From welfarism to neo-liberalism: Conceptualising the diversity of leadership models in Europe.

During the last few decades, policy focused attempts to modernize and restructure the provision of education in countries in the Western world have been strongly associated with ideas travelling rapidly across national boundaries (Ozga & Jones, 2006). This process has been led by agencies like the European Union (EU), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation (OECD), and the World Bank and has been designed in alignment with New Public Management (NPM) doctrines that draw upon economic and business management theory to coordinate the provision of public services (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011). Simultaneously in the field of education, school leadership has been singled out as one of the main levers of educational change (Gunter, 2011). This chapter examines leadership in education within this broader transnational policy context, but it does so by reference to the recontextualisation and retranslation of policy in differing European national contexts revealing and reflecting upon the diversity of leadership models in this continent.