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.