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This chapter focuses on theories and methods for policy studies in higher education, in an era of accelerating globalisation. Policy is increasingly conceived as a complex process which extends from global to local levels, and is contested at all levels. At the same time, higher education has assumed a more central role in the development of a so-called ‘global knowledge economy’. Thus, the re-conceptualisation of ‘policy’, along with the repositioning of the role of higher education in globalising times, call for a rethink on theory and method for higher education policy studies. With attempts to cover a broad global-local span, single theoretical framings are often insufficient, and theoretical eclecticism potentially offers more comprehensive insights into dynamic policy processes than single theories alone. In particular, the combination of critical theory and post-structural theory has presented a fruitful way to build policy ‘trajectory’ and ‘network’ analyses across multiple levels and sites.

This chapter provides a retrospective and prospective exploration of some of the challenges faced by doctoral education, specifically as they relate to advanced studies of educational administration (EA).

It applies a critical stance to the current status of knowledge in the ‘leadership field’ and the intellectual underpinnings that inform the studies available as reference for doctoral students.

Nested within wider changing conditions for university and doctoral education, it is argued that the published field as currently constituted suffers from both banal and ‘non-wicked’ leadership orthodoxies that might lead to doctoral stagnation.

Reasons are suggested and prospects considered for revitalising scholarship for the upcoming generation of EA alumni, scholars and practitioners.

The paper aims to develop a case for re‐considering the role of schools in education policy. The argument is made that considerable amounts of the variation in pupil performance may in fact derive from factors based on variations in parents' ability to buy‐in support and enrichment of various kinds for their children.

The argument of the paper is developed using secondary sources to make the case for non‐school explanations of variations in pupil performance and then offers a set of illustrations of the variety of types of bought‐in support and enrichment now being used in some families.

The paper concludes with the point that two contradictory education policy discourses are in play under New Labour. One, the discourse of standards/achievement, which works through testing, benchmarks, league‐tables, “coasting” schools, special measures, etc. totalises, individualises and commodifies the student as an “ability” – a cluster of performances. And in turn gives rise to “local economies of student worth” that “value” students differently within the processes of “school choice”. The other, the discourse of choice and active parenting, totalises, individualises and commodifies parents and families as “consumers” of education and investors in cultural capital.

The paper is discursive, exploratory and wide‐ranging. It sets out to make a plausible case that would merit further research rather than to establish at this stage a set of firm conclusions.

If the argument is taken seriously then the focus of education policy would be decisively shifted. There is some evidence of a shift of emphasis towards more intervention and individual attention but achievement differences remain firmly located within schools.

Little attention has been focused on this kind of argument and there has certainly been no attempt to map the variety of and growth in private educational services.

Several countries in South Asia face the challenge of ineffective educational reforms manifest in increasing rates of school failure and poor learning outcomes after embarking along education for all. Critical voices from the South have questioned the relevance and appropriateness of ideas that have shaped these reforms. Narratives from the region tell us that importation of educational concepts and policy orientations have led to the dismantling of existing structures and processes of education, creating new forms of inequities and disadvantage. The sheer scale and diversity of populations within the region poses formidable challenges and opportunities for contextual innovation. The construction of national imaginaries in the diverse societies of South Asia has the potential to provide new discourses to educational reform; going beyond the abstract goals set by disconnected international experts and the institutional processes they represent. This chapter deliberates on the need to establish a persuasive critical perspective that can influence and shape the trajectories of policy and practice, research and theorization, within the field of comparative education in South Asia, and the global south.

This chapter identifies that distributed leadership is about sharing power for political pluralism. Distributed leadership has a comprehensive commitment to bringing different groups with different interests, different languages and dialects, different knowledge bases, different metaphysical knowledge and different religions, or no religion, together through provisional agreement on key principals of political pluralism. Marginalised groups may not feel like they belong and may be vulnerable to ideologies that give them a sense of being disconnected from community. Such a position stands as a barrier to political pluralism and shared world views. The situation might be ignored in schools because developing political liberalism through participatory, evidence-informed leadership that is logical, moral and ethical requires time, and agents need to be prepared for such identity work. However, the problem cannot be ignored if community members seek to belong with risky gangs, and are vulnerable to radicalisation, which is very dangerous for them and for their communities. Empowering others may be achieved by developing their capability to ask good questions, and apply collaborative critical thinking for solving social and personal problems. Such empowerment requires shifts from hierarchical teaching of standardised knowledge that is right or wrong to doing the right thing as mature citizens in becoming. The chapter also identifies that it cannot be assumed that leaders are willing or able to distribute leadership, or that doing so would be a panacea for navigating the turbulence faced by their schools to empower societal innovators for equity and renewal. Rather, we concur with Leithwood et al. (2008) who advocate for a thoughtful and purposeful approach to developing leadership for school improvement.

The growing awareness of climate change, biodiversity loss and the wider global environmental emergency has led to calls for decisive and immediate action from all sections of society. This paper aims to consider the question of how universities should respond and what role they might best adopt in current circumstances.

This paper presents a conceptual framework, the paradox model, which places sustainability within the contradictory, messy and uncertain terrain that characterises higher education (HE). This is derived from the own experience of leading sustainability within one UK university, as well as the continued engagement with educational theory and philosophy.

This paper identifies two fundamental contradictions or paradoxes facing those seeking to engage in sustainability in HE, namely, how to develop authentic sustainability responses within the context of existing HE structures and processes and how to reconcile the demand for immediate action with the much more gradual processes of education. This paper represents these two paradoxes as intersecting axes on a diagram, which creates four quadrants in which a diverse range of responses can be located. The point where these two axes intersect is particularly significant and provides a place from which to navigate responses both individually, collectively and institutionally.

This paper argues that wisdom provides a guiding principle for discerning which type of response might be appropriate in any given context. It may also indicate a route towards institutional change and underpin the vision of the ecological university of the future based on principles of civic responsibility and social justice.

Superintendents’ agency in the US is shaped by governance systems within education systems. These Education Governance Systems have been in a state of flux and experienced turbulence for twenty years. The professional challenge this research addresses is how do 14 credentialed educational professional African American women superintendents with doctorates and track records of school improvement, navigate the turbulence to empower families, and Empower Young Societal Innovators for Equity, Renewal (EYSIER), Social Mobility, and Peace.

This chapter identifies three aspects of a theory of knowledge to action to emerge from the empirical evidence presented. First, African American women superintendents need to know how to access policy and legislation, how to stay up to date with policy and need to be empowered to challenge policy. Policy has the back of African American women fighting institutionalised racism. Second, African American women superintendents need role models, and mentors with wisdom who can create proactive and mobilising networks across the state and the nation to advocate for and to support the teachers’ and leaders’ professional learning to be the best teachers, leaders and superintendents they can be. Finally, the African American women superintendents who have been self-selecting, or identified as potential future superintendents by current superintendents and schoolboards, need to be part of succession planning that transcends the short elected lives of district school boards. Newly incumbent African American women superintendents need to be empowered by Education Governance Systems to enable them to deliver on their manifestos and track records of outstanding school improvement with the impact strategies they were employed to implement. The impact strategies include promoting high-quality home–school engagement and ensuring all students learn how to learn, are culturally sensitive, ask good questions and solve problems as Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal. The chapter recommends a network of African American women superintendents implements this theory of knowledge to action and that their work is documented, and if successful in optimising students’ learning, and outcomes, disseminated to build capacity for EYSIER.

The aim of this book is to set an agenda and address a gap in the literature regarding Turbulence, Empowerment and Marginalisation in International Education Governance Systems and its relationship with narrowing the global phenomena of a Black-White achievement gap.

The aims are met by addressing the following quesitions. First, how do senior leaders of Educational Governance Systems who are from and represent marginalised groups in society, describe and understand how School Governance Systems empower or disempower them to develop school communities as societal innovators for equity, and renewal? Second, how do these senior-level leaders within Education Governance Systems describe and understand the role mentors and/or advocates play to support their navigation through the turbulence? Third, to what extent, do these senior-level leaders of Education Governance Systems believe a cultural change is required to empower them in school and college communities including staff, families, students and community partnerships to Empower Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal (EYSIER)? Finally, what theories of knowledge to action emerge regarding how these senior-level leaders might successfully navigate turbulence to empower marginalised groups for equity and renewal for all in Public Corporate Education Governance Systems?

We identified in Chapter 1 that the context is one of colonisation between different groups. In Chapter 2, The review of literature focused on turbulence in Education Governance Systems and identified the global distribution of knowledge concerning education from cash-rich countries has had a tremendous impact on what is taught and tested in schools. Nation states that are not cash rich are marginalised in a global politics. International Testing Industries examine the output of national education systems through a global lens. These studies do not shed light on: the socio-economic, or political context that shape the values, primary moral virtues and secondary intellectual virtues and acts of particular legislation; the fair funding formulas that underpin the allocation of funds to the construction of infrastructure; the Education Governance Systems structures and agencies; and the organisation of processes and practices of the education system within the international community. Intellectual and cultural colonisation that may lack what Adler calls moral and ethical frameworks may accelerate the commodification of education. Chapter 3 critically discussed how we implemented the same research design in each case taking a humanistic approach and identified that the research adopts a shared world view and seeks to recognise scientific, intellectual knowledge, and metaphysical moral and empirical knowledge. Chapters 4 through 9 presented the English, Northern Irish, Arab-Israeli, Trinidad and Tobago and the United States cases, and each case identified a clash of values between the professional educational credentialed senior-level leaders with track records for outstanding school improvement, and those in Educational Governance Systems with: no professional credentials; no track record of school improvement; a tendency to promote competition rather than cooperation; a desire for internal succession planning, rather than succession planning to achieve national education goals. The clash of cultures put senior-level leaders into a mode of protectionism with a focus on keeping their post and ‘watching their backs’, rather than building capacity for sustainable instruction within the Education Governance Systems they lead manage and administrate to optimise students’ learning, students’ outcomes and social mobility.

These senior-level leaders with Professional Credentials, and outstanding track records of school improvement need Education Governance Systems to empower them to do their job and create realistic opportunities to develop networks of professional experts in partnership with the academy to support them navigate any clash of world views. Funding is required for professional learning to ensure ‘old opinion is handed down among them by ancient tradition’ that is rationalised with logic, compared and contrasted with empirical evidence, and synthesised with innovations guided by a moral compass within an ethical infrastructure. These senior-level leaders need to be empowered to empower their staff as autonomous professionals to empower the parents and the students to gain the thinking tools they need to be lifelong learners with the capability to be self-legislating. This requires a culture change that prioritises the moral virtues of learning how to learn as moral citizens in becoming, above the secondary intellectual virtues demonstrated through success in high stakes tests.

Knowledge to action reveals young people need Education Governance Systems that EYSIER and underpin success in student outcomes for social mobility. Success in both these spheres will enable them to break their chains that have kept them dependent on the guidance of others who may seek to exploit them (De Gruy, 2008).

Further research is recommended to implement the knowledge to action impact strategies that emerge from all five cases.

The professional challenge the chapter addresses is Black, Asian Minority Ethnic Chief Executive Officers (BAME CEOs) who lead Multi-academy Trusts (MATs) in England need to navigate turbulence to assure all schools within their MATs are high performing. In the investigation of this issue, the structures of MATs themselves emerge as causing turbulence. Evidence revealed the BAME CEOs with track records of improving failing schools to outstanding schools interviewed in this research are working in partnership with their communities. These BAME CEOs sustain their high achieving MATs and/or take on more schools that need improving and lead their change to outstanding schools with BAME communities, non-BAME communities and diverse communities. However, they were not given the opportunities to build capacity for high-performing schools by the current MAT structures. Rapid change to the organisation of Public Education Governance Systems has shifted power from local authority governance to public corporation governance without addressing any of the old problems in the change (Brighouse, 2017). The rapid change has led to a clash of cultures between those with the values of generic Public Governance Systems who have not been democratically elected by the public and do not require professional educational credentials, a track record of being ethical teachers, and a track record of leading ethical teachers in ethical communities in school improvement from ‘Needs Improvement’ to ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’. The rapid change has been hallmarked by a lack of full and free interactions and cooperation of the public in how the change in public education is being implemented. There has been no referendum on whether parents want their schools organised by their representatives they have elected in local councils or organised by public corporations financed by Private Finance Incentive (PFI) and Private Finance 2 (PF2) and operated by public corporations like Carillion.