Citation
Beycioglu, K. (2012), "Current issues in educational management and leadership", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 31 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmd.2012.02631aaa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Current issues in educational management and leadership
Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Management Development, Volume 31, Issue 1
When the related literature is reviewed, one may claim that educational administration is a vast and problematic area (Bush, 2008; Evers, 2003; Greenfield and Ribbins, 1993; Gunter, 2005; Hodgkinson, 1996; McCarthy, 1999; Smylie and Bennett, 2005; Şimşek, 2004; Turan, 2004; Waite, 2002). For Allix and Gronn (2005), for example, the field of educational administration and leadership is a theoretical enigma and paradox.
There have been various discussions on the issues of the field such as the theory-practice gap issues, leadership issues, principal/leader development issues, etc. (Donmoyer, 1995, 1999; English, 1994, 2002, 2003, 2006; Firestone, 1996; Fullan, 2001; Gronn, 2002; Heck and Hallinger, 2005; Hodgkinson, 1991; Leithwood and Duke, 1999; Sergiovanni, 2007; Smylie and Hart, 1999; Spillane, 2006).
This special issue intends to have a look at the current issues in the field of educational administration and leadership. The authors have contributed to the issue with their partial research conducted in their unique context or they have contributed to the issue with their conceptual papers which are of a value for the field. For example, the first article entitled “Distributed leadership: implications for the role of the principal” by Dr Alma Harris focuses on distributed leadership in schools and explores the implications arising from this model of leadership for those in formal leadership positions. The paper considers how the role of the principal, in particular, is affected and changed as leadership is more widely shared within the organization.
In the article entitled “Contextual framing for school leadership training: empirical findings from the Commonwealth Project on Leadership Assessment and Development (Co-LEAD)”, Dr Stefan Brauckmann and Dr Petros Pashiardis are in search to find out school leaders’ training needs around the Commonwealth in order to provide some answers with regards to the professional development needs of school principals. Charles F. Webber and Shelleyann Scott’s article entitled “Student assessment in a Canadian civil society” discusses the need for respectful open dialogue and trusting relationships in educational assessment among stakeholder groups including teachers, educational leaders, parents, unions, professional associations, department of education personnel, academics, informal community leaders, and politicians. Helen Wildy and Simon Clarke’s paper entitled “Making local meaning from national assessment data: A Western Australian view” presents a case study of the support provided to all three education sectors in one state of Australia to assist school leaders. In their paper “Relationship between the school administrators’ power sources and teachers’ organizational trust levels in Turkey” Yahya Altınkurt and Kürşad Yılmaz aim to explore the relationship between school administrators’ power sources and teachers’ organizational trust levels. In “Are we legitimate yet? A closer look at the casual relationship mechanisms among principal leadership, teacher self-efficacy and collective efficacy”, a paper by Türker Kurt, Ibrahim Duyar, and Temel Çalık, aims to examine the relations among principal leadership styles, collective efficacy, and teacher self-efficacy.
Based on the content of this special issue we may conclude that current issues in the field of educational management and leadership have, in a sense, centered on the issues of leadership in school organization, leadership development/training and the importance of assessment in educational administration.
I would like to thank to the JMD editorial team for giving us a space to discuss our current issues in a leading scholarly journal. I also would like to express my sincere thanks to the following colleagues for their contribution to this special issue; Dr Allan David Walker, Dr Alma Harris, Dr Charles Webber, Dr Ciaran Sugrue, Dr Daniel Muijs, Dr David Gurr, Dr Esmahan Ağaoğlu, Dr Helen Wildy, Dr Lars Björk, Dr Lejf Moos, Dr Mehmet Şişman, Dr Mualla Aksu, Dr Özge Hacıfazlıoğlu, Dr Petros Pashiardis, Dr Selahattin Turan, Dr Simon Clarke, Dr Deniz Örücü, Dr Şefika Mertkan Özünlü, and Dr Yaşar Kondakçı.
I wish to express my deepest gratitude to the authors of the articles published in this special issue. I hope this issue would be an asset and contribution to the field.
Kadir BeyciogluGuest Editor
References
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