This paper examines school principal responses to the policy discourse of widening participation in higher education. As a critical analysis of how policy is produced, read and responded to by principals [Bacchi, C., 2009. "Analysing policy: what's the problem represented to be?" New York: Pearson], the paper questions the assumptions…

Presents a feminist analysis of how decentralized decision-making policies are reflected at the local level in four countries: Australia, Sweden, New Zealand, and Israel. These examples indicate that management practices tend to be more modernist than postmodernist, and often have highly inequitable effects for female teachers. Contains 63…