Abstract

The research focuses on the complexities associated with contemporary rural primary school leadership. The paper draws on in-depth ethnographic research undertaken in two contrasting English rural primary schools and their surrounding community over a period of three years and in particular the experiences and perspectives of the two head teachers from these schools. The paper is conceptually informed by the work of Bourdieu 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul and his work around field, habitus and capital as a means of understanding practice. The paper contends that as the neo-liberal economic field increasingly contaminates the field of schooling so a contextual understanding of the complex and shifting social space which a head teacher occupies, including their habitus and the capital they deploy, is of central importance to understanding practice.