ORCID Profile
0000-0002-5612-5887
Current Organisation
University of New South Wales
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In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Education Policy | Policy and Administration
Equity and Access to Education | School/Institution Policies and Development |
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 07-02-2022
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 16-03-2012
DOI: 10.1108/09578231211210521
Abstract: This paper aims to investigate the role of an under‐graduate educational leadership in introducing students to the complexity of school leadership practice. Theoretically informed by Bourdieuian social theory and drawing on a questionnaire with a cohort of students, the paper evaluates a course in relation to achieving its outcomes. An analysis of student responses indicates that the course did introduce students to school leadership practice and assist in the construction of a school leadership disposition. The theoretical resources used in the paper have significant implications for how researchers conceive of school leadership practice. Therefore, this paper may be the basis of further work. The findings of this work have implications for teacher educators and specifically universities. From this paper, the inclusion of an educational leadership course in under‐graduate programs should become more the norm rather than the exception. This paper has value in two unique ways. First, there has been very little work undertaken on the role of educational leadership courses in under‐graduate programs and in the context of increased political attention and no formal pre‐requisites for the principalship in Australia, this work is both timely and significant. Second, this paper works with a sophisticated notion of school leadership practice and its location using social theory, a perspective that is uncommon in much of the literature on educational leadership.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 19-04-2017
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 06-2013
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 05-2013
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 13-09-2013
DOI: 10.1108/IJEM-08-2012-0089
Abstract: This paper highlights the potential value of “return on investment” analysis for leadership development investment methods to better providing research informed decision regarding improving organisational outcomes. Working with published research on leadership dimensions with greatest impact on student outcomes, return on leadership development formula, and empirical research on Australian university‐based educational leadership programmes, this paper demonstrates an illustrative ex le of estimating the return on leadership investment. Using an illustrative ex le of Australian university‐based educational leadership programmes, this paper argues that methodologies for estimating the return on leadership development offers a powerful tool for making research informed decisions at the in idual, organisational and systemic levels. This paper provides the basis for substantial further work on the measures of impact of leadership preparation and development such as matters of duration of effect, instrumentations of quality, costing and causal models of effect. The methodology demonstrated in this paper provides a basis for in iduals, organisations and school systems to make decisions regarding the resourcing, or not, of school leadership preparation and development. The methodology demonstrated in this paper provides a basis for in iduals, organisations and school systems to make decisions regarding the resourcing, or not, of school leadership preparation and development. The application of return on investment analysis has been rare in educational leadership preparation and development programmes and its value opens up information for rigorous debate on the resourcing, or not, of programmes by systems, government and in iduals.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 15-05-2014
Abstract: When it comes to organizational performance, leaders matter. Without significant attention to the preparation and development of school leaders, government initiatives aimed at building world class education systems are unlikely to succeed. Across the Anglophone world leadership preparation and development has become a key leverage point in education policy, with many nations establishing systems of licensing, accreditation and mandatory programmes. Outside the Anglophone world and central powers of the global north, school leadership preparation and development exists in a highly contested space that balances colonial legacy, deficit thinking and an unrelenting desire to compete on a global scale, with calls for localized knowledge, values and histories. In this article we problematize this context by arguing that the ontological complicity of policy interventions – particularly those funded by the global north – is shaping African developments in a manner that is exclusive of localized knowledge and in doing so, constrains that which it sort to improve in the first place. We build our argument on two key points: first, the centrality of preparation programmes in our understanding of educational leadership, management and administration, and second, the apparent absence of interrogation of the socio-political work of constructing the research object. What we propose is a greater need to focus on the epistemological preliminaries of research, rather than just the confirmation or disconfirmation, of the researcher’s model of reality.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 20-05-2016
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-2011
Publisher: SensePublishers
Date: 2015
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 20-07-2022
DOI: 10.1108/JPCC-12-2020-0100
Abstract: The pracademia movement is gaining increasing traction in education, particularly in educational leadership. Offered as a means to bridge practice and academia, questions remain as to whether it resolves or perpetuates the theory–practice ide. This paper systematically approaches this problem. Theoretically informed by the relational approach, this conceptual paper articulates the preliminaries and underlying assumptions of pracademia before exploring the implications for the field of educational leadership. Having established the underlying assumptions, this paper offers three standards – description, explanation and alternative – for assessing knowledge claims in the field that does not default to distinct knowledge worlds (e.g. academic, practice) or categories of knowledge generators (e.g. academics, practitioners, pracademics). Through a relational approach, this work breaks down the boundaries of theory and practice to offer a new way of thinking about knowledge claims. The new approach is consistent with the intent of bridging theory and practice without the need to assume them to be separate in the first place.
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 14-03-2023
Abstract: Education is a key institution of modern society, long recognized for its central role in the reproduction of inequities and with the potential to challenge them. Schools behave as their systems are designed. Achieving equity and excellence is not possible through attempts to fix “the school” or educators. Principles of systemic design that incorporate equity and excellence are needed to increase the likelihood of desirable outcomes. Using the social contract as a design principle, this paper systematically builds an empirical model of school provision aimed at equitable excellence. Equitable excellence in school provision is possible if choice is available across geolocation and socio-educational (dis)advantage, schools have autonomy over fiscal, personnel and curricular matters, public accountability is linked to academic outcomes and social impact, all moderated by the quality of teaching. Data-driven empirical modelling is particularly attractive to policy makers, systemic authorities and researchers when theory (of all varieties) does not yield the necessary insights to support the functionality and effectiveness of systems to deliver equitable outcomes at scale. Empirical ex les can be used to test the explanatory power of the novel model – and refine it when necessary. The empirical model and threshold question are the genesis of a common language for assessing relevant costs and benefits of initiatives for government and system designers. Significantly, establishing a threshold question and tests of legitimacy and strength to accompany the novel model provides a more principled way of prioritizing the competing demands on public investment in education. Establishing a threshold question and tests for legitimacy and strength to accompany the novel model provides a more principled way of prioritizing the competing demands to accompany.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 07-2010
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 25-07-2018
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Date: 2018
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Date: 2019
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 11-01-2013
DOI: 10.1108/09513541311289846
Abstract: “Leadership” is arguably the central concept of interest in contemporary scholarship on educational administration. Within this scholarly discourse, there is an explicit assumption that leadership is a “real” phenomenon that is not only important, but also necessary for educational institutions. However, few scholars engage with issues surrounding the confusion of a socially constructed label with an assumed empirical reality. The aim of this paper is to mobilise critical social theory and to discuss the concept of leadership in educational administration. To engage with this matter, the author mobilises critical social theory, specifically that of Pierre Bourdieu, to discuss the concept of leadership in educational administration. In doing so, the author argues that: “leadership” is a label taken from common language into scholarly discourse for the purpose of solving a perceived problem in the empirical world, and that this is made possible through a particular constitution of the social space. The central argument of this paper challenges the hegemonic position of educational leadership scholarship, particularly its mobilisation of context, both time and space. Unlike scholarship focused on developing an explanation of what constitutes leadership, this paper engages with the abstraction of “leadership” as an educational administration concept.
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 12-05-2021
DOI: 10.1108/IJEM-02-2021-0061
Abstract: Universities claim to provide many benefits to their context. What remains less clear is what is meant by context. Whatever it is, context is fundamental to decision-making. Understanding what context means is crucial to understanding leadership in higher education. Theoretically informed by Eacott's relational approach, this study is based on interview data from a purposive s le of ten English vice-chancellors and nine Canadian university presidents. Transcripts were analysed for the assumptions participants held regarding the work of universities and how that played out in practice. Context is not an external variable engaged with or acted upon. It is not separate to leadership and the work of universities but is constitutive of and emergent from activities. There is no single definition of context, and this has major implications for university activities. Context(s) is based on assumptions. Making explicit the assumptions of participants, without pre-defining them, is a key task of research on leadership in higher education. Leaders need to explicitly articulate their assumptions regarding the work of universities. Assessment should be based on the coherence between the espoused position and activities undertaken. Through the emerging resources of relational scholarship, this paper demonstrates how context is constitutive of and emergent from the activities of universities. More than novel vocabulary, the paper makes a fundamental point about the generative nature of context. De-centring entities (e.g. university, leader, context) and focusing on relations our approach provide a path forward by encouraging the articulation of intended purpose(s) and perspective on the work of universities.
Publisher: Academic Journals
Date: 05-04-2012
DOI: 10.5897/IJEAPS11.073
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 19-09-2023
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 12-11-2014
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Date: 29-05-2020
DOI: 10.1093/ACREFORE/9780190264093.013.647
Abstract: Well-rehearsed arguments have stressed that organizations and organizing are relational. With a transdisciplinary “relational turn” underway, particularly in closely related disciplines such as sociology, organizational studies, leadership, and management, it is not surprising to see an increasing number of educational administration and leadership literatures align with relations. However, this uncritical adoption of the importance of relations is problematic for research. Not all uses of the label “relational” are the same. For some, relational is applied as an adjective to advocate for a particular version of leadership or organizing. Others employ the term to describe an approach to understanding the co-determination of organizational activities and outcomes. Unlike the normative position underlying the adjectival use, the co-determinist is a variable-based approach with greater attention to measurement. Conflationism brings together two entities previous thought of as separate to offer an alternate version of relationalism. A fourth category offers a methodology and theoretical resources for understanding the social world. Each of the four forms can claim to be relational. The distinctions among the forms have implications for what they offer educational administration and leadership research. The adjectival form is limited to advocating for a particular version of how to do things and is based on the common-sense argument that having positive relationships is a good thing. Co-determinism provides a framework for analyzing organizations and organizing and manipulating what are perceived as malleable pieces to maximize performance. Conflationism seeks to highlight the interwoven nature of what have traditionally been thought of as separate parts of a whole. The relational offers a way of thinking through relations with the social world and how these relations are both shaped by and shaping of organizing activity. Consistent with a focus on relations, the relevance and significance of relational research is not in having a single right version but in understanding knowledge claims in relation to alternatives and thinking through the implications for educational administration and leadership.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 06-2013
Publisher: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH
Date: 12-2020
DOI: 10.1365/S42681-020-00016-Z
Abstract: For an applied field, the role of research expertise is of considerable importance. With an increasing number of school leaders turning to social media for their professional learning–as part of a broader digital turn in knowledge generation, distribution, and consumption–the argument of this paper is that the notion of research expertise in educational leadership is shifting. Traditional modes of acquiring and sustaining research capital (e.g., publications, citations, research income) have been replaced by social presence, profile building, and the curation of followership. Building on work claiming there is a 'cult of the guru' in educational leadership, this paper draws on an appropriation of Hall's Kardashian index ( K -index) for 50 researchers, an analysis of Twitter user networks using NodelXL, and relational theorizing to investigate the ways in which research expertise is being mobilized / recast by educational leadership researchers on Twitter. Establishing an empirical foundation for ongoing dialogue and debate it is argued that the recasting of research expertise to those curating followership, and potentially orced from research performance, is of timely significance for the ongoing credibility of the field both internally and within the broader academy.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-07-2022
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-04-2023
DOI: 10.1007/S13384-023-00621-Z
Abstract: Legal attendance requirements and national declarations establish a social contract between the State and its citizens for the provision of schooling. Any shortage of teachers compromises the ability of the State to meet its contractable obligations. The sovereignty of the social contract is complex as no single body has ultimate responsibility for housing the teaching workforce, but everyone has a stake in it. Empirically focused on the largest school system in the southern hemisphere, the New South Wales public education system (Australia), this paper demonstrates that 90.8% of teaching positions, over 50,000 full-time equivalent posts, are in Local Government Areas where the median rent and house sales price are severely unaffordable on a top-of-the-scale teacher salary. With the system requiring additional teachers to meet increasing enrolments, and housing costs outstripping salaries, many schools not traditionally considered difficult to staff are becoming, if not already, inaccessible for teachers.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 06-01-2023
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 08-2008
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 05-08-2022
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 06-06-2023
Publisher: SensePublishers
Date: 2011
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 07-11-2014
Publisher: James Nicholas Publishers
Date: 2006
DOI: 10.7459/ES/24.2.04
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 30-06-2021
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-2011
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 2010
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 07-2008
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 22-02-2011
DOI: 10.1108/09513541111107560
Abstract: This paper seeks to take up the challenge of complex social, political and cultural influences, uncertain economic conditions, ever advancing technologies and increasingly erse student populations. The challenge for educational leadership scholars and practitioners is to figure out what their work as leaders should be in new times. The paper aims to discuss the issues. Drawing loosely on the theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu, and a continued research agenda, this paper outlines a framework for educational leadership that can be measured, but is not prescriptive. The central argument of this paper is that viewing leadership as a complex social activity that is not directly observable has the prospect of moving scholarship and understanding beyond the superficial measurement of what is directly observed to a thick description of educational leadership. The framework presented privileges the philosophical and scholarly elements of being an educational leader over the administrative and managerial. It is argued that this is what is needed in the leadership of educational institutions for the future and a framework for preparing the next generation of leaders.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 13-02-2020
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 05-06-2014
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-08-2018
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 09-05-2008
DOI: 10.1108/09578230810869284
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine knowledge of strategy within the field of educational administration. It is intended to be the basis for future empirical research and inquiry into strategy in education by suggesting alternate ways of defining and researching strategy. The study examines the contemporary context of educational administration, the evolution of strategy as an educational construct, its definition and need within educational administration. Using this information the author identifies key conceptual and methodological issues in current research. The paper finds that knowledge of strategy in education is incomplete and muddled because research and writing in the field have approached strategy from a narrow and conceptually flawed position. The advancement of knowledge in the area will only advance with alternate conceptualisations and methodological approaches. Rather than merely review literature, this paper proposes a redefinition of strategy as an educational administration construct, focusing on key features not words and actions. The hope is that fellow scholars and practitioners will continue to question and focus on the key features of strategy and the issues that confront them.
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 09-06-2023
DOI: 10.1108/IJEM-10-2022-0411
Abstract: Steiner schools represent a natural experiment in the provision of schooling. With a history dating back more than 100 years, leadership, leaders and the principal do not sit easily with Steiner educators. The contemporary regulatory environment requires a “principal” or legal authority at the school-building level, creating a tension for Steiner schools. This makes Steiner schools an ideal case study for understanding the contemporary role of the principal. This paper is based on an interview-based study with 24 heads of Australian Steiner schools. Conducted on Microsoft Teams, all by the principal investigator, the interviews generated a 171,742-word corpus subjected to an inductive analytical approach. Data reduction led to four themes, and this paper focuses on one (principles not prescription) and its implications for the principalship and school governance. Embedding the principalship in a philosophy (or theory) of education re-couples school administration with schooling and bases decision-making in principles rather than in iduals. It also alters the role of data and evidence from accountability to justifying principles. Rather than a focus on in iduals or roles, this paper argues that the underlying principles of organisational decision-making should be the central focus of research. Ensuring organisational coherence, by balancing the ersity of positions on core principles is the core task of the contemporary principal. Exploiting natural experiments in the provision of schooling makes it possible to argue for how schooling, and specifically the principalship, can be different.
Publisher: Springer Singapore
Date: 2018
Publisher: Academic Journals
Date: 06-2012
DOI: 10.5897/IJEAPS12.005
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 15-05-2017
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 07-08-2016
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 30-09-2023
DOI: 10.1177/17411432211034174
Abstract: This paper examines principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and leadership as part of a 3-year research project looking at the implications of school autonomy on social justice across four states of Australia (Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland). Drawing on interviews with principals and representatives from principal stakeholder organisations in these four state jurisdictions, the paper identifies a number of key issues for school principals and the implications for understandings and practices of educational leadership. These include varied understandings of autonomy, practices of leadership and implications for health, workload and well-being. The paper argues that while principals have mixed perceptions of school autonomy policies, there has been a narrowing of leadership experiences by principals in the form of managerialism and compliance. Furthermore, principals continue to experience high levels of workload, and some principals, depending on career stage and experience level, feel better able to work within and sometimes against these policies in their schools and communities. These practices are sometimes felt to be despite the system and not due to school autonomy policies themselves. The implication of these findings is that principals are inequitably able to respond to and implement school autonomy policies, an issue often glossed over in educational leadership research.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Date: 2019
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 11-03-2015
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-2011
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-09-2020
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 23-05-2018
Publisher: Springer Singapore
Date: 2016
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 22-04-2012
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 19-03-2023
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 05-2013
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 22-06-2010
DOI: 10.1108/09513541011056009
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the demographic variables of tenure and functional track have a moderating effect on the strategic leadership of school leaders. Using a conceptual framework developed by the researcher, a static/cross‐sectional questionnaire‐based study on a convenience s le of public primary school principals in NSW, Australia, was used to collect data. Analysis included ANOVA and correlations. Despite few statistically significant differences in the data set, there is evidence to suggest that, based on the small s le size, the demographic variables of tenure and functional track have a moderating effect on the strategic leadership and management of public primary school principals. The study serves as little more than a scoping project. The small s le size limits the generalisability of the findings however, the results do indicate that there is something to be made of the general thesis of the paper. As education systems across the globe are faced with a crisis in filling school leadership positions with the mass retirement of the baby boomers, the potential implications of tenure and functional track on school leadership is of vital importance to all involved in schools. The paper makes use of tenure and functional track in relation to strategic leadership, a combination rarely seen in the field. The very concept of functional track is original to the field and has the potential to uncover much needed insight into school leadership.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2011
Publisher: EARDA
Date: 15-07-2019
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 10-02-2023
Publisher: EARDA
Date: 15-07-2019
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Date: 08-12-2016
Publisher: EARDA
Date: 15-07-2019
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 13-04-2015
DOI: 10.1108/IJEM-10-2013-0158
Abstract: – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the quality of the current provision for school leadership in Kenya, the extent to which they have an impact on student outcomes and the return on school leadership preparation and development investment. – The paper draws from educational leadership, management and administration courses delivered by universities and other institutions to aspiring and practising educational leaders in Kenya. It employs a method for evaluating return on leadership development investment first articulated by Eacott (2013). – While there is growth in provision, consistent with international trends, this provision is more recognised for its standardisation than points of distinction there is minimal attention to identified dimensions of leadership leading to higher student outcomes which raises questions regarding the universality of school leadership preparation and development curriculum and the high course costs of current provision is an inhibiting factor in assessing the return on investment in school leadership preparation and development. – The study was limited to publicly available documents from a limited s le of institutions. There is a need for more studies in the area. – Institutions seeking to offer school leadership development have grounds on which to make decision about what programs their school leaders should undertake in terms of cost and quality. The study provides institution offering school leadership development courses evidence on which to base future policy direction. – The findings provide a case for investing in school leadership development given the impact courses may have on student outcomes. – The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the current provision on school leadership preparation and development in Kenya. It contributes to its understanding in Africa in terms of quality, performance impact and return on investment.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 23-07-2023
Publisher: Fundacio per la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
Date: 15-07-2020
Abstract: François Dépelteau is a major figure in the contemporary rise of relational scholarship. His untimely passing casts a shadow over the relational research community, particularly those with close ties to the Canadian sociological association research cluster. This paper seeks to honour the contribution and legacy of François through a relational analysis of a relational research community. Mobilising Eacott’s relational approach, this paper turns relational scholarship upon itself to argue that the relational research community is organised around two fundamental questions – the explanatory and the empirical. François was not only embedded in, but embodied, this relationality. His approach to scholarship serves as an invitation, an invitation to think with, through and where necessary against relations in the pursuit of offering generative insights. François generated the conditions for many previously disparate researchers to come together and the challenge has now shifted to us – the relational research community – to honour him and continue this research agenda.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-05-2021
Location: Australia
Start Date: 06-2019
End Date: 07-2024
Amount: $340,692.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity