This paper provides an overview of the policies of school autonomy in Australian public education from the Karmel report in 1973 to the present day. The key focus is on the social justice implications of this reform. It tracks the tensions between policy moves to both grant schools greater autonomy and rein in this autonomy with the increasing…

A persuasive solution for governments and systemic authorities seeking to improve the quality and equity of outcomes for students has been the localized management of schools. Believed to provide opportunities for context-sensitive decision-making, what remains unclear is how does shifting increasing management to the school-level generate the…

This paper examines principals' perceptions of school autonomy and leadership as part of a 3-year research project looking at the implications of school autonomy on social justice across four states of Australia (Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland). Drawing on interviews with principals and representatives from principal…

There is a rich international history in social justice scholarship focusing on the practices of educational leadership and leaders in areas of disadvantage. Research suggests that principals who have a clear focus on social justice will tend to exhibit a range of normative practices. This paper examines the social justice understandings and…

School autonomy policies have circulated through various modes of educational governance internationally, endorsing the view that more autonomy will improve schools and their systems. When subject to the discourses and practices of marketization, however, school 'autonomy' has been mobilized in ways that generate injustice. These injustices are…

Educational leadership research has a long history of the use of metaphor as a descriptive and analytical tool. In this paper, I explore the value of metaphorical analysis using tropes from the story of "Robinson Crusoe" as a way to think with and through the data generated in a case study examining how social justice may be understood…

Neoliberal policies promoting school autonomy reform in Australia and internationally have, over three decades, appropriated earlier social democratic discourses of parental participation and partnership in school governance. Recent school autonomy reforms have repositioned school council/boards within a narrow frame of accountability and…