Bourdieu’s distinction between rules and strategies and secondary principal practice

Abstract

This paper reviews a selection of literature on secondary principal practice from which to propose an approach for further research. The review demonstrates that applications of Bourdieu’s theory of practice have contributed to understandings about secondary principal practice, and that the distinction he made between rules and strategies has the potential to provide a useful approach to gaining new understandings of everyday secondary principal practice. The paper signals that it is timely to undertake research into secondary principal practice in Aotearoa New Zealand, and that applying Bourdieu’s conceptualising of strategies to this research has the potential to reveal some of the unconscious, unstated and less visible practices of everyday leadership. Further, applying Bourdieu’s theory of practice to analysing and explaining this data on secondary principal practice may reveal new insights about what secondary principals do and why.