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The author argues that leadership in the public sector operates within the belief of a historical and often mythical hierarchy, and that leadership as a term often is over‐used and under‐conceptualised. This ‘leadership delusion’ is located in a functional approach to leadership where the assumption is that removing dysfunctions from organisations through efficient and effective delivery will automatically bring about changes to standards. While organisational systems, structures and roles are important for quality and improvement, such an approach is not of itself socially critical. This viewpoint argues that we need approaches to leadership that engage with bigger issues such as class, gender and race in ways that are more than counting and measuring.

In many countries concerns have been expressed about the merits of educational research. This paper reports on the outcomes of a review of reviews of such research in Australia and the UK. Taken at face value, the latest round of reviews are largely critical in the UK (where they have generated much debate) and mainly favourable in Australia (where they have not). In accounting for this difference the paper suggests that it might be explained in part as a function of how the reviews were conducted. In the UK reviews have tended to begin with the research and work forward to practice whereas in Australia they have been inclined to begin with practice and work back to the research. It is suggested that policy makers, practitioners and researchers in Australia and the UK have much to learn from each other's experience, as have those in other countries planning similar reviews.

The Galbraith article gives us the opportunity to think out loud about the purposes and practices of field activity, and in responding this article argues that Galbraith is more concerned with the technical application of a method rather than investigating knowledge production. Using Bourdieu's theory of practice enables critical evaluation to be a social practice and the author positions herself as a knowledge worker concerned to describe and understand the interplay between agency and structure. Chaos theory enabled the author from the mid‐1990s to problematise systems theory as the preferred way of generating leadership and management prescriptions for educational professionals. This remains relevant today and it is argued that Galbraith's continued reliance on improving systems theory means that the opportunity is lost to examine the exercise of power within and surrounding complex organisations.

Current orthodoxy in management text and training is the human resource management model which has its origins in the excellence and quality models of US business writings. Investigates the failure of “Jurassic management”: visioning, consensus value systems, proactively created teams, and development planning. Just as Jurassic Park failed, so will self‐managing schools and colleges unless they recognize that certain management development programmes are leading them into disaster. Argues that organizations should not be seeking stability with the environment and meeting the needs of customers, but should be creating the environment and celebrating professional competence. Shows that Chaos Theory can be applied to educational institutions in order to identify that survival in turbulent times is based on the capacity of educational managers to make rather than control the future. Management development is at a critical point whereby the choices will create the future: the key learning outcome from Chaos Theory is that self‐organization and micropolitics are essential to understanding organizational survival and development.

In this article I examine the role of ANZHES and its contribution to the development of the field over the past 40 years. Drawing on a range of theories, I argue that the annual exchange (or pilgrimage) of academics between Australia and New Zealand has been a vital component in the nurturing of our intellectual geographies and the formation of ANZHES as an intellectual community of scholars. And while ANZHES might well be borderless, there has been a gradual emergence of a border zone as academic work, academic knowledge and the Academy has been increasingly fractured, partitioned and dispersed. What then is the disciplinary territory that historians of education now occupy? How has the landscape of our work shifted and changed? To what extent might these connections be represented in ANZHES’ academic journal?

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

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