In "The Managerial School" Sharon Gerwirtz draws on in-depth interviews with teachers in a range of secondary schools and close observation of actual practice to try to answer some of these questions. Having presented the evidence, she argues that New Labour's 'third way' for education is a contradictory mix of neo-liberal, authoritarian and humanistic strands that is not in any real sense a new educational settlement.
This empirically based account of the last two decades of education 'reform' offers a unique insight into the effects of managerialism on schools and a hard-hitting analysis of the inherent tensions in a system that undoubtedly perpetrates social injustice.

Introduction Part One: Post-Welfarism and the Reconstruction of English Schooling 1. The Emergence of the Managerial School 2. Shifting Discourses of School Headship 3. Values and Ethics in the Managerial School 4. The Reconstruction of Teachers' Work 5. Can All Schools be Successful? An Exploration of the Determinants of School 'Success' Part Two: Social Justice and the Rise of New Labour 6. Conceptualising Social Justice in an Age of Difference 7. Post-Welfareist Schooling: A Social Justice Audit 8. New Labour's 'Third Way' and the Politics of Justice in Education: The Case of 'Action Zones'