Vocational Education and Training Manager Discursive Practices at the Frontline: Alternative Possibilities in a Victorian Setting

Abstract

This article looks at how the neoliberal reform process is affecting the professional identity of frontline managers in the Australian vocational education and training sector. The article examines how frontline managers are required to negotiate their working practices between their understandings and experiences as educators and the new vocationalism whereby discourses and practices of corporate managerialism and economic rationalism permeate the roles of managers. Essentially, the data from this study shows how frontline managers are juggling conflicting values as they facilitate or mediate the change process and how manager identities at the frontline are multiple and performed, not single and pre-assigned. The findings show a manager identity that is both compliant and contested.