OKULLAR NE SATIYOR? DEVLET OKULLARININ KURUMSAL KİMLİKLERİNİN NEOLİBERAL DÖNÜŞÜMÜ

Abstract

Changes in the global market affect public service institutions in almost every country. Abandoning the traits and roles attributed by the industrial revolution and the second world war, states gain a new look similar to that of for-profit institutions, which guides policy makers to manage social states as corporations with the purpose of surviving in the fierce atmosphere of global competition. The increasing individualization and the transformation of individuals into commercial enterprises threaten the conventional stance of public utilities that were originally designed as collective bodies in the service of the common good. Although it is especially expected from educational institutions to become instruments of individual improvement that have the capacity to turn individuals into valuable assets who could beat their opponents in the competition, the levels of readiness of these public institutions for such a transformation are still doubtful. This study aims to understand school leaders' views about institutional identity which are assumed to be under the influence of neoliberal educational policies. To fulfill this purpose, we designed qualitative research according to which we interviewed ten public school principals whose schools' websites are declared to be among the ten most actively used public school websites by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) of Turkey in 2021 and we analyzed 234 news and memorandums in these websites. Our analysis methods were critical discourse analysis (CDA), content analysis, and thematic analysis. We concluded that competition among schools has resulted from a need to raise necessary funds to manage schools, which directs school managers to consider students as sources of finance. We also inferred that the efforts of managers to survive in a competitive atmosphere beclouds the instructional leadership behaviors of school managers.