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The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical reflection on ideas that have been published in the Journal of Educational Administration over the last 50 years that present perspectives on the nature of educational administration and its various aspects, that are alternatives to the mainstream systems‐scientific view of educational administration.

The paper employs a standard analytic philosophy methodology with a focus on argument structures found in epistemology. The approach is to argue that the content and structure of administrative theories is shaped significantly by background epistemologies that determine the nature and justification of administrative knowledge

Epistemologies for both the traditional systems‐science approach to educational administration and a range of alternatives are identified and specified, and the most characteristic features of these approaches that follow from their epistemologies are described. The paper permits inferences about theory choice, and what approach is best, based on a discussion of the merits of the different epistemologies.

The principal value of the paper is to classify and demonstrate the most general features of the arguments that have been behind the large‐scale theoretical differences in the field of educational administration.

Examines the coherentist project for educational administration of professors Colin Evers and Gabriele Lakomski from a critical and pragmatic perspective. It is argued that Evers and Lakomski really have three projects going: the first project seeks to ground coherence as a solution to the problems of educational administration research upon the history of educational administration inquiry philosophies since the Second World War. The second project attempts to justify the worth of coherency as a research philosophy upon purely logical grounds. A third, and most recent, (practical) project draws upon evidence from leadership practice to prove coherentism’s usefulness for school administration. Concludes that, rather than supporting their post‐positivist philosophic underpinnings, Evers and Lakomski’s third project finds them moving toward a raw pragmatism. Also concludes that coherentism is best redescribed from a pragmatic aesthetic perspective, a point of view that provides a potentially more meaningful way of understanding the relationship of coherentist theorizing and leadership action in contemporary schooling.

The study of educational administration is narrowly conceived and becoming moribund. It has come to his condition because of an overreliance on, and an uncritical acceptance of, structural‐functionalism as its world view and value freedom, objectivity and nomothetic analysis as the guiding principles of its inquiries. The recent phenomenological critique has focussed attention on these matters and has stimulated some debate. This debate is much needed and to be welcomed, for it opens new avenues for pursuing the study of educational administration, avenues which may prove to be more productive than those travelled during the last twenty five years.

Educators have had good reason to be concerned with social justice in a context where diversity has become more pronounced in both our schools and communities, with widening divisions between the advantaged and the disadvantaged. Internationally, increasing emphasis has been placed on utilizing the role of school leadership to address issues of social justice and equality, within a scenario where comparative studies of the performance of educational systems dominate the policy imagination globally, thus leading to increased pressure on school systems. This chapter presents a problematization of the social justice concept within education as presented in the literature, while setting out to critique this concept as an educational goal, as well as the role educational leadership is expected to play in the promotion of equity and social justice discourses through the lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT). This theoretical chapter has implications for theory, policy, and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to reconceptualize the theory-practice gap in educational leadership, not as a deficit, but as a necessity for legitimacy within institutional contexts.

This paper draws on institutional theory to reframe the theory-practice gap, which is often seen as a deficit of leaders or preparation programs.

Three vignettes illustrate how aspiring and current educational leaders engage with theory and practice within specific contexts and in relation to specific aspects of leadership. Importantly, the vignettes show that when school leaders decouple theory from practice, they may be doing so to function as legitimate providers of K-12 educational leadership.

The theory-practice gap, while often perceived as something negative, can have certain benefits within particular contexts. Scholars interested in the interconnections of theory and practice would benefit from considering why and how school leaders engage theory and practice.

Implications for leadership preparation programs highlight developing more complex views of the challenges that leaders face in tightly coupling theory and practice. To support future and current leaders, leadership preparation programs need to ensure that their students understand their institutional contexts and the reasons that leaders may decouple theory from action in various ways.

Instead of viewing the theory/practice gap as a deficit, this paper argues for a new way to consider why school leaders and leadership candidates may engage with theory and practice in different ways.

This paper serves as a response to the interchange between Sungaila and Riffel in the Journal in May and October, 1979. In this paper the writer applies some of his earlier methodological ideas about phenomenology and educational research to the study of educational administration in a way that might be of interest to the readers of the Journal. The main argument is that the kind of phenomenology that should be used in the study of educational administration is the kind the experienced practitioner would employ to articulate and conceptualise the insights she or he has gained through administrative experience. This would establish the basic concepts regarding the phenomena perceived in the administrator's lived world, thereby furnishing the appropriate context to guide the application of specific theories, strategies, and research results.

Traditional approaches to educational administration have generally reflected a managerial perspective which owed much to the principles of scientific management developed by F. W. Taylor. Technical concerns which have dwelt on “efficiency” and administration control have, however, ignored and masked the inequalities and ideologies around which organizations are structured. It is argued that critical theory may offer a means of exposing the forms of domination which repress human beings. For the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas critique is a powerful device to unmask unnecessary forms of domination which have been perpetuated by distorted communication. In contrast undistorted or ideal communication entails a pervasive democratic interaction which acknowledges that all participants have the capacity to take part in the making of meaningful decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to review the achievements of Chinese educational management in the past 30 years, conclude the characteristics of Chinese educational management and indicate the problems of Chinese educational management and the countermeasures.

This paper reviews the research of educational management in China in the past 30 years from four aspects: research purpose, research methods, research contents and disciplinary system.

The paper sums up the main achievements, the main characteristics and the main problems of Chinese educational management in the past 30 years. It suggests that the disciplinary relationship should be further clarified; the role of disciplinary research accomplishments has to be further developed and the specialization level in disciplinary research needs to be further improved.

This paper indicates the direction for the construction of Chinese educational management in the future: to further clarify the relationship among related disciplines; to put the role of the research results into full play; to further improve the specialization level of disciplinary research.

This paper contributes to the construction of Chinese educational management both theoretically and practically.

We school administrators, like “practical” men everywhere, claim to have little use for theory. In this we delude ourselves, for we all theorize. The real distinction lies not between theory and practice, but between good theory and bad theory. Good theory is a hypothesis which has undergone verification and which has potential for explaining and predicting events, and for the production of new knowledge. The development of theory, with its constant demand for semantic accuracy and simplicity, is essential as a guide to research, and as a guide to action (e.g. in administration) where it should be regarded as a relational map rather than as an itinerary. The work of Halpin, Guba and Getzels, for example, illustrates that no theory is likely to be the theory. The development of a science of administration is dependent upon such theories. The alchemist described his observations in a half‐mythical language full of metaphors and allegories, not In scientific concepts. Today we appear to live only in an age of educational alchemy.