“Future Alternatives for Educational Leadership”

Education is a humanitarian effort, and educational leaders at all levels are charged with the task of educational leadership that provides equitable, excellent education for all. Yet the efforts of those working in schools are often diminished by harmful media narratives (Mockler, 2022) and the escalation of business imperatives over educative priorities (Keddie et al., 2020). Stratification, homogenisation, and corporatisation—with a focus on productivity, quality, efficiency, and competition—continue to undermine education as a moral and humanitarian effort.

In this keynote, Dr Deborah Netolicky draws on research, practice, and global perspectives, to engage with the complexities and uncertainties of leading in education, and to explore how leading in education can be responsive to current contexts and futures thinking, and also anchored in equity, democracy, and humanity. She explores innovative possibilities and hopeful alternatives for advancing education into positive and democratic futures.

References
Keddie, A., MacDonald, K. C., Blackmore, J., Eacott, S., Gobby, B., Mahoney, C., Niesche, R., & Wilkinson, J. (2020). The constitution of school autonomy in Australian public education: Areas of paradox for social justice. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 1-18.
Mockler, N. (2022). Constructing Teacher Identities: How the Print Media Define and Represent Teachers and Their Work. Bloomsbury Publishing.

DEBORAH NETOLICKY

Dr Deborah Netolicky has more than 20 years of experience teaching and leading in independent schools in Australia and England. She is currently Head of Teaching and Learning (K-12) at St Mark’s Anglican Community School, Honorary Research Associate at Murdoch University, Chair of a local primary school board, and member of national and international education advisory committees. She is the recipient of awards including the 2021 ACEL WA Certificate of Excellence in Educational Leadership, the 2021 AERA Educational Change SIG Emerging Scholar Award, the 2021 Michael Fullan Emerging Scholar Award, the 2018 WA Research in Educational Leadership and Management Award, and the 2016 ACEL ‘New Voice’ In Educational Leadership Research Scholarship. She blogs at theeduflaneuse.com, hosts the The Edu Salon podcast, and is author of Transformational Professional Learning: Making a Difference in Schools, editor of Future Alternatives for Educational Leadership: Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Democracy and co-editor of Flip the System Australia: What Matters in Education.