This paper focuses on the attempts to implement head teachers' evaluation in the Italian education system during the last ten years. This occurred as a consequence of a new school autonomy framework came into force in 1997. Italy is one of the countries which has been attracted by the “set of generic policies technologies that are deployed in an enormous variety of different national settings to reform and re-form education” (Ball, 2008, p. 8), aimed at introducing forms of quasi-marketisation and school site-based management. Italian head teachers have increasingly been seen as entrepreneurs and managers and the evaluation of their performance has become a legal requirement in 2000, but, to everybody's surprise, has not yet been implemented (Barzanò, 2007, 2009). In the last ten years some pilot evaluations have been enacted, but neither an ultimate political decision nor a privileged set of a “core technology” (Young and Brewer, 2008) made of methodologies and techniques have been established and institutionalized in this respect.The contradictions embedded in the policies for evaluating Italian head teachers will be analyzed in the light of the conflict between policy discourses, seen as different “regimes of truth” (Ball, 2006). In the Italian education scenario four discourses compete with one another: the ‘old', bureaucratic and professional ones, conceived of as converging in a wider ‘welfarist' discourse (Gewirtz and Ball, 2000); and two ‘new' discourses that contrast each other in order to promote a post-welfarist model of education: the managerialist and the democratic. The former is trying to mould the educational world as a quasi market-system, introducing new conditions of competition among schools and new accountability processes. The latter not only promotes resistance against the neo-liberal attacks, but also raises issues of equity and citizenship (Woods, 2005). Elsewhere (Serpieri, 2009) it has been shown how also the heads' induction courses continue to be a field where the old discourses are contrasting the ones. Moreover, within the new discourses a further contrast appears between the managerialist and the democratic discourse, threatening, the exploration of new forms of democratic accountability (Grace, 1995).In this perspective, discourses can be considered as heuristic tools, which bring to light, the different, sometimes contrasting logics underlying policies and their implications.

The “Impossible” Evaluation of Head Teachers in Italy / Serpieri, Roberto. - (2009). (Intervento presentato al convegno ECER - EERA Annual Conference tenutosi a University of Vienna nel 28 - 30 Settembre 2009).

The “Impossible” Evaluation of Head Teachers in Italy

SERPIERI, ROBERTO
2009

Abstract

This paper focuses on the attempts to implement head teachers' evaluation in the Italian education system during the last ten years. This occurred as a consequence of a new school autonomy framework came into force in 1997. Italy is one of the countries which has been attracted by the “set of generic policies technologies that are deployed in an enormous variety of different national settings to reform and re-form education” (Ball, 2008, p. 8), aimed at introducing forms of quasi-marketisation and school site-based management. Italian head teachers have increasingly been seen as entrepreneurs and managers and the evaluation of their performance has become a legal requirement in 2000, but, to everybody's surprise, has not yet been implemented (Barzanò, 2007, 2009). In the last ten years some pilot evaluations have been enacted, but neither an ultimate political decision nor a privileged set of a “core technology” (Young and Brewer, 2008) made of methodologies and techniques have been established and institutionalized in this respect.The contradictions embedded in the policies for evaluating Italian head teachers will be analyzed in the light of the conflict between policy discourses, seen as different “regimes of truth” (Ball, 2006). In the Italian education scenario four discourses compete with one another: the ‘old', bureaucratic and professional ones, conceived of as converging in a wider ‘welfarist' discourse (Gewirtz and Ball, 2000); and two ‘new' discourses that contrast each other in order to promote a post-welfarist model of education: the managerialist and the democratic. The former is trying to mould the educational world as a quasi market-system, introducing new conditions of competition among schools and new accountability processes. The latter not only promotes resistance against the neo-liberal attacks, but also raises issues of equity and citizenship (Woods, 2005). Elsewhere (Serpieri, 2009) it has been shown how also the heads' induction courses continue to be a field where the old discourses are contrasting the ones. Moreover, within the new discourses a further contrast appears between the managerialist and the democratic discourse, threatening, the exploration of new forms of democratic accountability (Grace, 1995).In this perspective, discourses can be considered as heuristic tools, which bring to light, the different, sometimes contrasting logics underlying policies and their implications.
2009
The “Impossible” Evaluation of Head Teachers in Italy / Serpieri, Roberto. - (2009). (Intervento presentato al convegno ECER - EERA Annual Conference tenutosi a University of Vienna nel 28 - 30 Settembre 2009).
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11588/354959
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact