Richard Niesche
Biographic Data
| ID | 762505 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Richard Niesche |
| GIVEN NAMES | Richard |
| FAMILY NAME | Niesche |
| SIGNATURE | NIESCHE R |
| AFFILIATIONS | UNSW Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9621-0712 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 63 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The Impact of AI on School Leadership Practices and Policy Enactment: A Scoping Literature Review
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, more specifically generative AI tools, are having a notable influence on the nature of engagement with information and decision making across society. While the ubiquity of AI in education may be regarded as an inevitability, its successful integration in the field of educational leadership remains elusive due to the absence of research, guidelines, policies and regulations related to its ethical adaptat…
Principals and the careless erosion of employment standards in the context of school autonomy and marketisation: A case study of school support staff
Devolved governance, school autonomy and marketisation impact the employment practices of schools and the working conditions of teachers. However, the employment-related effects on school services staff are under-researched. This study draws on data from interviews with staff at one public high school to analyse school services staff experience of school autonomy and the employment practices of principals in the context of competitive education m…
Principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and educational leadership
This paper examines principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and leadership as part of a 3-year research project looking at the implications of school autonomy on social justice across four states of Australia (Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland). Drawing on interviews with principals and representatives from principal stakeholder organisations in these four state jurisdictions, the paper identifies a number of key issu…
School autonomy reform and social justice: A policy overview of Australian public education (1970s to present)
Election or selection? School autonomy reform, governance and the politics of school councils
Neoliberal policies promoting school autonomy reform in Australia and internationally have, over three decades, appropriated earlier social democratic discourses of parental participation and partnership in school governance. Recent school autonomy reforms have repositioned school council/boards within a narrow frame of accountability and management operating in marketized systems of education. This paper considers the perceptions of 12 stakehold…
The spatiality of economic maldistribution in public-school funding in Australia: Still a poisonous debate
This paper analyses the composition, distribution, and history of school funding in Australia through a spatial lens (Soja 2010). We explore multi-scalar school funding policy through three layers of economic maldistribution. We sketch the funding disparities between the three school sectors (public, Catholic, and independent) exposing a spatial injustice in policies of school choice; the spatial and economic maldistribution between state jurisdi…
School autonomy, marketisation and social justice: The plight of principals and schools
There remains strong political support for school autonomy reform within Australian public education despite evidence linking this reform to exacerbating school and systemic inequities. This paper presents interview data from key education stakeholders gathered from a broader study that is investigating the social justice implications of school autonomy reform across three Australian states. We focus on the concerns these stakeholders raise about…
Foucault and School Leadership Research: Bridging theory and method
This book is the first text in the new Social Theory and Methodology in Education Research series edited by Mark Murphy and published by Bloomsbury. The aim of the series is to bring together a var
Critical perspectives in educational leadership: A new ‘theory turn’
In this article, I argue that we are witnessing a new phase or ‘theory turn’ in the field of educational leadership. These more critical perspectives in the field of educational leadership have typically been marginalised by the larger body of orthodox approaches due to a perceived lack of focus on best practice and ‘what works’ discourses, and especially in recent years with the rise of the school effectiveness and improvement movement. However,…
Psycho-politicising educational subjectivity: A posthumanist consideration of Rancière and Lacan
Drawing on the aesthetic theory of Jacques Rancière and the Lacanian conception of lack, this paper offers an intervention into the notion of subjectivity which can be applied in critical studies of education. Critiquing the progressive and knowledge-oriented ideology of neoliberal systems, Rancière depicts a world in which politics turns out to delimit the subject’s perceptual experience and in this way, argues that what remains out of this ideo…
Leadership, Ethics and Schooling for Social Justice
Issues of social justice and equity in the field of educational leadership have become more salient in recent years. The unprecedented diversity, uncertainty and rapid social change of the contemporary global era are generating new and unfamiliar equity questions and challenges for schools and their leaders. In order to understand the moral and ethical complexity of work undertaken in the name of social justice and equity in diverse contexts, thi…
What use is Foucault in education today
At the start of Foucault, power and education, Stephen Ball is right to ask, ‘do we really need another book about Foucault?’ Notwithstanding the huge amount written discussing Foucault's works, id
Advocating a Post-structuralist Politics for Educational Leadership
Post-structuralist discourses have usually been associated with forms of critique and deconstruction of social, cultural and philosophical phenomena. However, this article attempts to provide a generative approach to understanding educational leadership through Michel Foucault’s notions of power and subjectification, and Judith Butler’s notions of performativity and discursive agency through re-signification. We argue that leadership is not simpl…
Deploying educational leadership as a form of governmentality
Critical approaches and understandings of leadership are typically given short shrift (if any at all) in the mainstream educational leadership literature. Research that makes particular knowledge c
Issues of Indigenous representation: White advocacy and the complexities of ethical leadership
This paper explores the tensions and complexities for two principals as they work towards equity and improved social and educational outcomes for their Indigenous students. Drawing on Foucault’s fourfold ethical frame and poststructuralist notions of the subject, this paper presents the different ways the white female principals of Indigenous schools are formed as subjects. We illustrate how the multiplicities of their subject formation are influ…
Foucault, counter-conduct and school leadership as a form of political subjectivity
Globally, a range of new schooling accountabilities have created a complex and often contradictory context in which school leaders work. For principals of low socio-economic status (SES) and disadvantaged schools, they must balance the accountability, performance and reporting requirements against the other needs of their communities. These tensions require new ways of rethinking leadership in the current educational context. This article draws o…
Governmentality and My School: School Principals in Societies of Control
The introduction of new accountabilities and techniques of government for the purposes of educational reform have created new complexities and tensions for school leadership. Policies such as the publishing of league tables in the UK, high stakes testing in the US and the introduction of the My School website in Australia are particularly significant for school principals. In this article I appeal to the work of Foucault and Deleuze to provide an…
It's almost like a White school now’: Racialised complexities, Indigenous representation and school leadership
Drawing on a broader study that focused on examining principal leadership for equity and diversity, this paper presents the leadership experiences of ‘Jane’, a White, middle-class principal of a rural Indigenous school. The paper highlights how Jane's leadership is inextricably shaped by her assumptions about race and the political dynamics and historical specificities of her school community. A central focus is on Jane's tendency to deploy cultu…
Productive engagements with student difference: Supporting equity through cultural recognition
In this paper, the focus is on how a group of Australian educators support student equity through cultural recognition. Young's theorising of justice is drawn on to illuminate the problematic impacts arising from the group's efforts to value students’ cultural difference associated, for example, with quantifying justice along distributive lines and with essentialising student difference as negation and lack within a frame of cultural imperialism.…
Working against the grain: Researching School Leadership
Foucault and Educational Leadership
School principals are increasingly working in an environment of work intensification, high stakes testing, accountability pressures and increased managerialism. Rather than searching for the latest leadership fad or best practice model, this book suggests that in order to better understand these pressures, the work of educational leadership requires more sophisticated theorisation of these practices. In so doing, the book draws upon the work of M…
Foucault and Educational Leadership: Disciplining the Principal
School principals are increasingly working in an environment of work intensification, high stakes testing, accountability pressures and increased managerialism. Rather than searching for the latest leadership fad or best practice model, this book suggests that in order to better understand these pressures, the work of educational leadership requires more sophisticated theorisation of these practices. In so doing, the book draws upon the work of M…
Emotions and Ethics: A Foucauldian framework for becoming an ethical educator
This paper provides examples of how a teacher and a principal construct their ‘ethical selves’. In doing so we demonstrate how Foucault's four‐part ethical framework can be a scaffold with which to actively connect emotions to a personal ethical position. We argue that ethical work is and should be an ongoing and dynamic life long process rather than a more rigid adherence to a ‘code of ethics’ that may not meaningfully engage its adherents. We u…
Governmentality and My School: School Principals in Societies of Control
The introduction of new accountabilities and techniques of government for the purposes of educational reform have created new complexities and tensions for school leadership. Policies such as the publishing of league tables in the UK, high stakes testing in the US and the introduction of the My School website in Australia are particularly significant for school principals. In this article I appeal to the work of Foucault and Deleuze to provide an…
School autonomy, marketisation and social justice: The plight of principals and schools
There remains strong political support for school autonomy reform within Australian public education despite evidence linking this reform to exacerbating school and systemic inequities. This paper presents interview data from key education stakeholders gathered from a broader study that is investigating the social justice implications of school autonomy reform across three Australian states. We focus on the concerns these stakeholders raise about…
Foucault, counter-conduct and school leadership as a form of political subjectivity
Globally, a range of new schooling accountabilities have created a complex and often contradictory context in which school leaders work. For principals of low socio-economic status (SES) and disadvantaged schools, they must balance the accountability, performance and reporting requirements against the other needs of their communities. These tensions require new ways of rethinking leadership in the current educational context. This article draws o…
Emotions and Ethics: A Foucauldian framework for becoming an ethical educator
This paper provides examples of how a teacher and a principal construct their ‘ethical selves’. In doing so we demonstrate how Foucault's four‐part ethical framework can be a scaffold with which to actively connect emotions to a personal ethical position. We argue that ethical work is and should be an ongoing and dynamic life long process rather than a more rigid adherence to a ‘code of ethics’ that may not meaningfully engage its adherents. We u…
Critical perspectives in educational leadership: A new ‘theory turn’
In this article, I argue that we are witnessing a new phase or ‘theory turn’ in the field of educational leadership. These more critical perspectives in the field of educational leadership have typically been marginalised by the larger body of orthodox approaches due to a perceived lack of focus on best practice and ‘what works’ discourses, and especially in recent years with the rise of the school effectiveness and improvement movement. However,…
Productive engagements with student difference: Supporting equity through cultural recognition
In this paper, the focus is on how a group of Australian educators support student equity through cultural recognition. Young's theorising of justice is drawn on to illuminate the problematic impacts arising from the group's efforts to value students’ cultural difference associated, for example, with quantifying justice along distributive lines and with essentialising student difference as negation and lack within a frame of cultural imperialism.…
Election or selection? School autonomy reform, governance and the politics of school councils
Neoliberal policies promoting school autonomy reform in Australia and internationally have, over three decades, appropriated earlier social democratic discourses of parental participation and partnership in school governance. Recent school autonomy reforms have repositioned school council/boards within a narrow frame of accountability and management operating in marketized systems of education. This paper considers the perceptions of 12 stakehold…
Advocating a Post-structuralist Politics for Educational Leadership
Post-structuralist discourses have usually been associated with forms of critique and deconstruction of social, cultural and philosophical phenomena. However, this article attempts to provide a generative approach to understanding educational leadership through Michel Foucault’s notions of power and subjectification, and Judith Butler’s notions of performativity and discursive agency through re-signification. We argue that leadership is not simpl…
What use is Foucault in education today
At the start of Foucault, power and education, Stephen Ball is right to ask, ‘do we really need another book about Foucault?’ Notwithstanding the huge amount written discussing Foucault's works, id
Deploying educational leadership as a form of governmentality
Critical approaches and understandings of leadership are typically given short shrift (if any at all) in the mainstream educational leadership literature. Research that makes particular knowledge c
It's almost like a White school now’: Racialised complexities, Indigenous representation and school leadership
Drawing on a broader study that focused on examining principal leadership for equity and diversity, this paper presents the leadership experiences of ‘Jane’, a White, middle-class principal of a rural Indigenous school. The paper highlights how Jane's leadership is inextricably shaped by her assumptions about race and the political dynamics and historical specificities of her school community. A central focus is on Jane's tendency to deploy cultu…
Working against the grain: Researching School Leadership
Emotions and Ethics: A Foucauldian framework for becoming an ethical educator
This paper provides examples of how a teacher and a principal construct their ‘ethical selves’. In doing so we demonstrate how Foucault's four‐part ethical framework can be a scaffold with which to actively connect emotions to a personal ethical position. We argue that ethical work is and should be an ongoing and dynamic life long process rather than a more rigid adherence to a ‘code of ethics’ that may not meaningfully engage its adherents. We u…
Foucault and Educational Leadership
School principals are increasingly working in an environment of work intensification, high stakes testing, accountability pressures and increased managerialism. Rather than searching for the latest leadership fad or best practice model, this book suggests that in order to better understand these pressures, the work of educational leadership requires more sophisticated theorisation of these practices. In so doing, the book draws upon the work of M…
Foucault and Educational Leadership: Disciplining the Principal
School principals are increasingly working in an environment of work intensification, high stakes testing, accountability pressures and increased managerialism. Rather than searching for the latest leadership fad or best practice model, this book suggests that in order to better understand these pressures, the work of educational leadership requires more sophisticated theorisation of these practices. In so doing, the book draws upon the work of M…
It's almost like a White school now’: Racialised complexities, Indigenous representation and school leadership
Drawing on a broader study that focused on examining principal leadership for equity and diversity, this paper presents the leadership experiences of ‘Jane’, a White, middle-class principal of a rural Indigenous school. The paper highlights how Jane's leadership is inextricably shaped by her assumptions about race and the political dynamics and historical specificities of her school community. A central focus is on Jane's tendency to deploy cultu…
Productive engagements with student difference: Supporting equity through cultural recognition
In this paper, the focus is on how a group of Australian educators support student equity through cultural recognition. Young's theorising of justice is drawn on to illuminate the problematic impacts arising from the group's efforts to value students’ cultural difference associated, for example, with quantifying justice along distributive lines and with essentialising student difference as negation and lack within a frame of cultural imperialism.…
Working against the grain: Researching School Leadership
Issues of Indigenous representation: White advocacy and the complexities of ethical leadership
This paper explores the tensions and complexities for two principals as they work towards equity and improved social and educational outcomes for their Indigenous students. Drawing on Foucault’s fourfold ethical frame and poststructuralist notions of the subject, this paper presents the different ways the white female principals of Indigenous schools are formed as subjects. We illustrate how the multiplicities of their subject formation are influ…
Foucault, counter-conduct and school leadership as a form of political subjectivity
Globally, a range of new schooling accountabilities have created a complex and often contradictory context in which school leaders work. For principals of low socio-economic status (SES) and disadvantaged schools, they must balance the accountability, performance and reporting requirements against the other needs of their communities. These tensions require new ways of rethinking leadership in the current educational context. This article draws o…
Governmentality and My School: School Principals in Societies of Control
The introduction of new accountabilities and techniques of government for the purposes of educational reform have created new complexities and tensions for school leadership. Policies such as the publishing of league tables in the UK, high stakes testing in the US and the introduction of the My School website in Australia are particularly significant for school principals. In this article I appeal to the work of Foucault and Deleuze to provide an…
Advocating a Post-structuralist Politics for Educational Leadership
Post-structuralist discourses have usually been associated with forms of critique and deconstruction of social, cultural and philosophical phenomena. However, this article attempts to provide a generative approach to understanding educational leadership through Michel Foucault’s notions of power and subjectification, and Judith Butler’s notions of performativity and discursive agency through re-signification. We argue that leadership is not simpl…
Deploying educational leadership as a form of governmentality
Critical approaches and understandings of leadership are typically given short shrift (if any at all) in the mainstream educational leadership literature. Research that makes particular knowledge c
Leadership, Ethics and Schooling for Social Justice
Issues of social justice and equity in the field of educational leadership have become more salient in recent years. The unprecedented diversity, uncertainty and rapid social change of the contemporary global era are generating new and unfamiliar equity questions and challenges for schools and their leaders. In order to understand the moral and ethical complexity of work undertaken in the name of social justice and equity in diverse contexts, thi…
What use is Foucault in education today
At the start of Foucault, power and education, Stephen Ball is right to ask, ‘do we really need another book about Foucault?’ Notwithstanding the huge amount written discussing Foucault's works, id
Critical perspectives in educational leadership: A new ‘theory turn’
In this article, I argue that we are witnessing a new phase or ‘theory turn’ in the field of educational leadership. These more critical perspectives in the field of educational leadership have typically been marginalised by the larger body of orthodox approaches due to a perceived lack of focus on best practice and ‘what works’ discourses, and especially in recent years with the rise of the school effectiveness and improvement movement. However,…
Psycho-politicising educational subjectivity: A posthumanist consideration of Rancière and Lacan
Drawing on the aesthetic theory of Jacques Rancière and the Lacanian conception of lack, this paper offers an intervention into the notion of subjectivity which can be applied in critical studies of education. Critiquing the progressive and knowledge-oriented ideology of neoliberal systems, Rancière depicts a world in which politics turns out to delimit the subject’s perceptual experience and in this way, argues that what remains out of this ideo…
Foucault and School Leadership Research: Bridging theory and method
This book is the first text in the new Social Theory and Methodology in Education Research series edited by Mark Murphy and published by Bloomsbury. The aim of the series is to bring together a var
School autonomy, marketisation and social justice: The plight of principals and schools
There remains strong political support for school autonomy reform within Australian public education despite evidence linking this reform to exacerbating school and systemic inequities. This paper presents interview data from key education stakeholders gathered from a broader study that is investigating the social justice implications of school autonomy reform across three Australian states. We focus on the concerns these stakeholders raise about…
Principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and educational leadership
This paper examines principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and leadership as part of a 3-year research project looking at the implications of school autonomy on social justice across four states of Australia (Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland). Drawing on interviews with principals and representatives from principal stakeholder organisations in these four state jurisdictions, the paper identifies a number of key issu…
School autonomy reform and social justice: A policy overview of Australian public education (1970s to present)
Election or selection? School autonomy reform, governance and the politics of school councils
Neoliberal policies promoting school autonomy reform in Australia and internationally have, over three decades, appropriated earlier social democratic discourses of parental participation and partnership in school governance. Recent school autonomy reforms have repositioned school council/boards within a narrow frame of accountability and management operating in marketized systems of education. This paper considers the perceptions of 12 stakehold…
The spatiality of economic maldistribution in public-school funding in Australia: Still a poisonous debate
This paper analyses the composition, distribution, and history of school funding in Australia through a spatial lens (Soja 2010). We explore multi-scalar school funding policy through three layers of economic maldistribution. We sketch the funding disparities between the three school sectors (public, Catholic, and independent) exposing a spatial injustice in policies of school choice; the spatial and economic maldistribution between state jurisdi…
Principals and the careless erosion of employment standards in the context of school autonomy and marketisation: A case study of school support staff
Devolved governance, school autonomy and marketisation impact the employment practices of schools and the working conditions of teachers. However, the employment-related effects on school services staff are under-researched. This study draws on data from interviews with staff at one public high school to analyse school services staff experience of school autonomy and the employment practices of principals in the context of competitive education m…
The Impact of AI on School Leadership Practices and Policy Enactment: A Scoping Literature Review
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, more specifically generative AI tools, are having a notable influence on the nature of engagement with information and decision making across society. While the ubiquity of AI in education may be regarded as an inevitability, its successful integration in the field of educational leadership remains elusive due to the absence of research, guidelines, policies and regulations related to its ethical adaptat…
Sociology (20 works) · Political science (18 works) · Pedagogy (13 works) · Global Educational Policies and Reforms (12 works) · Law (12 works) · Politics (10 works) · Teacher Education and Leadership Studies (10 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Educational leadership (8 works)