Italian education beyond hierarchy Governance, evaluation and headship

• Published in: Educational management, administration & leadership Vol. 42; no. 4_suppl; pp. 119 - 138
• Main Authors: Grimaldi, Emiliano, Serpieri, Roberto
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01-07-2014; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Accountability; Administrative Organization; Correlation; Education reform; Educational Change; Educational evaluation; Educational History; Educational leadership; Educational Planning; Educational Policy; Foreign Countries; Governance; Grounded Theory; Institutional Autonomy; Interviews; Italy; Politics; Qualitative Research; Italy; evaluation; headship; Italy; educational governance
• ISSN: 1741-1432; 1741-1440
• DOI: 10.1177/1741143213510501

This article deals with the changes introduced in the Italian education system after the 1997 School Autonomy reform. Looking at the complex interplay between global influences and processes of local inflection, the work explores the degree to which we are witnessing a significant shift towards a new mode of governance and the interplay between governance changes, shifts in the mechanisms of control and the shaping of professional subjectivity. Analysing the interplay between politics, policy and culture, we draw on Newman’s analytical model to map the changes in the modes of governance and interpret them in terms of tensions between centralization/decentralization and internal/external change. The article highlights two main ‘paradoxes’ that cross-cut the political project of reforming education in Italy: (1) the coexistence of an attempt to introduce decentralized forms of governance and empower self-regulating actors with the tightening of hierarchical ties; (2) the simultaneous request to fulfil new managerialist accountability demands and continue to deal with hierarchical forms of control.