This paper revisits the thesis of a 1980 paper that suggested a new approach to educational administration based upon the New Sociology of Education. In particular it updates answers to the six key questions asked by that paper: what counts as knowledge; how is what counts as knowledge organised; how is what counts as knowledge transmitted; how is…

Despite the ubiquity of programmes in educational administration and leadership little is known about the resources used to teach them. This article reviews the sources currently employed in such programmes in Australia by examining the textbooks, book chapters and journal articles specified for 53 separate units (papers) offered at 15 of the key…

This paper attempts a comparative analysis of classification and framing relationships as they are exemplified in the four papers presented in this Special Issue. In particular, it interrogates Bernstein's assertion that education is simply a relay for power relations external to it and examines approaches to educational leadership and…

This paper examines the consequences for school leadership of the abandonment of Waller's insights into the school as a social organism and the embracing of the cult of efficiency as the foundation for the analysis of school culture. Tracing the separation of conception from execution, leadership from teaching, administration from education…

An adequate theory of educational administration demands an emphasis on understanding rather than legitimation; the inclusion of qualitative as well as quantitative constructs; and the incorporation of philosophical concerns, especially those dealing with epistemology and ethics. Developments in the "new sociology" of education and in…

After observing that texts in educational administration have largely failed to address the problem of the justice and fairness of social and educational arrangements, this article goes on to examine the necessary relationships between ethical leadership, community and the notion of social justice. Such relationships are argued to be necessarily…

Criticizes Evers and Lakomski's book "Knowing Educational Administration" (1991) for misinterpreting the author's views about the manipulative nature of administrative science. Societal forces shaped the "social control" conceptions of administration prevalent during the 1960s and 1970s. Evers and Lakomski's analysis of…

This paper offers a critique of Evers' and Lakomski's 1991 book, "Knowing Educational Administration," and their discussion of neo-Marxist and critical theory. This paper argues that the science of educational administration is a historically contingent product of particular social forces and interests at a particular time. The kind of…

A historical perspective on Australian culture that draws on the meaning of culture and its relationship to the culture of administration begins this paper. Explored is the tension of middle level administrators who are continually caught up in the traffic between policy directives and community needs. The writer posits that the culture of a…

Dominant theories of educational administration have viewed the field as a rational and technical science concerned with the bureaucratic control of education. These theories have recently come under attack for ideological and empirical reasons. More current theories characterize educational administration as less rational objective, and…

This paper takes the point of view that the mechanisms of demolition are those of economic rationalism: globalization, marketization, deregulation, competition, and privatization. The growing concern of government with economies, markets, and money carries over to education and other institutions. Currently in Australia, devolution is interpreted…

This paper offers a critique of the corporate-management culture manifested in Australian education systems and institutions. It is argued that in Australia, the drive toward a market culture is a form of administrative achievement that turns culture into commodities. One of the major features of the current educational reform context is a…

Although Griffiths (1979) argued that the turmoil in the field of organizational theory would inevitably spill over into educational administration, presaging a paradigm shift, the professoriate in educational administration in North America has largely ignored, or reacted with hostility, to debate over the theoretical foundations of the field.…

Traditionally, educational administration is a technology of administrative control that systematically ignores both educational issues and those social and cultural issues that lie at the heart of people's commitment to, or alienation from, educational institutions. These social and cultural inequalities are investigated in a series of essays on…

The concept of instructional leadership is constrained by social conventions that derive from a technical notion devoted to managerial rather than educational ends. This paper analyzes (1) assumptions held about leadership and instruction, (2) these notions in other contexts and practices, and (3) effects of such practices on the lives of…