Prof Steve CourtneyTrustee/Incoming Chair
Steven Courtney is Professor of Sociology of Education Leadership at the University of Manchester, UK. He researches areas including system leadership, charisma, depoliticisation and education privatisation, particularly in relation to the identities and practices of those constructed as educational leaders. He has published five books and over forty journal articles and book chapters. As a recipient of BELMAS’ Distinguished Service Award, he is a Distinguished Fellow of BELMAS. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Teaching and Learning, University of Manchester.
Steven is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Critical Studies in Education, co-convenor of the MIE research and scholarship group, Critical Education Leadership and Policy (CELP) and co-convenor of the BELMAS research group, Critical Education Policy and Leadership Studies (CEPaLS).
Steven spent the first part of his professional career teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) in Paris before moving into the secondary state sector as a French and Spanish teacher in inner-London comprehensives. Following almost a decade in leadership positions, first as Head of MFL and then Assistant Headteacher, he moved to Manchester to complete an MA in Educational Leadership and School Improvement. He won ESRC funding for his doctoral work on school leadership in neoliberal times, for which, uniquely, he won best-thesis awards from the American Educational Research Association (Division A), the British Educational Research Association (BERA) and from BELMAS.
Steven took up his first academic post in the Manchester Institute of Education (MIE) as Lecturer in Management and Leadership in 2014, becoming Senior Lecturer in 2018 and Professor in 2022. Between 2016–20, he was Programme Director of the MA Educational Leadership; he has since acted as External Examiner on similar programmes at the Universities of Warwick and Exeter, and at UCL. Between 2020–25, he was Director of Research in the Manchester Institute of Education (MIE).
