Managing tension: Agonism and alliance in an ethos of democratic principal engagement

This chapter looks to fill in a gap in the literature by focusing attention on the largely unexamined role of the political work of formally constituted principal associations. Insights into the work of principal associations are, at first, drawn directly from data gathered in a mixed-methods inquiry into constitutive influences on school principals. A range of tensions emerging from study data are used to reveal the antagonistic power relations in which principals are enmeshed, the subject positions to which they are enticed, and the conditional qualities of their professional freedom and autonomy. Each of these issues is used to cue in the political work of principals’ associations in providing advocacy for a vulnerable and dispersed membership. Looking beyond inductive analysis, the argument is made that principal associations must develop an activist function and a more disruptive role if they are to exert greater influence in neoliberal-inflected education policy contests. In this shift to activism, a theoretical and practical case is made for agonistic practices that protect and enhance the democratic participation of principal members as the boundaries between conflicting parties are renegotiated through hegemonic struggles over the issues in dispute.