Peter Mader is from the College of Education, Psychology and Social Work and is one of the 12 winners of the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Doctoral Thesis Excellence for 2024. Peter’s thesis was titled “Principal associations: the struggle for political agency in neoliberalising policy regimes”
We invited Peter to share insights into the PhD journey and what winning this award means.
What is your research about?
My research investigates the contested terrain of public education policy in South Australia (1995-2020) between the bureaucracy that formulates it and principal associations that advocate for its improvement. Taking a genealogy approach, my study reveals how principals were constituted by expanded accountabilities and diminished levels of autonomy, and how, despite this rendering, school leaders resisted this subjugation through the political work of principal associations.
What does winning the Vice-Chancellors Award for Doctoral Thesis Excellence mean to you?
Beyond the evaluation of my thesis, the award validates my research and my academic writing, so it provides me with increased confidence to follow my academic inquiry interests.
Tell us about yourself
I worked as an educator for 40 years. First as a teacher, then as a principal and most recently as a president/chief executive of a principal association. Despite finding joy from such a purposeful career, the neoliberal inflected education policies I was obliged to implement never sat well with me. It was this ‘professional unease’ that motivated my interest in a PhD study
What led you to undertake a PhD? What inspired or motivated you?
Initially I wanted to know more about the impact these neoliberal inflected education policies had on the agency of school principals. The more I read, however, the more interested I became in understanding the resistance to untrusted government policies that the collective and organised voice of school principals (i.e., principal associations) provided. In short, I wanted to know how representative voices of a profession (in this case, principal associations) respond to policy makers (i.e., government and/or the bureaucracy) when initiatives are considered harmful.
Tell us about your research
My research revealed that as principal accountabilities were increased through a series of neoliberal reforms (i.e., Partnerships 21, Partnership Performance Reform Panels, and From Good to Great: Towards a World-class System), principal autonomy decreased. School principals, once empowered by the autonomies provided under the Freedom and Authority memorandum were now constituted as corporate entities. Consequently, in the processes for improving public education policy, the political agency of principal associations was diminished by the increased reticence of their membership (who were now constituted as corporate proxies) and by the bureaucracy’s reliance on the advice of external consultants (including McKinsey and Company).
What has been one of the most enjoyable parts of the journey?
I was fortunate enough to interview four former Department for Education chief executives and four former Principal Association presidents (across the 1995-2020 period). This empirical data provided important insights into the tensions between the bureaucracy and principal associations and how these waxed and waned over time.
What has been one of the hardest parts of the journey?
The two toughest ‘mountains’ to climb for me were learning how to present the understandings from my research in an academic manner and developing a distinctive voice in my research writing. I was very lucky to have the support of such patient and persevering supervisors, i.e., Dr Andrew Bills and Dr Bev Rogers.
Where are you now?
I am semi-retired and have relocated from Adelaide to the Tamar Valley in northern Tasmania. Recently I wrote a research report about the need to rethink and redesign the role of the school principal which was commissioned by two principal associations. Also, I have rewritten four of my thesis chapters and submitted them for publication in academic journals
What advice would you give to current or prospective PhD students?
A PhD is not for the faint hearted. Learn as much as you can from your supervisors and from your other academic mentors. Maintain passion for your research and for the discipline of writing about that research.