Modes of Handling Contingency and Educational Goals and Aims

This article reports the results of an empirical study into the relationship between school leaders’ experiences of contingency, and how they formulate goals and aims for the future of the children at their schools. We distinguish between three ways of handling experiences of contingency: contingency denial, contingency acceptance, and contingency receiving. We expect that school leaders who have received new insights in their experiences of contingency (contingency receiving) formulate future aims more often than school leaders who have accepted or denied experiences of contingency. This hypothesis is based on the assumption that both contingency receiving and formulating aims are characterised by transcendental openness and an ethical orientation towards the good life. The study consisted of qualitative interviews with 24 school leaders of primary schools in the Netherlands. The results confirm the hypothesis, and give insight into the complex relation between personal biography and professional identity in school leadership.