Labels and Labelling in the Field of Educational Leadership

This paper reports on theorising based on developing histories of the field of educational leadership in higher education in the UK. These histories are being constructed through the collection of professional biographies of field members, reading the outputs of the field in the form of journals and books, and analysing the papers from the British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society. In this paper I focus on how the field has changed its label over the last forty years from “educational administration” to “educational management”, and more recently “educational leadership”, and the link between labels and knowledge claims. In particular I argue that while there is a continuity of knowledge underpinning this relabelling process there is also a mutation in the form of management in education that has become performance leadership in schools. The latter is official government policy and practitioners are being located in an all‐embracing training framework. The paper argues that knowing about knowledge claims and field labels is an important means by which we can control our practice and identities. Through Bourdieu's theory of practice I describe and explain the development of the field and the struggle to be located and to stay located within higher education. By putting Bourdieu to work in this way I also seek to analyse how habitus and field can contribute to the development of explanatory frameworks regarding the power structures underpinning knowledge production.     

Researching and conceptualising the field

This concluding paper examines the contributions in this Guest Issue by locating them within the ongoing debates about the role and contribution of social science research, particularly through the production of journals. Set in the context of on-going attacks on the relevance of social science research and the failure to respond to major crises that affect us all, I argue that the field of educational leadership is an important site for showing the dangers of becoming relevant and accepting that a constructed crisis is a crisis. I argue for intellectual work within the field of educational leadership, and use the critical and socially critical traditions to illuminate this. The papers in this Guest Issue are located in these traditions, and so I examine the contribution made through problematising educational leadership, examining the realities of working lives in schools and conceptualising alternative ways of thinking about professional practice.     

Change in a culture of collegiality and consensus-seeking: a double-edged sword

ABSTRACT

The study aims to move beyond idealised and predominantly trait-based typologies of leadership and leadership roles and addresses collegial leaders’ practice of change in higher education. Collegial leaders at two research-intensive higher education institutions, who had received educational leadership training, were studied. In the study, we explored ordinary actions and change practices as a way of understanding emerging practices among collegial leaders. Five categories were identified that show how collegial leaders experience change, process change and organise the practice of change. The article also contributes a critical discussion on the notions of collegiality in a consensus-seeking context, which may be relevant for academic developers, policy makers, and researchers alike.     

Overcoming resistance to change: PISA,school reform in Germany and the example of Lower Saxony

During the last 30?years, a new model of transnational educational governance including a specific knowledge production regime has been implemented. Its increasing national impact has caused enormous change within the German educational system. Particularly, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Developments statistical reports and benchmarking procedures like the Programme for International Student Assessment have challenged the German system, which has usually been remarkably resistant to reform, and have pushed it towards fast and deep transformation. Demonstrated with the case of Lower Saxony, one of Germany’s largest states, effects of massive political uncertainty in terms of educational principles, rules of governance as well as school practice can be identified. They result in an increasing authorization of so-called agents of change who offer both knowledge production and education service to policy and school practice. In the case of Lower Saxony, the Bertelsmann Foundation has been such an agent of change. It supported school reform while heavily promoting the adoption of a new self-evaluation instrument called self-evaluation in schools, which not only measures school quality, but creates a new certainty by generating knowledge about what is perceived as being real within school practice. In the end, there seems to be evidence that both the teacher profession and the classroom practice are made susceptible – not only to this new reality, but also to a new leadership.     

Moving from best practice to next practice: some deliberations on educational leadership

This paper begins from the premise that the challenges characterising the contemporary education environment call for more flexible approaches to leadership than the traditional reliance on codified knowledge. These more flexible approaches are likely to involve new ways of learning, dispositions and behaviours, which enable educational leadership to progress from ‘best practice’ to ‘next practice’. The paper, therefore, has two main aims. First, it seeks to illuminate a potential modus operandi for contending with the complex challenges that have become integral to the landscape of educational leadership. Second, it seeks to encourage consideration of the implications of this modus operandi for processes of leadership thinking, learning and development. For this purpose, the nature of the challenges purported to define the landscape of educational leadership now and into the future is first discussed. This is followed by an examination of three interrelated leadership concepts in enabling appropriate judgements to be made in dealing effectively with highly complex circumstances, namely, ‘phronesis’, ‘contextual intelligence’ and ‘negative capability’. The paper concludes by discussing the circumstances within the professional milieu that either constrain or promote the kind of educational leadership that is deemed to be required for embracing the three concepts in question.     

Diversity and equality in academic publishing: the case of educational leadership

There have been ongoing criticisms of the field of educational leadership and management with respect to over-reliance on research from ‘Western’ contexts. However, evidence on the extent to which voices alternative to the dominant ‘Western’ discourse are represented in the international English-medium discourse of educational leadership and management is thin. Using a three-phase sequential mixed-methods approach, this paper explores knowledge production in the field by analysing the prevalence and impact of empirical articles published in four English-medium international journals. Additionally, the membership of editorial boards and editors is analysed to geographically locate key decision makers. Findings demonstrate that an exceptionally small set of core inner-circle Anglophone and non-inner-circle Anglophone settings enjoys disproportionate influence in the field. There is need for a knowledge base enriched with leadership and management practices from different sociocultural contexts and system structures with a multiplicity of voices to portray a more nuanced and balanced picture of leadership and management practices.     

Educational administration and history Part 1: debating the agenda

In this first editorial paper we scope the terrain on which the JEAH is located and consider the knowledge production process that will shape the journal and, in turn, enable the journal to shape what is known and what is worth knowing. We begin by making a case for productive pluralism where we assert that the JEAH is not directly connected to a particular society or epistemic group, and so the opportunity exists for a range of work that focuses on historical understandings of educational administration to be published. We make the argument that educational administration is a field of study and practice, and that it can draw on historical perspectives and research designs to enable new insights and theoretical explanations to be developed.     

重视和加强教育领导学的研究

教育领导就是确定教育组织的发展方向与共同愿景,对全体成员施加积极的影响,使其积极主动地为实现组织目标而努力工作的过程与活动。带领、指导、教育、劝说和激励等是施加影响的重要手段。教育领导学是研究与提高教育领导活动的合理性、科学性和有效性相关的一般性的主要的领导问题的理论体系。我国的教育领导学研究应主要包括学科性质、基本要领领导行为、领导能力等内容,并且要采取适当的措施,加强教育领导学的学科建设与推广工作。     

Whither thee, Educational Technology? Suggesting a Critical Expansion of Our Epistemology for Emerging Leaders

It is possible that some outdated ideas about ‘management’ in our field are constraining our preparation of new educational technologists to lead education organizations in the Knowledge Age? This paper takes an interdisciplinary stance to examine educational administration, education technology and complexivist thinking about leadership in our field. It begins with a critical analysis using one of six educational leadership/administration knowledge “contexts” - leadership vs. management - to unpack our field’s existing position on the topic (English, 2011). For parsimony, the other five contexts are mentioned briefly throughout this paper: (2) organizing and institutions and (3) Policy and governance. (4) Finance and Human Resources; (5) Change and Innovation and (6) Learning and technology. Other articles in this Special Edition of Tech Trends testify that outstanding, effective leadership exists in small, medium and large organizations every day around the world because of educational technologists doing amazing work in various contexts. This article suggests a frame for expanding our field’s epistemology for in-program and emerging educational technologists to build their capability to lead organizations that learn in a Knowledge Age.     

Building collective leadership capacity using collaborative twenty-first century digital tools

The current research explores how using collaborative twenty-first century digital tools developed the collective leadership capacity among participants in an educational leadership course. A qualitative interpretive approach was used. The data show how learning within the digital collaborative spaces was multidirectional and enhanced the possibilities of each student’s learning and practice. Communicating, curating and sharing knowledge, led to the development of new insights and support of mutual practice. The authors argue that the group’s collaborative endeavours produced substantive collective knowledge that elevated practice, and in so doing created collective leadership capacity within educational institutions and organisations in Trinidad and Tobago.     

A social epistemology for educational administration and leadership

ABSTRACT

As a field of knowledge production, educational administration and leadership scholars do a substantial amount of talking past one another. These parallel monologues are a major issue for the advancement of knowledge. Original contributions can only be made in relation to others. That is, the innovation or significance of scholarship is an act of (social) scientific distinction. This means purposely engaging with the other. In this paper, I argue that the knowledge frontiers of educational administration and leadership are highly fragmented and siloed. I do not, however, see diversity of scholarship as a fatal flaw nor do I argue for a form of knowledge centrism. Rather, my intervention is to propose a social epistemology for moving knowledge claims.     

Cross-cultural dimensions of applied,critical, and transformational leadership: women principals advancing social justice and educational equity

This study, based on the qualitatively rendered experiences and perceptions of educational leaders from historically underserved backgrounds in the US, argues that identity impacts leadership practice. To make this point, researchers build upon an emergent theoretical framework for applied critical leadership from the theories and traditions of transformational leadership, personal leadership, critical pedagogy, and critical race theory. With regard to methodology, a two-subject case study was validated by adding three additional participants for points of verification to the findings and discussion. Interview, field notes, and relevant documents were analyzed using phenomenology and constant comparative methods. Major findings indicate participants’ practice reveal characteristics of cross-cultural applied, critical, and transformational leadership. These scholarly findings are significant because they can inform mainstream leadership practices contributing to educational equity, authentic multiculturalism, improved intercultural relations, innovation, increased academic achievement, and sustainable educational change.     

Educational Leadership and Context: A Rendering of an Inseparable Relationship

The amount of empirical research on leadership of educational organisations, and especially of schools, which has stressed the importance of being sensitive to context, is not great. This paper seeks to highlight the challenge presented by this situation. First, context is defined. Second, attention is drawn to what can be learned in the area of school leadership from the emphasis in other bodies of scholarship within the broad field of education studies on paying attention to matters of context. Third, an overview is provided of some of the key considerations arising out of the small body of work undertaken in the field by those researchers who have focussed on the broad range of issues that can arise for school leaders in distinctive contexts. Finally, five key and interconnected propositions to guide practice with regard to leadership in diverse contexts that have been generated from an analysis of the latter body of work are presented. In doing so, it is recognised that these are tentative in the absence of a much larger corpus of work. Overall, we hope that, along with providing intellectual sustenance, each of the four areas considered will also stimulate discussion on areas for further research.     

Confronting the Dark Side of Higher Education

In this paper we philosophically explore the notion of darkness within higher education teaching and learning. Within the present‐day discourse of how to make visible and to explicate teaching and learning strategies through alignment procedures and evidence‐based intellectual leadership, we argue that dark spots and blind angles grow too. As we struggle to make visible and to evaluate, assess, manage and organise higher education, the darkness of the institution actually expands. We use the term ‘dark’ to comprehend challenges, situations, reactions, aims and goals, which cannot easily be understood and solved by agendas of quality assurance and professionalisation of higher education. We need to understand better why gender issues or ethnic conflicts emerge, and why students take up arms, within an institution which is thought to be inclusive, inviting and open to all kinds of people and cultures. And we need to study the educational potential of days of boredom or isolation, caught up in daily routines of teaching or studying which do not lead anywhere or give way to any productive work. These matters have not been sufficiently researched and conceptualised as meaningful in themselves. We aim here to open a space for insights through the concept of darkness presented in this paper. In order to make educational darkness palpable we draw on the philosophies of darkness found in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Emmanuel Levinas. Through those philosophies we argue that the growing darkness within higher education is not a symptom we should fear and avoid. Having the ability and courage to face these darker educational aspects of everyday higher education practice will enable students and teachers to find renewed hope in the university as an institution for personal as well as professional imagination and growth.     

Interrogating conceptions of leadership: school principals,policy and paradox

Currently educational research literature demonstrates wide discussion and endorsement of ‘distributed’ leadership while concurrently traditional, hegemonic forms prevail in practice. This article investigates understandings about educational leadership held by Australian school principals. The article describes the contradictory conceptions about educational leadership currently in circulation. It interrogates underlying assumptions and questions how both hegemonic and newer leadership conceptions and assumptions serve educational leaders. Data from principals around the country and across education systems reinforced the predominance of un-theorised or under-theorised notions about leadership, with similar assumptions found in important policy artefacts and practices. This article emerges from interviews with 100 principals focusing on their professional learning needs, which revealed interesting ideas, issues and dilemmas concerning ‘leadership’. It fills a gap in research on distributed leadership by exploring contradictions inherent in policy, practice and understandings in this area. The article is structured into four sections. First, extant literature on this topic and the research are explained. Second, the article focuses on principals' conceptions about leadership and those inherent within important policy and practical artefacts. A discussion of the findings focuses on the discrepancy between theory and policy endorsement and the views of practitioners. Finally, the article canvasses the implications of the research.     

Investigating and Conceptualising the Notion of Consultation to Facilitate Multi‐agency Work

This article explores the use of consultation within educational psychology practice and suggests there is confusion and lack of clarity within the profession surrounding the term, how we use it and how inclusive or exclusive it is as a practice. Three ways of conceptualising consultation are suggested and examples of research and theoretical analysis are described in order to understand these areas of practice. The latter part of the article considers the role of consultation within new practices associated with multi‐agency working and integrated services. It is suggested that as a profession we need to pay more specific attention to the knowledge and skills involved in successful consultation within multi‐agency practice, through drawing upon research and practice from beyond our own somewhat narrow field.     

Critical perspectives in educational leadership: a new ‘theory turn’?

In this article, I argue that we are witnessing a new phase or ‘theory turn’ in the field of educational leadership. These more critical perspectives in the field of educational leadership have typically been marginalised by the larger body of orthodox approaches due to a perceived lack of focus on best practice and ‘what works’ discourses, and especially in recent years with the rise of the school effectiveness and improvement movement. However, critical perspectives in educational leadership constitute an essential and vibrant part of educational leadership scholarship and discourse. Drawing on Michel Foucault's notion of discourse, through this article, I examine how critical perspectives have been constituted historically, with some of the main themes of research. This foregrounding also highlights a number of limitations with more orthodox and hegemonic leadership discourses. I identify a number of key writers in the field and situate them in the current theory turn, that is, an emphasis of theoretically informed research that have been prolific over the last 5–10 years.     

A feel for the game – a Bourdieuian analysis of principal leadership: a study of Queensland secondary school principals

Educational leadership discourse has for sometime been the major intellectual pillar of what was once known as the field of educational administration. An examination of the postgraduate coursework programmes available to aspiring principal leaders at every Australian university supports such a contention. While this discourse does shed light on the ubiquitous concept of leadership, it does little to explain the context in which leadership theory is supposed to contribute to the operational environment of schools. This is where Bourdieuian scholarship is particularly helpful. By shedding light on the complex social space in which principal leaders function, Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field and capital are particularly helpful thinking tools. For a variety of reasons the economic field has held philosophical dominance for much of the last 30 years. This has impacted significantly on the work space of principal leadership and needs to be understood if the familiar narratives of leadership theory are to be of contextual use. When investigating the social space of contemporary principal leadership, my recent study of two sets of Queensland‐based principals will be used. The emergence of enterprise bargaining into the workspace of these principals will be used as a means by which to demonstrate the cross‐field contagion of the economic field on to the field of schools. The paper contends that the field of educational administration must endeavour to view leadership theory critically and contextually if the complexities associated with contemporary principal leadership practice are to be understood.     

The Ineffectiveness of our Effective Schools

The values and principles underpinning the ‘Leadership for Learning: Cambridge Network’ support the distribution of leadership to all members of the school community. This paper introduces the HCD (Highest Common Denominator) Student Partnership as a key way in which the ‘Leadership for Learning’ team learns from, explores and extends student leadership and participation within the current educational context. The paper opens with a consideration of current issues within the field of student voice before locating the contribution of the HCD Student Partnership within this field. Examples from recent projects with primary- and secondary-aged students are used to reflect on and illustrate the work of the Partnership with a view to sharing new practice and collaborating with new partners.