Managed Discourse: Legitimizing Principal Identity and Agency

Given the demands of the era of accountability and standardization, the purpose
of this study was to explore how educational leaders construct their identity and agency.
The study utilized overlapping post-structural and critical theoretical frameworks on
identity and agency to analyze how high school principals interpret and enact
comprehensive school reform rhetoric and their state’s educational leadership standards.
In addition to several cycles of coding, a critical discourse analysis was performed with
the input of the participants’ high schools in order to further analyze the form and
function of discourses, socially situated meanings, and ideologies that constitute being an
educational leader and doing the work of an educational leader.
The findings from the study revealed that the high school principals discursively
construct their professional identity and agency by engaging in discourses and social
practices related to managing the personnel, numerical data, and external expectations of
the organization. As a result, the participants use the comprehensive school reform rhetoric as a way to legitimize and rationalize their duty as educators. The socially
situated meaning attributed to the state’s educational leadership standards is not as clear,
with the participants dismissing their value for a lack of context. In interpreting and
enacting the school reform policy mandates set forth by the district and the state,
principals conserve a corporatized model of school leadership that borrows much of its
neoliberal language from the business sphere. The principals are positioned as mid-level
managers, confirming Foster’s (2004) description of the contemporary school leader who
is preoccupied with controlling the numeracy, information systems, and language of the
organization.
Future research should focus on performing critical discourse analysis studies
with the upper levels of management, including, but not limited to, the central office and
the office of the superintendent, as a way of exploring a more transcendent meaning of
schooling and school leadership that focuses on human development. This study has the
potential to provide leadership preparation programs and policymakers significant insight
into the problems, paradoxes, and possibilities of school reform rhetoric and its impact on
local school leaders.