What is Educational Administration, Anyway?

Abstract

TryingtoreviewthreechaptersofthenewHandbookofResearchonEdu-cational Administration gives one a strong sense of appreciation for the challenge that the editors and chapter authors took on. Consider what is required to put the Handbook together. First, the editors need to conceptualize the entire field of study. What do we mean by educational administration? What are its key components? What are the boundaries of the field? What goes "inside" the definition and what should remain "outside"? Because educational administration is an applied activity, the answers to these questions will always be a matter of interpretation and stance. One could probably make a reasonable argument to include almost every aspect of education in a book on educational administration, and education itself can be seen to encompass a great many aspects of human existence. So the initial boundary-setting is no small feat.Once the first task is accomplished, the editors have to find a way to carve the field up into a set of conceptually distinct pieces to form the chapters-in this case, 24 chapters in three parts, one of which has three subelements. The same questions of content and boundaries recur, perhaps even more strongly. Inevitably, there will be both overlap and gaps in the chapter titles and proposed contents.

Are Teachers Who Need Sustained, Content-Focused Professional Development Getting It? An Administrator’s Dilemma

“…However, shifting from a predominantly volunteer model to a principal or district-mandated model of professional development has the potential to encounter the lack of success associated with other top-down approaches to reform (e.g., Datnow, 2000). The role of administrators in balancing pressure and support to teachers, and helping teachers navigate the challenges and potential discomforts of their own learning process (e.g., Levin, 1999) could become even more problematic with a shift toward administrator decision making about professional-development activities. Such a top-down reform violates tenets of teacher autonomy and professionalism (Cuban, 1984), which suggests that teacher involvement in decision making about professional development increases their sense of ownership and increases the likelihood of success (King & Newmann, 2000).…”

Russia and the Medical Drug Trade in the Seventeenth Century

“…The selective nature of early modern Russian medicine has been discussed by Eve Levin and Andreas Renner, both of whom have emphasised the fact that Russians chose to import Western European medicine, it was not forced upon them. 89 Such discussions fit into a broader trend within the global history of medicine, tracing how local factors shaped the reception of global trends. Londa Schiebinger has argued that objects that are not assimilated tell us as much about the drug trade as those that were, highlighting the example of a West Indian abortifacient popular in its region of origin but almost unknown in Europe despite significant contemporary demand for such exotics.…”

The field of educational administration

“…This was justified by their contribution to practice[17]. It was assumed that these new topics would provide administrators with better tools to understand learning and teaching issues, in general, and the interconnected nature of instructional and organizational issues, in particular (Levin, 1999; Prestine, 1995). Similarly, the preparation of future educators, who reflect understanding, appreciation and respect for cultural differences, was related to issues of sexism and racism (Hoy, 1994; Lomotey, 1995).…”

“…Other scholars argued and justified the case for a stronger comparative and international emphasis in the field, which could expose the value of theory and practice from varying cultural perspectives and enable educators to acquire a better understanding of historical, political, social and cultural influences on EA (Dimmock and Walker, 1998; Paige and Mestenhauser, 1999), a neglected area of study in the field during the 1990s (Levin, 1999).…”