(Re)contextualizing the field. A Bourdieuian analysis of small rural school principal leadership in a post-conflict society

Abstract

As neo-liberal, economic and political fields increasingly contaminate the field of education, so a (re) contextualised understanding of the manifold and shifting social space small rural primary school principals occupy is of central importance to understanding practice. An understanding especially germane to a post-conflict divided and segregated society such as Northern Ireland. The paper draws on data from a mixed-method investigation including a survey of small rural school principals and case study research in five small rural primary schools. The findings are theoretically and conceptually informed by Bourdieu (1984) and his work on field, habitus and capital as a means to understand practice. The insight into principal practice that emerges is one that is, complex, fluid and uncertain; school leaders needing to negotiate diverse logics of practice as a response to the dominant fields in play at any given time. We contend that at one level, neo-liberal economistic imperatives and politicisation of education have led to a professional narrowing in principal leadership practice. While on another level, in a post-conflict Northern Ireland, we have arguably seen a professional widening, with principals afforded a leadership role potentially empowered to help balance cross-community religious tensions and facilitate peace and reconciliation.