Changes in School Governance and the Reshaping of Head Teachers’ Roles and Identities in Portugal

Abstract

The last 20 years have seen an ongoing redefinition of public policies regarding school management in Portugal. This reconfiguration has brought implications for the conditions, processes and practices of head teachers’ work. The proposed changes are part of a movement of changes in school management which is occurring on a transnational scale and is associated with a common denominator: public administration reforms implemented by the New Public Management (NPM). This chapter focuses on the ways NPM assumptions, which directly or indirectly influence head teachers’ work, are being received and interpreted by these actors in Portugal. Our interest stems from the assumption that NPM orientations coexist with national policies, local contexts and historically constituted frames of reference regarding the role of head teachers, thus creating some degree of ambiguity and uncertainty in school management. Hence, the various ways these orientations are received by head teachers are taken as analysers of the continuities, changes and tensions in the regulation processes1 regarding school leadership and management. The