Passionate Principalship Learning from the Life Histories of School Leaders

This book puts 'real life' back into the literature on school principalship. Through a life history approach, it portrays daily life in schools as a much more messy, contested and precarious existence, where principals struggle with passionate commitment to find continuity amongst frequently changing and often conflicting policy initiatives.
The book draws on comprehensively in-depth interview data with new, experienced and veteran principals. Their life stories illustrate the struggles involved in the ongoing negotiation of identities through unprecedented change. The authors lucidly argue that:
* The realities of principals' lives are much more demanding that rational linear approaches to reform suggest;
* A revolving door approach to the appointment of principals is inadequate
* Passion is central to the lives and work of principals, but this passion needs to be rejuvenated and rekindled through opportunities for learning
* There is a need for further research on the relationship between thelifecycles of principals, the leadership legacies of school communities and the cycles of mandated reforms as a means of lending coherence to leadership learning and sustained and renewed leaders.
This is essential reading for principals and their professional bodies, academics and researchers, school leaders on leadership courses internationally.

Introduction, Ivor Goodson Section 1: Passionate Principalship 1. Putting 'Real Life' into School Leadership: Connecting Identities, Leadership and Life History, Ciaran Sugrue Section 2: People in Principalship: Stories of Engaged Selves 2. Sustained Motivation Embedded in Place: Living with Accountability and Mandated Change, Colin Biott and John Spindler 3. Old Metaphors, New Meanings: Being a Woman Principal, Jorunn Møller 4. Memberships and Relationships in a Changing Context, Lejf Moos 5. Creating Continuity through Change: Comfort with Uncertainty, Ciaran Sugrue Section 3: Passionate Principalship: Learning from Life Histories 6. Coping with Accountability - Tensions between Reason and Emotion, Jorunn Møller 7. Regulation and Trust: Negotiating Relationship, Lejf Moos 8. Immediacy and Distance: Inter-generational Professional Learning, John Spindler and Colin Biott 9. Being Principal: Leadership Inside Out, Ciaran Sugrue Section 4: Beyond Passion in Principalship 10. Principalship: Beyond Pleasure, Pain and Passion, Ciaran Sugrue

Ciaran Sugrue, Professor Ivor Goodson