Distributed Leadership, Teacher Autonomy, and Power Relations Between Headteachers and Teachers Under Low-Stakes Accountability Conditions: An Ethnographic Account from Switzerland

Abstract

Distributed leadership is propagated internationally as an effective means to improve teaching and learning in schools. Increasingly it is acknowledged that practices of distributed leadership depend on its context, not only on the school level but also on the larger governing conditions. This article discusses how distributed leadership is put into practice within a “loose” governing regime with low-stakes accountability. The example is taken from Switzerland, where the strengthening of leadership is one of the core instruments of New Public Management reforms, while high-stakes accountability instruments have not been implemented. By taking a governmentality perspective, the article analyses the (self-)governing practices that distributed leadership generates between headteachers and teachers in a primary school. It argues that a “loose” accountability regime produces an opaque field of power relations, in which the self-governing imperative of distributive leadership conflicts with claims of traditional teacher autonomy.

Keywords

• schools
• distributed leadership
• governmentality
• teacher autonomy
• New Public Management
• ethnography

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