#109: Not delivering on promises, not making decisions about things that affect my future. S#112: Very, very, subtle ethnic differentiation.

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From these emergent patterns of expression, a longitudinal narrative perspective of ‘moments’ of lived experiences of surviving toxic leadership can be drawn.

Conclusion: Analysing Discernible Elements of Stoic Leadership It is clear from the discussion of expressions above that toxic management situations are deeply disempowering for staff, as captured in the evidence provided in a number of comments from both the forum and interview notes, complemented also by survey responses, diary, and journal notes. And yet those academics who were involved in this dialogic engagement with colleagues were survivors, who through the development of stoic informal leadership, came together as a peer group to support each other and make sense of the suffering from toxic management and low trust that they observed all around them. Reflecting on these observations from an analysis of the data collected, it became evident that procedural fairness in the organisation, respect for colleagues, egalitarian communication, transparent, and honest practices topped the chart for rebuilding trust in management in higher education institutions. In addition, treating others, especially employees, well was and remains critically important. Frequent and honest communications from managers are also vital and such communications enable staff to trust leadership and management and help rebuild trust through openness, fairness, and integrity. Yet the toxic managers observed in these situations did not seem either aware or capable of improving their practices to the extent that was vital for the institutional culture to improve. Hence, as FM#6 observed, as reported above, the solution seemed to lie in the opportunity to engage in meaningful and supportive discussions with others in a dialogic space: FM#6: To handle bad management, we need to play the long game – this requires supreme skill6, of the ‘cordon sanitaire’ type, in the creation of peer support groups for survival. For this, we can use the model of means and ends, involving a compass/roadmap, in which we use a metaphorical Sat Nav to set the means and agree the ends. This enables freedom through the

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indulgence allowed towards ‘buy-in’ and creativity, giving people more scope and unlocking energies. The freedom that this offered was like a breath of fresh air to staff who felt entrapped in a despairingly anxious situation, in which they were ‘screaming’ against the pain felt within the culture from the abuses of toxic management. This offered a glimpse of the potential of relief and liberation through personal expression in critical debate, mutual support, exploratory conversation and offers of continuing supportive psychological and emotional peer group engagement. Through these glimpses enabled by the dialogic space, like chinks of light, moments of stoic leadership emerged as if in an opening towards greater human fulfilment and freedom in reaction to inhumane forms of leadership in higher education. These elements may enable staff faced with toxic management situations to cope with the twenty-first-century existential angst that symbolically echo the anxiety, pain and suffering expressed in Edvard Munch’s painting ‘The Scream’. The chapter reflects on these conditions to propose that informal stoic leadership, characterised by strengths incorporating the virtues of classical and modern Stoicism (Inamori 1997; Lachs 2005; Rist 1969), sometimes maintains the moral fabric of organisations through enabling greater human freedom, integrity, and social justice7, whether this is through noisy or quiet resistance and actions. The ‘mobilisation of support’ (Reed and Reedman 2020: 6) that occurs during dialogic exchange with emergent stoic leadership resiliently cushions institutional toxicity in calm, balanced, healthy ways (Gallos 2008). A collection of expressive miniature portraits of such exemplary moments bring relief, showing the way to survival against darker forces that cause emotional suffering.

Notes 1 In the evolution of this method, I considered the work of Reader (2008), whose fascinating discussion on the emergence and development of a ‘painterly’ methodology in adult education is informed by the principles of hermeneutics. 2 For a consideration of the gradual evolution and inclusion of more critical perspectives in leadership research which challenge overly positive interpretations, see Alvesson and Einola (2019). Consider this alongside Chang and Diddams (2009) in relation to hubris and humility, Howell and Avolio (1992) on the unethical dark sides of charismatic leadership, Price (2005) on ethical failures in leadership, and Williams (2006) on the evolution of global leadership accountability for considerable abuses of power by elites, comparing such perspectives with earlier leadership classics, e.g., by Burns (1978), whose definition of leadership does not include unethical tyrants: ‘Hitler, once he gained power and crushed all opposition, was no leader – he was a tyrant. A leader and a tyrant are polar opposites’ (11). 3 For an interesting discussion on the role of institutional rhetoric in leadership stories, see Cuno (2005) who cites Gardner’s (1995) observation that such stories ‘constitute the single most powerful weapon in the leader’s literary arsenal’. 4 See Wegerif (2019, 2020) and here: ‘The idea behind dialogic space is summed up by Merleau-Ponty who wrote that when dialogue works it is no longer possible to

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say who is thinking (Merleau-Ponty 1968) because we find ourselves thinking together’, available online: https://www.rupertwegerif.name/blog/definingdialogic-education. 5 The underlying idea that toxic and deceitful behaviour such as lying by top leaders negatively degrades an entire organisation is memorably discussed by Garrett (2003). 6 This idea of supreme skill in leadership (in this case at all staff levels) requires far more than routine understanding of leadership skills and competence. Interestingly it begins to echo the idea that leaders require a much more ‘complex self-concept’ to handle extremely difficult situations effectively. This embraces an expansion of the self to take on the responsibilities, for example, of looking after the community and social well-being in addition to organisational performance, as Herman and Zaccaro (2014: 93) discuss in relation to ‘truly global leaders’, and Jameson (2019) outlines in relation to critical perspectives in higher education leadership to meet global challenges. 7 While it can be argued that there is no universal agreement on the human values involved in maintaining the moral fabric of organisations, researchers such as Schwartz (1994) identified distinctive human value types that are universally applicable, albeit highly complex in interpretation and operationally variable within different contexts.

References Alvesson, M. and Einola, K. (2019) ‘Warning for excessive positivity: Authentic leadership and other traps in leadership studies’, Leadership Quarterly, 30, 4: 383–395. Archer, M., Bhaskar, R., Collier, A., Lawson, T. and Norrie, A. (2013) Critical Realism, Abingdon: Routledge. Burns, J.M. (1978) Leadership, New York: Harper and Row. Chang, G. and Diddams, M. (2009) ‘Hubris or humility: Cautions surrounding the construct and self-definition of authentic leadership’, Academy of Management Proceedings (1–6), Briarcliff Manor, NY: Academy of Management. Coole, D. (2005) Dialectical critical realism and existential phenomenology: A dialogue, New Formations, 56: 121–132. Cuno, J. (2005) ‘Telling stories: Rhetoric and leadership, a case study’, Leadership, 1, 2: 205–213. Deem, R., Hillyard, S. and Reed, M. (2007) Knowledge, Higher Education, and the New Managerialism: The Changing Management of UK Universities, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ferris, G. (2021) ‘Undermining resilience: How the modern UK university manufactures heightened vulnerability in legal academics and what is to be done’, Law Teacher, 55, 1: 24–41. Fromm, E. (1981) On Disobedience and Other Essays, New York: Harper and Row. Garrett, B. (2003) The Fish Rots from the Head, London: Profile Business. Gallos J.V. (2008) ‘Learning from the toxic trenches: The winding road to healthier organizations – and to healthy everyday leaders’, Journal of Management Inquiry, 17, 4: 354–367. Gardner, H. (1995) Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership, New York: Basic Books. Goleman, D. (1995) Emotional intelligence, New York: Bantam.

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Heidegger, M. (2010[1953]) Being and Time, J. Stambaugh, trans., Albany: State University of New York Press. Herman, J.L. and Zaccaro, S.J. (2014) ‘The complex self-concept of the global leader’, in J.S. Osland, M. Li and Y. Wang (eds.) Advances in Global Leadership (93–111), Bingley, UK: Emerald. Houston, D., Meyer, L.H. and Paewai, S. (2006) ‘Academic staff workloads and job satisfaction: Expectations and values in academe’, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 28, 1: 17–30. Howell, J.M. and Avolio, B.J. (1992) ‘The ethics of charismatic leadership: Submission or liberation?’ Academy of Management Perspectives, 6, 2: 43–54. Inamori, K. (1997) ‘My leadership paradigm: A stoic leadership style based on an Eastern philosophy’, IETE Technical Review, 14, 4–5: 351–355 Jameson, J. (2018) ‘Critical corridor talk: Just gossip or stoic resistance? Unrecognised informal Higher Education leadership’, Higher Education Quarterly, 72, 4: 375–389. Jameson, J. (ed.) (2019) International Perspectives on Leadership in Higher Education: Critical Thinking for Global Challenges, Abingdon: Routledge. Kellerman, B. (2004) Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters, Brighton, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Lachs, J. (2005) ‘Stoic pragmatism’, The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 19, 2: 95–106. Lipman, A.G. (2005) ‘The scream by Edvard Munch’, Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy, 19, 1: 1–2. Lipman-Blumen, J. (2005) The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why We Follow Destructive Bosses and Corrupt Politicians – and How We Can Survive Them, New York: Oxford University Press. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968) The Visible and the Invisible, Claude Lefort, ed. and Alphonso Lingis, trans., Evanston, Il: Northwestern University. Michie, S. and Gooty, J. (2005) ‘Values, emotions, and authenticity: Will the real leader please stand up?’ The Leadership Quarterly, 16: 441–457. Olsen, D.W., Doescher, R.L. and Olsen, M.S. (2004) ‘When the sky ran red: The story behind the scream’, Sky and Telescope, 107: 29–35. Pelletier, K.L. (2010) ‘Leader toxicity: An empirical investigation of toxic behavior and rhetoric,’ Leadership, 6, 4: 373–389. Price, T.L. (2005) Understanding Ethical Failures in Leadership, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Prideaux, S. (2005) Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream, London: Yale University Press. Ranse, J., Arbon, P., Cusack, L., Shaban, R.Z. and Nicholls, D. (2020) ‘Obtaining individual narratives and moving to an intersubjective lived-experience description: A way of doing phenomenology’, Qualitative Research, 20, 6: 945–959. Reader, P. (2008) ‘A painterly methodology for learning and research,’ International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 21, 3: 297–311. Reed, D. and Reedman, A. (2020) ‘Reactivity and adaptability: Applying gender and age assessment to the leader resilience profile®’, in Frontiers in Education, 10.33 89/feduc.2020.574079. Rist, J.M. (1969) Stoic Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Samier, E.A. and Milley, P. (eds.) (2018) International Perspectives on Maladministration in Education: Theories, Research, and Critiques, Abingdon: Routledge. Schubert, J.D. (2014) ‘Suffering/symbolic violence’, in M. Grenfell (ed.) Pierre Bourdieu: Key Concepts (191–206), 2nd edn., London: Routledge. Schwartz, S.H. (1994) ‘Are there universal aspects in the structure and contents of human values?’ Journal of Social Issues, 50, 4: 19–45. Smith, N. and Fredricks-Lowman, I. (2019) ‘Conflict in the workplace: A 10-year review of toxic leadership in higher education’, International Journal of Leadership in Education, 23, 5: 538–551. Smyth, J. (2017) The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rock Stars and Neoliberal Ideology, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Tenbrunsel, A.E. and Messick, D.M. (2004) ‘Ethical fading: The role of selfdeception in unethical behavior’, Social Justice Research, 17: 223–236. Waite, D. (2014) ‘Imperial hubris: The dark heart of leadership’, Journal of School Leadership, 24, 6: 1202–1232. Warneka, T.H. (2005) Leading People the Black Belt Way: Conquering the Five Core Problems Facing Leaders Today, Tokyo: Asagami. Watts, P. and Rogers, R. (2018) ‘“Sometimes it’s appropriate to scream at them”: The university as a platform for resistance and free speech’, in S. Jackson (ed.) Developing Transformative Spaces in Higher Education (94–109), London: Routledge. Wegerif, R. (2019) ‘Dialogic education’, in G.W. Noblit (ed.) Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 10.1093/acrefore/ 9780190264093.013.396 Wegerif, R., (2020) ‘Researching online dialogues: Introducing the ‘Chiasm’ methodology’, in R. Kershner, S. Hennessy, R. Wegerif R. and A. Ahmed (eds.) Research Methods for Educational Dialogue(150–171), London: Bloomsbury. Whicker, M.L. (1996) Toxic Leaders: When Organizations go Bad, Westport, CT: Quorum Books. Wilde, J. (2016) Social Psychology of Organizations: Diagnosing Toxicity and Intervening in the Workplace, Abingdon: Routledge. Williams, C. (2006) Leadership Accountability in a Globalizing World, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Afterword Or, how to cling to the abyssal edge Eugenie A. Samier

Since the initiation of this project, when international conditions, the pandemic, climate change, and the other significant threats were upon us, things seem even more precarious now with continuing political shifts towards more populism and right-wing ideas, especially those involving xenophobia, instability in Asia, increased climate change, and many negative effects of the pandemic, now entering its fourth wave. For many, hope seems to be dissolving away, with no recourse. Neoliberalism continues to have destructive effects on education internationally, despite the failures and criticisms that have accumulated for decades now. I am currently writing this afterword while the COP26 climate conference is meeting in Glasgow. So far, the news isn’t heartening. And two of the most polluting countries in the world, China and Russia, are not attending. The numbers of existential threats are numerous, and the effects multiple. Chapters in this volume cover many problems associated with reductionistic neoliberalism and the market model that excludes meaning dimensions of meaning, culture, values and political rights by Smyth and its toxic effects by Jameson, and the related problem of superficial fad ‘leadership’ literature that tends to be narrowly local by Niesche. Others focus on the negative effects of current ideologies and regimes in excluding issues of meaning and authenticity examined by Bezzina, English, and Jameson as they affect educational policy, values, roles, and practices. Three chapters focus on teaching implications of existential threats relevant to professional development in higher education and teaching in schools. Harris as well as Boske, Sallee, Jackson and Collins, and Wittmann and Striković explore teaching issues that focus on negative and suppressive effects on our abilities to participate fully as citizens in the political process and engage in reform while instilling fundamental moral values and providing means for developing one’s identity as a progressive member of society and various communities. Then the problem of digital technology in Wittmann and Striković in terms of how it has had an impact on administrative planning, decision-making, behaviour, and in redefining aims and goals of education. A common theme running across these chapters is the valuational impact of neoliberalism through its economic ideology and market model that has affected curriculum and pedagogy, reduced academic freedom, altered our role constructions reducing academic and scholarly identities, and social relationships in

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educational organisations (Maisuria and Helmes 2020; Solga 2020; Starr 2019). It has replaced many cultural, political, and human values, such as human rights and justice values, into monetary values and in extreme form into materialism, affecting how we think, the knowledge we acquire and the skills that we develop, extended through globalisation to other countries compromising their cultures, religions, and languages (e.g., Sardoč 2021; Torres 2009). It also reduces our ability to deal with many other existential crises since these require much more than market-based consumer students, saleable knowledge, and a competitive ethos. Over the last 40 years of neoliberalism and other questionable changes societally and globally, those purposes of education that dominated the academic discussion – supporting and protecting culture (including religion, language, etc.), contributing to the development of the individual wholistically, preparing people to be active citizens in the political process, and providing a broad range of values contributing to society and social justice – have been radically truncated to serve the economic system changing all aspects of education. The ideals of education serving humanity in a much broader sense discussed by Habermas (1970) and Wolff (1969) seem to no longer play a role in educational policy and planning. The overall effect is a diminishment of our human potential and social responsibility. Given the level and nature of the many existential threats that education systems face directly or indirectly, it is important to approach these problems in ways that can capture their seriousness and potential destructiveness. One of the few fields of study designed to do this is one that is rarely referenced in educational administration and leadership: security studies. While traditionally security studies have been dominated by a realist, militaristic or intelligence application (although there are many applications possible in higher education and research that serves a purpose for this sector), in the last two decades other approaches in security studies have developed in ways that make its application to educational systems possible (e.g., Gearon 2020; Izarali et al. 2017). Elsewhere, (Samier 2015, 2019), I have proposed using security studies as a way to analyse the threat to indigenous and non-Western countries and communities of globalisation to their cultures, languages, religions, or belief systems. What is important here is the securitisation process – by securitising a problem as a critical matter of public policy, one moves it to a higher priority requiring significant and more urgent action on the part of a broader number and range of community and public sector organisations. Using a non-Western securitisation approach also takes into account contextual factors rather than a foreign perspective that has its own interests to serve (see Bilgin 2005). In contrast with realist, mostly American security literature, three schools of security thought in Europe, collectively referred to as ‘constructivist security studies’, bring both different approaches and analyses, but also different security topics. The Copenhagen, Aberystwyth, and Paris schools, using various interpretive and critical perspectives focus on broader societal securities like health, human, agricultural, water, economic, and other types of security, allowing them to examine culture, social structures, and roles and the interactions among these

Afterword 191 (Cavelty and Balzacq 2017). These schools of security studies draw on many of the same theoretical approaches used in educational administration and leadership studies, allowing for their ready application to serious issues of existential threats educational systems and organisations are facing. Copenhagen uses critical discourse analysis (e.g., Buzan and Wæver 2003) examining securitisation and desecuritisation processes and their consequences as well as extending the form and shaping of securitisation to regional influences that vary globally. The Aberystwyth use of critical theory (Williams 2007) focusses on security threats for individuals, groups, and communities, including those in non-Western contexts that have an effect on identity, roles, and functioning in society. Finally, the Paris school uses Foucault and Bourdieu (e.g., Bigo 2006) to examine the governmentality of security and symbolic violence that arises out of security issues and practices both within states and between states including the pressures of Western globalisation on non-Western states and their social institutions. In addition, the human security studies (e.g., Tadjbakhsh & Chenoy 2007; Tehranian 1999), societal (e.g., Buzan 1983), and cultural security (e.g., Friedman and Randeria 2004) approaches can be used in combination to address many of the existential threats identified in this collection, since education is included as a dimension of these. There are a few benefits of using constructivist security studies in educational administration and leadership. First, security studies emphasise a deeper analysis of causal factors and contextual influences, as well as implications and effects on other social institutions. For education, this involves a systematic approach rather than extracting levels of organisations from the educational system, but also interactions with politics, the economy, culture and other systems like healthcare and social services. This also allows for a deeper embedded analysis of declines in education. Secondly, securitising a topic or social institution raises its profile and urgency in the policy cycle providing greater assurance that it will receive attention. Finally, securitisation analysis, particularly from critical perspectives brings into question the degree of rationalisation, compliance, collaboration, etc., going on in educational organisations where people try to continue thinking and acting as if everything is relatively normal when negative effects and dynamics are underway. Another option, chosen by the Humanistic Management Network, founded about twenty years ago, is to rebuild the valuational foundations of management studies and business in our societies in opposition to neoliberalism that is grounded in underlying and foundational humanistic concepts and values that are found in many world religions and belief systems, explored in the many book projects that have been made available from the network: The dignity of the human being lies in its capacity to define autonomously the purpose of its existence. Since human autonomy realizes itself through social cooperation, economic relations and business activities can either foster or obstruct human life and well-being. Against the widespread objectification of human subjects into human resources, against the

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Eugenie A. Samier common instrumentalization of human being into human capital and a mere means for profit, we uphold human dignity as a principle of all economic activity. In business as well as in society, respect for human dignity demands respect for human freedom. Collective decision-making, in corporations just as in governments, should hence be based on free and equal deliberation, participation or representation of all affected parties. Concerns of legitimacy must, in economics like in politics, precede questions of expediency. (Spitzeck et al. 2010: 1–2)

While the network focusses on business management, the fundamental principles and values identified here can be applied to other social institutions, including that of the educational sector, as an important corrective to neoliberalism. This approach also embeds within it the many laws and policies internationally that relate to various UN resolutions and conventions on human rights, including values other than economic such as the rights to one’s culture and religion. At the conclusion of a book collection with chapters examining the many deep problems in societies and their educational system, one can hope that there is a catharsis, a regeneration, and a recharging of commitment, energy and broader valuationally informed thinking and action. Part of the problem in this field, and in others, is denial and resistance, partly through the language used which reduces the severity of problems humanity faces, and the other is in inadequate inclusion of existential threat topics in educational administration and leadership curriculum and research. This collection explores many of these, with the hope that a broader range of legitimate purposes and aims of education can be rebuilt and be much more inclusive of international diversity. Such aims can be used for curricular and pedagogical reform, broader research practices, and a more morally and valuationally-informed organisational practice leading to social justice and the possibilities of overcoming the existential threats that we face.

References Bigo, D. (2006) ‘Internal and external aspects of security’, European Security, 15, 4: 385–404. Bilgin, P. (2005) Regional Security in the Middle East: A Critical Perspective, Abingdon: RoutledgeCurzon. Buzan, B. (1983) People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Buzan, B. and Wæver, O. (2003) Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cavelty, M. and Balzacq, T. (eds) (2017) Routledge Handbook of Security Studies, Abingdon: Routledge. Friedman, J. and Randeria, S. (eds.) (2004) Worlds on the Move: Globalization, Migration and Cultural Security, London: I. B. Tauris. Gearon, L. (ed.) (2020) The Routledge International Handbook of Universities, Security and Intelligence Studies, Abingdon: Routledge.

Afterword 193 Habermas, J. (1970) Toward a Rational Society: Student Protest, Science and Politics, Boston: Beacon. Izarali, M.R., Masakure, O. and Shizha, E. (eds.) (2017) Security, Education and Development in Contemporary Africa, Abingdon: Routledge. Mabon, S. and Kapur, S. (eds.) (2019) Securitisation in the Non-West, Abingdon: Routledge. Maisuria, A. and Helmes, S. (2020) Life for the Academic in the Neoliberal University, Abingdon: Routledge. Samier, E.A. (2015) ‘The globalization of higher education as a societal and cultural security problem’, Policy Futures in Education, 13, 5: 683–702. Samier, E.A. (2019) ‘Toward a postcolonial securities critique of higher education leadership: Globalization as a recolonization in developing countries like the UAE’, International Journal of Leadership in Education, 23, 6: 635–654. Sardoč, M. (ed.) (2021) The Impacts of Neoliberal Discourse and Language in Education: Critical Perspectives on a Rhetoric of Equality, Well-Being, and Justice, Abingdon: Routledge. Solga, K. (ed.) (2020) Theatre and Performance in the Neoliberal University: Responses to an Academy in Crisis, New York: Routledge. Spitzeck, H., Pirson, M., von Kimakowitz, E. and Dierksmeier, C. (2010) ‘The humanistic management network: An introduction’, Working paper, Fordham University, Schools of Business, available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/ papers.cfm?abstract_id=1632024 (accessed 20 June 2020). Starr, K. (2019) Education Policy, Neoliberalism, and Leadership Practice, New York: Routledge. Tadjbakhsh, S. and Chenoy, A. (2007) Human Security: Concepts and Implications, London: Routledge. Tehranian, M. (ed.) (1999) Worlds Apart: Human Security and Global Governance, London: I. B. Tauris. Torres, C.A. (2009) Education and Neoliberal Globalization, New York: Routledge. Williams, M. (2007) Culture and Security: Symbolic Power and the Politics of International Security, Abingdon: Routledge. Wolff, R. (1969) The Ideal of the University, Boston: Beacon.

Index

abyssal language 31 abysses 21, 23; contemporary 26–29; education 29–32; existential 24–25; Whither Educational Administration 32–33 Academic Capitalism and the New Economy (Slaughter and Rhoades) 11 academic ethic 11, 31 adult education, educational administration and 83; ‘conscientization’, theories of 84; global responsibility 85–86; mind and body, healing dichotomies of 85; personal taboos, sensitivity to 84–85; pleasure principle 86; teaching/ learning, ethos of 84 aesthetic appreciation 75 aesthetic moments 89 aesthetics and art, distinguishing features of 75–76 ‘affective’ strategy 46–47 affect phrases 41, 45–47 The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (Zuboff ) 113 Aho, K. 3 Alvesson, M. 30, 185n2 Amazon 2 Ament, A. 161 American Civil Liberties Union 163 American Federal Department of Education 149–150 American Federation of Teachers (AFT) 153 Anderson, G. 61 Angus, L. 1, 4, 24, 61 anthropological education, need for 125–129 Antigonish Movement 74 Apple, M.W. 135

Arendt, H. 4 Aristotle 137 Armenian communities 28 arsehole management 64–65 art and aesthetics in educational administration 79–80 art making 84, 97–98, 100–110 arts-aesthetic attitude, framing 76; ‘making special’ 76–77; seeing differently 77–79 arts-as-action in leadership classroom 82–83 arts-based learning 74, 88 Atwood, G. 28 Australian academic knowledge 85 authenticity 5, 13, 24, 133; collaborative culture, nurturing 140–142; professional learning communities (PLCs) 138–140; theoretical framework 137 authentic leadership 8, 135, 139 authoritarianism 3, 6, 64 authority 116–117 autocratic politics 6 automaton conformity 116, 117, 124 Avolio, B.J. 185n2 Aware Home 120 bad leadership 174 Ball, S.J. 135 Baskwell, J. 83 Bates, R. 9, 61, 79–80, 85 Bazerman, M.H. 142 Bell, T.H. 150 Benda, J. 31, 62 Berlant, L. 49, 50, 51 Biden, J. 166 Binswanger, L. 4 Biraghi, S. 142

Index Blackmore, J. 61 Boal, A. 84 Bogdan, D. 81 Bologna Process 114, 126–127 Boss M. 4 Bourdieu, P. 96, 151 Bourke, J. 135 Bouton, C. 4 brain performance centers 154 brand names 26 Bridgepoint Education Inc. 159 Broad, E. 157 Buber, M. 2, 3, 32 Buffardi, L. 27 bullshit idea, educational leadership as 55–68 Burns, J.M. 41, 185n2 business actors 62 Butterwick, S. 84 Caldwell, B. 41 Calvert, L. 142 Camera, L. 160 Campbell, W. 26 Camus A. 2 Cappelli, P. 135 Carter, J. 149 The Castle (2015[1926]) 5, 25 Chang, G. 185n2 charismatic leadership 185n2 Christian nationalism 151–153 cinema 25 Cisek, S. 26 Clark, J. 9 Clifton, A. 27 collaborative culture 138, 140–142 Collay, M. 138 college campuses, sexual assault on 162–163 Collingwood, R.G. 73, 75 conscientization 84–85 conspicuous consumption 26 Constitution of the United States 149 contemporary abysses 26–29 context beliefs 142 conversations in leadership 73; aesthetics and art, distinguishing features of 75–76; art and aesthetics in educational administration 79–80; arts-aesthetic attitude, framing 76–79; arts-as-action in leadership classroom 82–83; arts-based research as leveller 87; community outreach 88;

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educational administration and adult education 83–86; higher education (HE) 80–82; pedagogy 87–88; personal positioning 74–75 Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES) 165 The Courage to Be (2014[1952]) 25 Courtney, S. 60 Covey, S. 136 COVID-19 pandemic 81, 82, 134 Craver, S. 9 critical competencies 76 critical dialogue 99, 100; creating spaces to challenge injustices 105–108; social critique and action 100–102; social justice art making and empowerment 102–105 critical thinking 173–174 The Cultural of Narcissism (Lasch) 26 Cuno, J. 185n3 The Dark Abyss of Time (Olivier) 28 Dark Academia: How Universities Die (Peter Fleming) 3 data extraction 121 David, A. 28 De Beauvoir, S. 4 The Decolonial Abyss (Yountae) 28–29 The Degradation of Academic Dogma (Nisbet) 31 dehumanisation 5, 6 Demir-Atay, H. 9 Denniss, R. 62 dependent beauty 149 Derrida, J. 49 destructiveness 117 determinism 125 DeVos, B. 150–151, 153; failure to take a stand on guns in schools 164; forprofit universities and student debt 159–162; school choice pushed in the midst of a pandemic 164–165; schools, discrimination in 164; Senate Sub-Committee, debacle before 155–158; sexual assault on college campuses 162–163; transgendered students, withdrawing support for 164 DeVos, D. 150–151 DeVos Education Department 161, 164 DeWitt, P. 141 Dhiman, S. 134 Diddams, M. 185n2 Dierksmeier, C. 11

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The Differend (Lyotard) 41, 45, 48 digital transformation 113, 114, 119–125 Dinham, S. 61 disappearance 173–174 Dissanayake, E. 9, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 90 Dominionism 151, 152 Dream Center Education Holdings 160 DuFour, R. 138, 142 Duignan, P. 135 Eacott, S. 60, 61 econobabble 62 Edmonds, G. 67 education: abysses 29–32; adult education, educational administration and 83–86; anthropological education, need for 125–129; art and aesthetics in educational administration 79–80; DeVos Education Department 161, 164; existentialism in 9–11; higher education (HE) 10, 12, 30–31, 80–82, 172–176; professionalism in 33; Whither Educational Administration 32–33 Education Act of 1980 60 Education Reform Act of 1988 60 Ehrich, L.C. 80 Einola, K. 185n2 Einstein 25 Eisner, E. 80 electronic social networks 27 Elysium (2013) 25 Ender’s Game (2013) 25 English, F.W. 80 Escape from Freedom (Erich Fromm) 1, 25 Espedido, A. 135 event/les petits narratives 47–49 existential abyss 2, 24–25, 29 existentialism 2, 3–6, 27; in education 9–11; in other disciplines and fields 6–8 Existentialism in Education (Van Cleve Morris) 8 existential ‘Angst’ 4 existential leadership 8 Fanon, F. 2 fate 116 Faustian compact 123 Fear and Trembling (1983) 24

The Fear of Freedom (Fromm) 113, 114 federal loans 156, 160, 161 Federal Secretary of Education 153–155 Fleming, P. 3 for-profit universities and student debt 159–162 Forum Members (FM) 176, 178 Foster, W. 61 Foucault, M. 96 Frankfurt, H. 12, 55, 56, 63 Frankl V.E. 4 freedom of speech 173–174 Freire, P. 84 Friedman, M. 154 Friere, P. 9, 12 Fromm, E. 1, 5, 8, 25, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 123, 124, 125, 126, 175 ‘gainful employment’ rule 160 Gallos J.V. 172, 176, 185 Gardner, H. 185n3 Garrett, B. 186n5 Geisinger Health System 67 Generation Me (Twenge) 27 George, B. 135, 143 Gessen, M. 6, 7 Gifford, J. 80 Gill, R. 30 Glesne, C. 88 global financial crisis (GFC) 57 globalisation 6, 9, 27, 31, 76, 190 global responsibility 85–86 Goffee, R. 140 Google Education 121 Google Scholar 2 Gordon, L. 5 Gordon, M. 5 Graeber, D. 67 Grand Hotel Abyss 28 Grand Old Party (GOP) 152 Greene, M. 9, 74, 76, 77, 78, 90 Greenfield, T.B. 79 Grint, K. 80 Gunter, H. 61, 79 Gupta, S. 32 Habermas, J. 190 Han, B.C. 82 Hanaway, M. 8 Harris, C.E. 12, 79 Hart, C. 26 Hayek, F.A. 154

Index Heidegger M. 3, 4 Helmes, S. 11, 32 Helmuth, L. 134 Herman, J.L. 186n6 higher education (HE) 10, 12, 30–31, 172–173; promise and pitfalls 80–82; toxic leadership and management in 174–176 Higher Education Act of 1965 159 higher education workplaces 171–172, 179 Himmelfarb, G. 2, 33 Hodgkinson, C. 1, 80 Hoel, T. 124 Hoerr, T.R. 139 homo oeconomicus 11, 30 House Appropriations subcommittee 164 Howell, J.M. 185n2 The Human Condition (Arendt) 4 ‘humanistic’ knowledge 126 Humanistic Management Network 11, 29, 191 Husserl E. 4 imperial hubris 174 Inam, H. 135 incommensurable phrasing 39 Indigenous children 22 Indigenous peoples 6, 22 individuality 118 infantile discipline 179 injustices, creating spaces to challenge 105; Christa 107–108; Joshua 106–107; Leshun 108; Mariel 105–106 Instagram 103 institutional leaders 59, 83 instructional supervisors 85 instrumentarianism 121 instrumentarian power 121 intense individualism 137 intraoperability 122, 124 Iqbal, M. 6 isolation 82, 117, 123, 136, 137 James, A. 64, 65 Jameson, J. 186n6 Jaspers, K. 4 Jeffries, S. 28 Jones, G. 140 Jurecic, Q. 63, 64 Just Gaming (Lyotard) 44

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K-12 school communities 99 Kafka, F. 25, 33 Kafkaesque 5 Kaine, T. 156 Kant, I. 149 Kelderman, E. 159 Kereluik, K. 126 Kerssens, N. 121 Kets de Vries, M. 8, 10 Keyes, R. 23 Keynes, J. 56, 57 Kierkegaard, S. 2, 3, 4, 6, 24 Kimberley Clark 64 Krugman, P. 57 Kruse, S.D. 142 Laing R.D. 4 Lakomski, G. 58 Lambert, L. 137 The Landscapes of Learning (Maxine Greene) 8 language games, Lyotard and 39–45 Lasch, C. 26 Latour, B. 29 leaders: authentic 143; institutional 59, 83 leadership 61; arts-as-action in leadership classroom 82–83; authentic 8, 135, 139; bad 174; capacity 137; charismatic 185n2; co-creating 141; existential 8; multi-dimensional leadership theory 139; neoliberal educational 64; phrasing educational leadership 50–51; supreme skill in leadership 186n6; ‘taming’ of 61; teacher leadership 139, 140, 141; ‘toxic’ forms of 62; toxic leadership 174–176; transformational leadership 41, 61; trust and leadership survey responses 180–184; see also conversations in leadership; stoic leadership leadership classroom, arts-as-action in 82–83 leadership forum, trust and 176–178 leadership interviews, trust and 178–180 legitimacy 43 Leithwood, K. 41 Leo, J. 32 les petits narratives 47–49 LGBTQ community 104, 105 Libidinal Economy (Lyotard) 51 Life for the Academic in the Neoliberal University (Maisuria and Helmes) 11 Lipman-Blumen, J. 8, 174, 175

198

Index

literacy of stupidification 62 Lowell, J. 97 Lyotard, J.F. 12, 38–51; and language games 39–45 Macedo, D. 62 Mackler, S. 10 Macpherson, R.J.S. 9 Maisuria, A. 11, 32 Malik, N. 64 management rhetoric 61 Marcuse, H. 73 Marginson, S. 32 market ideology 60, 62, 65 Marshall, J. 10 Martin, R. 32 Matei, L. 127 The Matrix (1999) 25 May, R. 4 Maynard, R. 155 McIntyre, D. 88 McLaurin, W. 32 McMillan, C. 29 McMullin, I. 3 meaningfulness 25, 139 Merleau-Ponty, M. 4, 185n4 Meyer, M. 82, 83 Micklethwait, J. 65, 66 mind and body, healing dichotomies of 85 Minority Report (2002) 25 moderate autoethnography 75 moral art 75 Morris, V.C. 9 Muijs, D. 45 Muller, J. 67 Mulryan, S. 10 multi-dimensional leadership theory 139 Munch, E. 25, 73, 149 Murphy, J.F. 141 Music 86, 87 Myers, C.B. 138 MySchool 46, 52n6 Nairne, E. 149 narcissism 26–27 The Narcissism Epidemic (Twenge and Campbell) 26 National Education Association 149 National Women’s Law Center 163 Nelson, S. 10 neoliberal educational leadership 64 neoliberalism 2–3, 5, 6, 11, 12, 23,

29–31, 32, 64, 65, 81, 82, 189–190, 192 Neurocare 154–155 Neuweg, G.-H. 126 Newfield, C. 67 New Mexican lawsuit 122 New Public Governance 30 New Public Management 11, 61, 62 Niesche, R. 12 Nietzsche F. 2, 3, 4, 6, 10 Nisbet, R. 31 nodern management theory 65, 66 Norris, J. 61 OECD 141 Olivier, L. 28 Overall, J. 29 Ozmon, H. 9 Ozturk, S. 5 Pelletier, K.L. 174, 175 Pence, M. 157 performativity 13, 30, 40, 42, 44, 51, 52n2 personalization 123 personal positioning 74–75 personal taboos, sensitivity to 84–85 Peters, M. 10 Pharmakon 49 Philosophical Foundations of Education (Ozmon and Craver) 9 phrasing educational leadership 50–51 pleasure principle 86 The Postmodern Condition (Lyotard) 40, 41, 47, 49 post-truth 12, 23, 63 Powell, M. 80 powerlessness 117, 118 pracademic 44 Preston, J. 10 Price, T.L. 185n2 Prince, E. 150 Principles for Responsible Management Education 11 product symbolism 30 professionalism in education 33 professional learning communities (PLCs) 137, 138–139; characteristics of 139–140 proof 44 pseudo-scholarship 12 pseudo thinking 117 psychoanalysis 7, 28

Index psychology 7, 28 Purpel, D. 32 Quaglia, R.J. 134 Quiggin, J. 57 Quinn, T. 96 Quo Vadis? The Existential Challenges of Leaders (Kets de Vries) 8 Rank O. 4 Raritan Quarterly Review (Frankfurt) 55 Reader, P. 185n1 Reagan, R. 150 reciprocity 120, 140 reductionistic neoliberalism 2, 189 resistance 173–174 responsibilisation 81 Rhoades, G. 11 Ricoeur, P. 4 right to sanctuary 124 Riordan, G. 140 Rorty, R. 4 Rossi, P. 28 Sadigh, M. 4 Said, E. 5 Saltman, K. 1 Samier, E.A. 12, 61–62 Samuelson, P. 57 Sartre, J.-P. 4, 5 Scheiber, N. 152 school administrators 10, 85, 87, 123 school autonomy era 40 school effectiveness and improvement (SESI) 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 52n1 Schwartz, S.H. 186n7 The Scream (Edvard Munch) 1, 12, 73, 75, 89, 136, 149, 171; background 149–150; Betsy Devos at work 159–165; Betsy Devos debacle before Senate Sub-Committee 155–158; Christian nationalism 151–153; royal rich in Western Michigan 150–151; Trump’s Federal Secretary of Education 153–155 scream as metaphor of resistance 171–172 Seashore, K.S. 138 The Secrets of the Self (2008[1920]) 6 Sedikides, C. 26 self-efficacy 141 self-interest 62, 82

199

self-managing school 41, 60 self-referentialism 51 Selman, J. 84 Senate Sub-Committee 155–158 The Seventh Seal (1957) 2 sexual assault on college campuses 162–163 shared moral language 135 Shils, E. 31 Shirley, D. 11 Simon, H.A. 125 Simon, H. A. 125 Simpson, D.J. 138 Skinner, B.F. 121 Slaughter, S. 11 smart home 120 Smeyers, P. 10 Smyth, J. 3, 11, 12, 30, 61 social critique and action 100; bottom line 101; Christa 101; Joshua 101; Leshun 102; Mariel 100–101 Social Finance, Inc. 155 social justice 96, 98; creating spaces to challenge injustices 105–108; social critique and action 100–102; social justice art making and empowerment 102–105 social justice art making and empowerment 102; Christa 104–105; Joshua 102–104; Leshun 105; Mariel 102 Soderquist, D. 133 Solaris (1972) 2 Somerville, M. 137 specialness 64–65 Spillane, J. 139 Spinks, J. 41 Stern, J. 31 Stewart, K. 151 stoic leadership 170; analysing discernible elements of 184–185; methods 172–173; results 176; at risk of disappearing 173–174; scream as metaphor of resistance in higher education workplaces 171–172; toxic leadership and management in higher education 174–176; trust and leadership forum 176–178; trust and leadership interviews 178–180; trust and leadership survey responses 180–184 sublime 49–50 supreme skill in leadership 186n6

200

Index

surveillance capitalism 113; anthropological education, need for 125–129; digital transformation as the age of 119–125; fear of freedom 114–119

Urciuoli, B. 32

Taylor, C. 4 Taylorism 11 teacher leadership 139, 140, 141 teaching/learning, ethos of 84 Teal, T. 143 Teo, T. 58 Theory Movement 79 The Thirteenth Man (Bell) 150 Thompson, T. 155 Tillich, P. 4, 25 total toxic institution 62 toxic emotions 172 toxic handlers 176 toxic leadership 174–176 The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rock Stars and Neoliberal Ideology (John Smyth) 3, 11 Transcendence (2014) 25 transformational leadership 41, 61 transgendered students, withdrawing support for 164 The Trial (2015[1925]) 5, 25 Trump, D. 13, 63–64, 150, 156; Federal Secretary of Education 153–155 Trumpism 22 trust 141; and leadership forum 176–178; and leadership interviews 178–180; and leadership survey responses 180–184 Twenge, J. 26, 27 2001 (1968) 2 The Tyranny of Metrics (Muller) 67

Walker, A. 140 Warren, S. 30 Wasonga, T.A. 141 Weber, M. 24, 27, 122 Wegerif, R. 185n4 Weingarten, R. 153 Western Michigan, royal rich in 150–151 What Is Art For? (Dissanayake) 8 Whiteye, P. 89 Whither Educational Administration 32–33 Whyte, W. 62 Wilde, L. 114 Williams, C. 185n2 Willougby, R. 9 Wittgenstein, L. 63 Wittmann, E. 126 Wolff, R. 190 women administrators 85 Wooldridge, A. 65, 66

Vandenberg, D. 9 van Dijck, J. 121 visual art 74, 75, 86

Xirau, R. 125 Yountae, A. 28 Zaccaro, S.J. 186n6 Zacharas, L. 97 Zajda, J. 32 Zizek, S. 23 zombie economics 57, 58 Zuboff, S. 113, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 126