Critical Education Policy And Leadership Studies

This edited collection is a Festschrift to Helen M. Gunter, a leading scholar in the field of education policy and leadership. We draw on the concept of the Festschrift as a collection of papers, or chapters, that recognise, honour, and celebrate the work and contributions of an esteemed academic. Gunter’s work has opened up the field of critical education policy and leadership studies and provoked, if not revitalised, scholarly thinking about the origins, structures, patterns and impact of the field. Gunter’s personal commitment to intellectual leadership of the field and public education resonates across all her scholarly works. The core intention of this unique collection is to recognise Gunter’s scholarly contributions as an academic, practitioner and public intellectual. Invited authors have been asked to reflect critically on ways in which Gunter’s work and intellectual support have influenced their own research, teaching and academic engagement. In their reflections, contributors not only speak to the intellectual work of Gunter but suggest how they have taken this work forward and how this has advanced the field of education as well as the production of knowledge.

This book documents and deconstructs the concept of educational leadership within various education settings originating from diverse global environments. It focuses on presenting different readings of educational leadership via distinct theoretical and methodological applications. It takes forward the idea of critical leadership studies and uses creative analytic practices to present layered readings of educational leadership. The book offers leadership studies dealing with various education settings across a wide spectrum with international perspectives. It provides examples of educational narratives through somewhat unconventional modes of representation. This book is beneficial to readers interested in the study of educational leadership and using qualitative methodologies in educational research.

This volume informs the growing number of educational policy scholars on the use of critical theoretical frameworks in their analyses. It offers insights on which theories are appropriate within the area of critical educational policy research and how theory and method interact and are applied in critical policy analyses. Highlighting how different critical theoretical frameworks are used in educational policy research to reshape and redefine the way scholars approach the field, the volume offers work by emerging and senior scholars in the field of educational policy who apply critical frameworks to their research. The chapters examine a wide range of current educational policy topics through different critical theoretical lenses, including critical race theory, critical discourse analysis, postmodernism, feminist poststructuralism, critical theories related to LGBTQ issues, and advocacy approaches.

Understanding Educational Leadership guides you through critical perspectives and approaches across the world, taking in the global north and south, and explores the ways in which educational leadership is currently understood, theorised, researched, modelled and practised. The book also covers contemporary issues including gender, sexual identity and race, as well as topics such as governance, performativity and corporatisation. It brings together evidence and ideas that illuminate the power structures and relations in educational leaders, leading and leadership and helps you to consider the impact on policy and practice, and to think about changes needed to mitigate the issues identified. The book showcases a wide range of theorists, including Bourdieu, Foucault and Fraser. Its impressive scope includes analyses of collectivist, neoliberal and historical influences on educational leadership. It explores forensically leadership styles, with an explicit focus on distributed, instructional, democratic, autocratic, laissez-faire and organisational forms. Carefully curated by the editors, the world-leading contributors draw on their wealth of knowledge about research and practice to provide you with an overview of educational leadership today, looking at global research, evidence, arguments and conceptualisations. Each chapter is written in an engaging and inspiring way, following a consistent approach to help you to develop your understanding in each of the areas covered. Full pedagogical features throughout include chapter summaries, key questions, case studies, questions for readers and further reading suggestions with questions on key texts. A companion website provides links to open-access outputs, research-project outcomes, and networking seminars, conferences with links to local, national and global events and connections.

Critical Transformative Educational Leadership and Policy Studiesis a comprehensive collection of critical contributions from most of the leading voices in the fields of educational leadership and educational policy studies, pushing back against the current neoliberal authoritarian environment. The volume offers alternative ways to perceive and to formulate education leadership and policy from a critical transformative perspective. Individual chapters discuss such topics as social justice in education; poverty, race and public education; counter-hegemonic education movements; the privatization of schools; and school reform and advocacy leadership, among others, all from a critical perspective. It is a crucial and timely volume for educators, school administrators, educational leaders, social activists, and union leaders concerned with the current state of our universities and our education system. Perfect for courses such as: Political Economy of Urban Education | Leadership and Policy Studies | Educational Policy and Reform | Politics of Education | Cultural Studies | Curriculum Theory and Development | Socio Historical Foundations| Indigenous Knowledges and Methodologies | Cultural Studies and Education

A 2022 SPE Outstanding Book Award Winner Critical Transformative Educational Leadership and Policy Studies - A Reader is a comprehensive collection of critical contributions from most of the leading voices in the fields of educational leadership and educational policy studies, pushing back against the current neoliberal authoritarian environment. The volume offers alternative ways to perceive and to formulate education leadership and policy from a critical transformative perspective. Individual chapters discuss such topics as social justice in education; poverty, race and public education; counter-hegemonic education movements; the privatization of schools; and school reform and advocacy leadership, among others, all from a critical perspective. It is a crucial and timely volume for educators, school administrators, educational leaders, social activists, and union leaders concerned with the current state of our universities and our education system. Perfect for courses such as: Political Economy of Urban Education | Leadership and Policy Studies | Educational Policy and Reform | Politics of Education | Cultural Studies | Curriculum Theory and Development | Socio Historical Foundations | Indigenous Knowledges and Methodologies | Cultural Studies and Education

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This volume argues for the need of a common ground that bridges leadership studies, curriculum theory, and Didaktik. It proposes a non-affirmative education theory and its core concepts along with discursive institutionalism as an analytical tool to bridge these fields. It concludes with implications of its coherent theoretical framing for future empirical research. Recent neoliberal policies and transnational governance practices point toward new tensions in nation state education. These challenges affect governance, leadership and curriculum, involving changes in aims and values that demand coherence. Yet, the traditionally disparate fields of educational leadership, curriculum theory and Didaktik have developed separately, both in terms of approaches to theory and theorizing in USA, Europe and Asia, and in the ways in which these theoretical traditions have informed empirical studies over time. An additional aspect is that modern education theory was developed in relation to nation state education, which, in the meantime, has become more complicated due to issues of ‘globopolitanism’. This volume examines the current state of affairs and addresses the issues involved. In doing so, it opens up a space for a renewed and thoughtful dialogue to rethink and re-theorize these traditions with non-affirmative education theory moving beyond social reproduction and social transformation perspectives.

This book, the product of the task force on research co-sponsored by the American Educational Research Association Division A and the University Council on Educational Administration, sets an ambitious agenda for research in educational leadership. Prominent scholars in the field review current knowledge about leadership, frame new questions to generate important research in the field, and direct researchers and policymakers to rethink how educational administration, leadership, and policy should be understood. Covering a broad range of topics, from accountability systems and school?community relationships to the education of students from diverse backgrounds, the authors submit current research to critical scrutiny in order to develop frameworks for new research that can have a significant impact on policy and practice.