Editorial

Citation

Ross Thomas, A. (2010), "Editorial", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 48 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/jea.2010.07448daa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Educational Administration, Volume 48, Issue 4

Editorial advisory board

I have to announce that a long-serving and valuable member, Dr Bernadette Taylor, has decided to retire from the Editorial Advisory Board. Dr Taylor joined the Board in 1992 and has been a most active and insightful reviewer of submitted papers as well as a regular participant in the selection procedures for the annual outstanding paper award. Dr Taylor had a wealth of experience in education including a term as Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration. I thank her for her generous contribution to the journal.

This issue

The five articles published in this issue of the journal have been submitted by authors in Australia, Israel and the USA. A fascinating array of themes is addressed – all highly relevant to the administration of schools and the quality of leadership therein. Two organizational themes are addressed – organizational vision and organizational learning; the purposes of education and school design and planning comprise a collection of articles that focus on matters of school concern; and decision making, a key component of educational leadership, is addressed from a perspective very different from that which has hitherto prevailed in administrative, managerial, and leadership literature.

In the first article, Gabriele Lakomski and Colin Evers contribute afresh to our understanding of the process of decision making. Using recent research in the neuroanatomy of emotion as foundation, the authors argue that emotion has a central role to play in rational decision making. There is a great significance in this article because traditional decision-making theories, including Simon’s modified model of satisficing that sharply demarcates emotions and values from rationality and rational decision making, need substantial revision. One significant value of this article is its proposal that causal investigations of the real bases for decision making be conducted, the results of which may have far-reaching implications for education and educational leadership. It should also be noted that Lakomski and Evers here provide an article that serves most appropriately as forerunner for the forthcoming special issue of the journal, edited by Eugenie Samier, “Exploring the emotional dimensions of educational leadership” (Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 48 No. 5, 2010).

Raya Yoeli and Izhak Berkovich’s next report on their study of 39 visionary educational leaders – mostly principals – in Israel. The leaders identified the formative experiences that affected their world view and shaped personal ethos. Personal ethos in turn proved to be a key in developing each leader’s personal and organizational visions. Four factors, in particular, emerged as central to the personal ethos of the leaders: identity, culture and associated values, professional experience, and family. The authors suggest that educational leaders might engage in a process of self-reflection in order to establish a significant personal vision to which they can fully commit. Knowing what is important to them may enable more open dialogue with other organizational members and the development of a shared vision.

The following article adds to a theme this journal has been enthusiastically championing in recent issues – the relationship between their practices and the built or physical structure of schools. In her article, Sheila Fram describes activities within one state in the USA and which in turn provide insights into school design and planning, the integration of the surrounding community, and how schooling can be influenced through this context. Images of the interior and exterior of a high school are used to illustrate the author’s thesis.

Chen Schecter and Niv Feldman next add to the accumulating knowledge of organizational learning – a theme to the forefront of many contemporary investigations into both school change and academic inquiry. The authors, indicating that the notion of organizational learning has yet to be applied to the domain of special education, proceed to describe their investigation in one such school in Israel. Their study is conducted through an empirical investigation of organizational learning mechanisms as embedded in the learning culture of special education. The findings will be of value to all in special education.

In the final article, Neil Cranston, and colleagues report on an extensive survey of Australian Government (state or public) primary school principals conducted in 2009. The authors’ study investigated firstly, the purposes of education and the relative importance of such as perceived by principals and, secondly, the degree to which these purposes were actually enacted in their schools. The findings clearly identify tensions between purposes and enactment suggesting inter alia that many of the barriers to achieving greater focus on the public purposes of education are related to external factors such as changes in government policies, differential funding and resourcing among school sectors, as well as emerging community and societal expectations.

Four book reviews complete this issue of the journal.

A. Ross Thomas