Mapping trends in educational-leadership research: A longitudinal examination of knowledge production, approaches and locations

Abstract

The field of educational-leadership research has broadened over the last 50 years, with diverse knowledge-production traditions (e.g. functionalist and critical); audiences (e.g. practitioners, researchers and policymakers) and preferred sites of publication. In this article, we trace how the objectives, methods, claims and relative significance of educational-leadership research, and the identities and epistemological assumptions of educational-leadership researchers, are changing over time. We systematically and manually analysed trends in educational-leadership research through keyword searches across all journal publication sites over 50 years, exploring researchers’ contributions, epistemological positioning and journal choices. We also explored the balance between empirical and conceptual scholarship, geographical location and use of theory. We found that critical educational-leadership research is common across the international field but is more likely to be published in high-ranking generalist education journals or lower-ranking educational-leadership-focused journals. Our research contributes a novel, robust and, significantly, relatively wide-ranging empirical basis to identify key trends, gaps and silences within the field of educational-leadership research over time. Our research enables better understanding of the areas that are potentially under-researched and the ways the field might be creating and reproducing power dynamics in research.

Trends and Future Scenarios in Education Policy

“…Various traditions in creating knowledge have formed and new knowledge became transferable to very broad audiences, from practitioners to scholars and builders of the education policy. Aims, methods, statements and meanings of their application were changing [3].…”

Is leadership a myth? A ‘new wave’ critical leadership-focused research agenda for recontouring the landscape of educational leadership

“…(original emphasis) Cutting across this continuum, on the basis of their substantive foci and the purposes that these foci imply, I discern two distinct, but complementary, interpretations of critical scholarship within the educational leadership field. One is now a widely recognised discourse that, as McGinty et al (2022) note, has steadily gained traction within the field; indeed, having begun as a marginal discourse, it is perhaps now insinuating itself comfortably within the mainstream. Consistent with Robinson's (1994: 56) description of critical theory in educational administration as 'a morally based vision of socially just administrative arrangements and the means for achieving them', this discourse's purpose is summed up by John Smyth (2021: xviii) in the following terms: 'critical educational leadership sees its project as being deeply moral as well as a democratic and political project'.…”

“…Yet, despite its belonging to one of educational leadership scholarship's luminaries, Gronn's voice is all too often left crying in the field's wilderness, where his work certainly seems to be read, but most often superficially and/or selectively, leaving his most intellectually challenging analyses un(der)examined and un(der)appreciated. In the face of such pervasive superficiality, it is unsurprising that McGinty et al (2022) find the educational leadership research field 'under-theorised'.…”

Türki̇ye’de Eği̇ti̇m Yöneti̇mi̇ Temali Uluslararasi Yayinlarin İncelenmesi̇: Bi̇bli̇ometri̇k Anali̇z

“…Bu sorunların belirlenmesi ve çözüm önerilerinin geliştirilebilmesi için alandaki araştırmaların eğitim yönetiminin bilimselleşme sürecinin gelişmesi bakımından özgün, alana katkı sağlayıcı ve etkili çalışmalar olması beklenir. Bu yönde daha önce eğitim alanında yapılmış çalışmalar incelendiğinde özellikle yurtdışında yapılan çalışmaların alanda bir dergide yayınlanmış araştırmaları incelediği (McGinity, Heffernan, & Courtney, 2022) görülmüştür.…”