Course overview
This course will develop informed and critical understandings of the policies, theories and practices of 'educational' leadership with a focus on leaders of learning. Students will examine the global policy context for 'educational' leadership: global policy networks, 'big data',
school or site choice, devolution and local school or site management. Students will analyse the contested nature of 'educational' leadership: leading learning, instructional leadership, distributed leadership, relational leadership, transformational leadership. Students will critically examine methodologies for researching 'educational' leadership: policy sociology, ethnography, ethno-methodology, autobiography, School or Site Effectiveness and School or Site Improvement (SE/SI). Students will research 'educational' leadership in their own context, developing their own case study.
Course learning outcomes
- Critically analyse the contested nature of educational leadership in leadership studies in education literature
- Examine international case studies in educational leadership to ascertain how contemporary policy affects educational leaders
- Develop a case for, and problematise, educational leadership in their own workplace
- Examine various approaches to researching educational leadership; (eg ethnography, ethnomethodology, critical policy studies)
- Engage with readings that take up alterative conceptual frameworks (eg.School Effectiveness, Bourdieu) for making sense of educational leadership