Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the 'cultural turn' in educational leadership. It employs a Foucauldian perspective to highlight the need for a nuanced approach to understanding the dynamics of leadership for social justice and the ways in which leaders work on themselves and others to enable social justice in education. This book analyses the landscape of successful school leadership in China and the ways in which educational reform in China is being influenced by both Western and Asian ideas. It employs an Indigenist perspective to interrogate leadership change and the building of respectful collaborative partnerships between educators as they seek to respond to the educational needs of the site. The book explores the question of how gender and leadership are shaped at the intersections of diverse social factors and, in so doing, prefigures women's leadership as a form of gender-transgressive performance.