ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the re-design of the head teacher in the Italian education system that has occurred in the last two decades of educational reform. It presents the archaeological analytical tool the authors employ to carry on analysis. The chapter outlines the main attributes of the head teacher as it was designed in the welfarist and bureau-professional configuration of the Italian education system. From this background, the authors explain how the head teacher has been problematised as a subject to be modernised in the late 1990s. The chapter shows the main shifts that occurred in the process of objectification of the head teacher as educational subject, through an archaeological analysis of the 'La Buona Scuola' [The Good School] Reform Act. It concludes with some perspectival reflections on the possible implications of the neoliberal-inspired objectification of the head teacher and the spaces of possibility that it opens to practice in educational contexts.
