ABSTRACT
We site our analysis in one secondary school in the north of England, and by drawing on in-depth interviews with the school leadership team, we bring analysis and perspective to professional practice at a time of rapid reform. The interviews were undertaken as part of a two-year ethnographic study. Using Bourdieu’s (1989, 1990a, 1990b) conceptual tools we construct an understanding and explanations of the privatisation of public education through the expansion of the Academies Programme in England from 2010, and by doing so we examine how and why school leaders as individuals and as a team position themselves and the school within the field of educational policymaking. The findings suggest that there exists a complex interplay between external ideological demands and pragmatic internal opportunism enacted by the headteacher and deputies, where symbolic capital in the form of official recognition from the government is of utmost importance if the school is to present itself as a viable and legitimate player in the policy game. Our contribution is to engage with accounts of professional practice through a theory of power that enables powerfulness as an organisational narrative to be examined. This is significant because it not only demonstrates the role of research in uncovering the way the TLP operates, but also how field data requires social science thinking tools in order to ask important questions about ELMA.
