Howard Stevenson

This chapter explores the role of education trade unions, at the European Union (EU) and member state level, as policy actors in the “Europeanizing” of education policy. The role is located in terms of the EU’s historical commitment to social dialogue between employers and trade unions as a foundational element of Europe’s social market model. The chapter demonstrates how education trade unions have sought to influence education policy in an increasingly complex environment in which distinctions between economic and social policy have become blurred. It concludes by assessing the future prospects for education trade unions in a context where on-going crises (economic, social, and environmental) place the social dialogue model under increasing pressure.

In this chapter the ideas of Antonio Gramsci are used to think about notions of resistance as they relate to education trade unions, and specifically through an analysis of the National Education (NEU) in England and Wales, Europe's largest education trade union. Education trade unions have often appeared at the front line of challenges to neoliberal education restructuring, although in reality much of their work involves working with the grain of current reforms. Overt oppositional activity is typically restricted to a narrow range of issues relating to pay and working conditions. Such action may be high profile when it happens, but it largely remains sporadic and small scale. There is limited evidence of efforts to secure wider system change. Utilising a range of Gramscian concepts, but in particular the notion of the war of position and the role of the organic intellectual, this chapter explores the NEU experience of union renewal in a process of transformation that goes ‘beyond resistance.’ Specifically the union has sought to connect important industrial struggles with a broader political agenda that seeks to confront not only the immediate consequences of neoliberal restructuring, but also the wider ideological foundations that underpin it. In this sense it becomes possible to view the union as a collective intellectual engaged in an ongoing, counter-hegemonic, war of position.

This insightful book explores the life and ideas of Italian Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci, and argues his work has considerable contemporary relevance when re-considering educational leadership in today’s age of crises. Gramsci’s theory of hegemony has provided an invaluable intellectual resource for those seeking to bring about radical change in the complex context of contemporary capitalist societies. In particular, his focus on the role of organic intellectuals engaging in an ongoing ideological struggle across economic, political and civil society helps to locate his notion of hegemony as a theory of leadership that is deeply rooted in pedagogical processes. This volume focuses on transformatory change both in and through education, reframing traditional notions of educational leadership as educative leadership, in which leadership for change, within and beyond educational institutions, is understood in pedagogical terms. This volume will be of pivotal interest to academics, researchers, and postgraduates in the fields of educational leadership, the sociology of education, and education policy and politics. Practitioners interested in educational leadership and social theory, and those active in social movements, may also find the book of use.

In this chapter, Gramsci’s key ideas relating to education are presented. Central to Gramsci’s thinking was the relationship between education and political change, and much of his own political activity was defined by his integration of intellectual work with practical action. The chapter begins with an overview and analysis of Gramsci’s ideas on formal education, which remain some of the most controversial aspects of Gramsci’s writings. Sometimes presented as a conservative on questions of the curriculum and pedagogy, a counter-argument is offered that seeks to reconcile Gramsci’s traditional and radical instincts. In the second part of the chapter, the focus is on Gramsci’s ideas in relation to the role of intellectuals. For Gramsci, those he identified as ‘organic intellectuals’ were to be the ‘organisers and leaders’ of any social change, and the implications of this analysis are debated, in particular the notion that leadership is, in essence, an educative process.

This chapter presents a brief intellectual biography of Antonio Gramsci to show both the breadth of his intellectual thinking and the important links between his intellectual contribution and his political activism. The chapter begins with an overview of Gramsci’s life, from his childhood and formative years in agricultural Sardinia, through to his contribution to Italy’s ‘red years’ in 1919-1920 and his role in the founding of the Italian Communist Party, and concludes with his arrest and imprisonment, during which time he was able to write what we now know as the Prison Notebooks. An assessment is provided of Gramsci’s key ideas including his early, idealist-influenced, journalistic writings and the much more expansive and considered theorisations set out in the Notebooks. Gramsci is above all associated with the concept of hegemony, and in this chapter, it is argued that hegemony is principally a theory of leadership that can only be fully understood when considered as a pedagogical relationship.

In this chapter, the intention is to connect Gramsci’ intellectual legacy with the contemporary contexts and issues, and to respond to the cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s exhortation to ‘think our problems in a Gramscian way’. The chapter opens by setting out the key responses that followed the publication of the Prison Notebooks in English in 1971. At the time, these debates focused on Gramsci’s critique of economism and the implications of this for agency and political strategy, while also being concerned with the relationship between class and other social movements as the basis of any alliance capable of securing transformative change. These debates have inevitably developed over time, but they remain central and defining. Much of the discussion is concerned with identifying the type of practical political action that is required in a context where political and civil society appears both complex and robust. Such activity often requires protagonists to simultaneously work ‘in and against’ the state, acting as organic intellectuals engaged in a contemporary war of position. The chapter provides three examples of this work, in schools, community organising, and adult education, and argues that the work presented offers insights into what educative leadership can look like.

In this chapter, the experience of Europe’s largest education union, the UK’s National Education Union (NEU), is explored as an exercise in union renewal focused on developing a counter-hegemonic response to the neoliberal restructuring of the English school system. England’s school system has been in the vanguard of the radical neoliberal reform of public education, and this process has involved intentional efforts to destabilise and marginalise the power of organised teachers, as represented through their trade unions. This chapter outlines the NEU’s own ‘war of position’ as it has sought to resist neoliberal reform by combining industrial action with ideological struggle. Crucial to the effectiveness of the union’s approach have been the union’s efforts to build a base of ‘organisers and leaders’ at the school level, capable of working as organic intellectuals in their workplaces. However, this has been accompanied by the national leadership of the union as it has acted as a type of ‘collective intellectual’ helping form a collective will in a counter-hegemonic movement of resistance. The actions of teachers, working through the union, have had some significant success, in the context of a very hostile environment. The experience points to the possibilities of an educative approach to leadership that combines leadership being exercised at all levels, and both individually and collectively.

In this chapter, we analyse education reform in England over a period of more than half a century. Progressive advance in the post-war years posed a serious threat to the status and stability of dominant groups, so there has taken place a sustained effort to reverse these developments. Restructuring public education has been central to the success of the hegemonic project of the political Right, which can be traced to the Thatcher era and beyond. This project in education is explained in Gramscian terms as an intervention in an ideological struggle to re-shape the common sense. However, the chapter also explores how successive governments have mobilised within the education system to develop a ‘new educational establishment’ as a bloc capable of exercising leadership across the educational system. The project has had some substantial successes, but it remains contested on multiple fronts and, therefore, must be considered as a passive revolution that has failed to build a strong base within the system.

In this chapter, key ideas relating to educational leadership, and specifically transformational leadership, are presented. Transformational leadership as presented within mainstream educational leadership and management literature is critiqued as concerned more with reproduction than transformation, but more radical variants, such as transformative leadership, are also identified as having limitations. The concept of educative leadership is introduced as a form of leadership that seeks to connect leadership practices with the social movements that alone are capable of bringing about transformational change. It is argued that concepts developed by Antonio Gramsci can help us rethink the relationship between leaders and social movements and imagine what it means to lead in educative ways.

In the final chapter of the volume, the concept of ‘educative leadership’ is elaborated, and a case made for its relevance in contemporary contexts. The chapter returns to Gramsci’s conceptualisation of crises as being either conjunctural or organic. This analysis is applied to current global developments, and the argument is advanced that we are not living in a crisis but in an age of crises. There is a real possibility that neoliberalism as it has been understood is in a period of transition, possibly demise, and it is not clear what the future will bring. One strong possibility is the emergence of more authoritarian regimes and an escalation of global conflicts. More progressive possibilities, based on commitments to democracy, equality, and solidarity, are only realisable if it is possible to forge a new collective will across political and civil societies, working across many levels. Such a project requires a new form of leadership that recognises the pedagogical dimensions that must underpin any counter-hegemonic project. The fundamental elements of such an educative approach to leadership are presented as a conclusion to this volume.