Prelims

Half Title Page

Understanding Decision-Making in Educational Contexts

Transforming Education Through Critical Leadership, Policy and Practice

Series editors: Stephanie Chitpin, Sharon Kruse and Howard Stevenson

Transforming Education Through Critical Leadership, Policy and Practice is based on the belief that those in educational leadership and policy-constructing roles have an obligation to educate for a robust critical and democratic polity in which citizens can contribute to an open and socially just society. Advocating for a critical, socially just democracy goes beyond individual and procedural concerns characteristic of liberalism and seeks to raise and address fundamental questions pertaining to power, privilege and oppression. It recognizes that much of what has gone under the name of ‘transformational leadership’ in education seeks to transform very little, but rather it serves to reproduce systems that generate structural inequalities based on class, gender, race, (dis)ability and sexual orientation.

This series seeks to explore how genuinely transformative approaches to educational leadership, policy and practice can disrupt the neoliberal hegemony that has dominated education systems globally for several decades, but which now looks increasingly vulnerable. The series will publish high-quality books, both of a theoretical and empirical nature, that explicitly address the challenges and critiques of the current neoliberal conditions, while steering leadership and policy discourse and practices away from neoliberal orthodoxy towards a more transformative perspective of education leadership. The series is particularly keen to ‘think beyond’ traditional notions of educational leadership to include those who lead in educative ways – in social movements and civil society organizations as well as in educational institutions.

Title Page

Understanding Decision-Making in Educational Contexts: A Case Study Approach

by

Stephanie Chitpin

University of Ottawa, Canada

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2021

Copyright © 2021 Stephanie Chitpin, with the exception of Chapters 2 and 5, which are © Emerald Publishing Limited. Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

Reprints and permissions service

Contact: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters' suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80071-818-0 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80071-817-3 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80071-819-7 (Epub)

Dedication

This book is dedicated to

Justice and Associate Professor Marvin A. Zuker.

You have helped me to achieve my dreams.

About the Author

Stephanie Chitpin is a Full Professor of Leadership at the Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, Canada. Dr Chitpin's principal contribution to leadership and to the professional development of principals rests on her rejection of the inductive method. She argues that knowledge is acquired by hypotheses deductively validated as ‘falsifiability criteria’. Her research funded by The Social Sciences Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and The Ontario Ministry of Education, Canada, are international in scope, and include the analysis of the Objective Knowledge Growth Framework (OKGF) based on Sir Karl Popper's critical rationalism, as a new tool for understanding principals' decision-making.

Dr Chitpin is also the Series Editor of Transforming Education Through Critical Leadership, Policy and Practice

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the readers of my previous books for their support, which means so much to me. In addition, I would like to thank the Emerald team for all of their support, assistance and patience.