Decentring leadership: Rethinking leading in education contexts

This book is about the practices of leading and their arrangements in a range of contemporaryeducational contexts. It seeks to shift the traditional, individual, and role- basededucational leadership narrative, to more transformational, shared, and ongoing practicesbetween people, thereby decentring leadership.In this volume, contributors consider leading from a practice perspective across arange of educational contexts. Focusing on leading, rather than leadership, they examinehow educational leaders lead through decentring from a range of positions and acrossa range of educational sectors from schools to higher education. Chapters attend tothe practices of leading to ‘decentre’ normative, traditional notions of leadership thatfocus on the individual leader as the unit of study. They draw on the theory of practicearchitectures to understand leading as a shared and ongoing process rather than as anindividual act. This growing body of work that uses the theory of practice architectures(TPA) is disrupting people’s thinking towards leading as a practice. Focusing on practicesand their arrangements shifts the traditional, role- based educational leadership narrativeto the more transformational elements of practice architectures in thinking about leadingin contemporary contexts.