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This paper provides an overview of the policies of school autonomy in Australian public education from the Karmel report in 1973 to the present day. The key focus is on the social justice implications of this reform. It tracks the tensions between policy moves to both grant schools greater autonomy and rein in this autonomy with the increasing instatement of external forms of regulation. Utilising Nancy Fraser's concepts of dis-embedding and re-embedding markets, we track key policy moments in three Australian states (Victoria, Western Australia and New South Wales) along with federal interventions. We draw attention to the redistributive and representative justice implications arising from these policy moments as occurring within a consistent trajectory towards a market agenda and argue that future policy needs to consider the effect of past policy.

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.

Often considered dumping grounds for those who cannot function in mainstream schools, alternative education providers are seen as outliers in the provision of schooling. With schools as relatively stable workplaces, alternative education provision makes for a rich laboratory to further our understanding of the causal impact of schooling on a range of outcomes. They are naturally occurring experiments in schooling through interventions in instruction, curriculum and student cohort. Montessori school-based education in Australia is one such case. Experiencing a 31% growth in enrolments since 2009, they offer useful insights for different measures of education. A pre-requisite to such insights is a situational analysis of current provision. Drawing on an interview-based study with 20 Montessori school leaders, this investigation identified three problems and possibilities for schools working on the margins: (i) clarity about what is their distinctive form of education; (ii) building the collective; and (iii) evidencing quality of provision.

A persuasive solution for governments and systemic authorities seeking to improve the quality and equity of outcomes for students has been the localized management of schools. Believed to provide opportunities for context-sensitive decision-making, what remains unclear is how does shifting increasing management to the school-level generate the type of leadership necessary to improve outcomes? Drawing from a subset from an Australian study of school autonomy, we argue that reforms simply cannot improve outcomes as they generate work that takes leaders and educators away from teaching and learning activities and sustain if not advance enduring inequities in the system.

Neoliberal policies promoting school autonomy reform in Australia and internationally have, over three decades, appropriated earlier social democratic discourses of parental participation and partnership in school governance. Recent school autonomy reforms have repositioned school council/boards within a narrow frame of accountability and management operating in marketized systems of education. This paper considers the perceptions of 12 stakeholders in public education across four Australian states of how the latest school autonomy reform policies, including Independent Public Schools, supports corporatized and seemingly depoliticised repositioning of school councils. This data indicates there is a shift from elected parental representation to principal selection of 'skill-based' community members, with the greatest implications for those schools in disadvantaged communities experiencing difficulties gaining voluntary parental participation. We offer new theoretical insights into the links between school autonomy, governance, the role and composition of school boards and social justice informed by Nancy Fraser's theorising of social justice. We identify an emerging tension between first, parent movements as counter publics claiming participatory parity in decision-making in school councils; and secondly, principal selection of self-interested and politically influential actors onto school councils, potentially politicising school councils.

Purpose: 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. Design/methodology/approach: 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. Findings: Embedding the principalship in a philosophy (or theory) of education re-couples school administration with schooling and bases decision-making in principles rather than individuals. It also alters the role of data and evidence from accountability to justifying principles. Research limitations/implications: Rather than a focus on individuals or roles, this paper argues that the underlying principles of organisational decision-making should be the central focus of research. Practical implications: Ensuring organisational coherence, by balancing the diversity of positions on core principles is the core task of the contemporary principal. Originality/value: Exploiting natural experiments in the provision of schooling makes it possible to argue for how schooling, and specifically the principalship, can be different.

Schools for specific purposes (SSP) are and have been a significant feature of the education ecosystem since the roll out of mass schooling in Australia and elsewhere. SSPs serve some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. While their social and emotional worth to their communities (students, educators, families) is rarely questioned, the role of SSP in the pursuit of equity and inclusivity remains contested. This has significant implications for those charged with leading such schools, particularly principals. Drawing on the emerging field of relational studies, this paper undertakes a "relational" inquiry into the provision of education (RIPE) analysis of specific purpose schools for students with moderate and high support needs in the Australian state of New South Wales.

Purpose: 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. Design/methodology/approach: Using the social contract as a design principle, this paper systematically builds an empirical model of school provision aimed at equitable excellence. Findings: 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. Research limitations/implications: 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 examples can be used to test the explanatory power of the novel model -- and refine it when necessary. Practical implications: 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. Originality/value: 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.

Within the rough ground that is the field of education there is a complex web of ethical obligations: to prepare our students for their future work; to be ethical as educators in our conduct and teaching; to the ethical principles embedded in the contexts in which we work; and given the Southern context of this work, the ethical obligations we have to this land and its First Peoples. We put out a call to colleagues whose work has been concerned with the pedagogies of professional ethics, the ethical burdens of institutional injustice, and the application of ethical theory to education's applied fields. In the responses we received it can be seen that ethical concerns in education are broad ranging, covering terrain varying from the preparation of preservice teachers, ethics in higher education, early childhood and care, educational leadership, relational and communicative ethics. Perhaps it could also be argued that this paper demonstrates Gibbon's observation that 'Assumptions about the particularity of this time as new and ripe with opportunity to make a difference through philosophy of education are not new and there's much to learn from the persistence of wanting to imagine that they are' (in Peters et al., 2020, p. 17). However, while the field of ethics is perennially concerned with human relations and pedagogical interventions to improve these, the responses collected here show that educational ethics is far from static. Educational ethics is a field that continues to develop in response to changing contexts.

Temporality and in particular principals' time use is attracting increasing scholarly attention in educational administration and leadership research. There is a long history of studies looking at how principals spend or allocate their time. This paper draws on initial data from the Principals' Experiencing Time (PET) project which focuses on how principals experience their day rather than conceiving of time as an external resource that is spent (wisely) or wasted. Theoretically informed by Eacott's relational approach and working with data generated through document analysis, interviews, and web-based diary entries, it is argued that the principalship has a temporal foundation. This foundation is constitutive of and emergent from how principals experience their day. Understanding these experiences provides a sound empirical basis for preparation and development programs aimed at current and aspiring school leaders.

School autonomy policies have circulated through various modes of educational governance internationally, endorsing the view that more autonomy will improve schools and their systems. When subject to the discourses and practices of marketization, however, school 'autonomy' has been mobilized in ways that generate injustice. These injustices are the focus of this paper. We draw on preliminary findings from a three-year study that is exploring the social justice implications of school autonomy reform across four Australian states. Drawing on interviews with 42 stakeholders, the paper identifies four key areas of paradox for social justice currently confronting public schools and school systems. The language of paradox is drawn on to narrate the oppositional politics between the discourses and practices constituting school autonomy and the pursuit of social justice. Such narration raises important questions for Australian public education. It highlights how these discourses are changing what is meant by the public in public education. Engaging with the language of paradox in thinking about school autonomy reform, we argue, is important given the broader landscape where public schooling is being reconstituted and where traditional links to social justice and the common good are under threat.

This paper engages with an innovative approach to school consolidation in regional New South Wales, Australia. Adopting a 'one school, two sites' model, it is argued that this innovative approach to school consolidation requires new theoretical resources to understand 'the school'. Theoretically informed by Eacott's relational approach and drawing on publicly available data (e.g. MySchool) and focus groups with school leaders, this paper argues that: (i) complicity with the idea and materiality of 'the school' makes it difficult to thinking differently about schooling; (ii) the image of the school is at once constitutive of, and emergent from, community identity; and (iii) to articulate an alternative requires a shift away from an entity-based (substantialist) perspective. Working with the three key concepts of the relational approach -- organizing activity, auctor, and spatio-temporal conditions -- this paper proposes an alternate way of thinking about school consolidation and the intellectual resources to do so.

Purpose: School consolidation reforms are underway in regional New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The purpose of this paper is to establish an evidence base of research literature on school consolidation in regional, rural and remote locations. Design/methodology/approach: A scoping study of empirical literature on school consolidation, with a particular focus on regional, rural and remote education, since the year 2000 was undertaken. A corpus of 35 papers were identified and subjected to analysis based on: year of publication, country of origin, unit of analysis, data sources, timeframe and theoretical model. Findings: There remains a limited evidence base for the success of school consolidation reforms for turning around student outcomes. In addition, a number of social implications are experienced by communities losing their local school. These issues are amplified in regional, rural and remote locations. Practical implications: School consolidation reforms are used by governments/systems wanting to reduce costs and address issues of student disengagement and under-achievement. Despite a lengthy history internationally, there is at best mixed evidence regarding these reforms. With a consider disparity gap between urban and regional, rural and remote school outcomes, robust evidence on the success of reforms has major policy implications for government, systems, educators and communities. Originality/value: With reforms already underway in NSW (and elsewhere), the need for a rigorous and robust evidence base, such as this scoping study, is timely and significant.

There remains strong political support for school autonomy reform within Australian public education despite evidence linking this reform to exacerbating school and systemic inequities. This paper presents interview data from key education stakeholders gathered from a broader study that is investigating the social justice implications of school autonomy reform across three Australian states. We focus on the concerns these stakeholders raise about the plight of principals and particular schools when policies of school autonomy converge with market imperatives of economic efficiency, competition and public accountability. Such concerns reflect the significance of education systems providing greater and more nuanced support for principals and schools to manage the extra responsibilities of greater school autonomy and accountability. While these aspects of support are central, we argue that systemic reform that is driven by educative, rather than market, imperatives is necessary for creating a context where school autonomy can be mobilised for social justice.

This paper describes and justifies the protocol for a research project investigating regional secondary school consolidation reforms in New South Wales, Australia. The study is designed to describe the experiences of those directly involved in the transition to a consolidated school in a way that has so far eluded educational leadership researchers. Identifying five themes from the international literature on school consolidation (leadership and governance; staff and student wellbeing; teaching and learning; curriculum and pathways; community satisfaction), the paper then articulates a systematic research protocol for examining the transition from individual schools through to a consolidated school. Previous studies have not systematically examined this transition and how it shifts practices and perceptions from different stakeholder perspectives. Using a purposeful merger of quantitative and qualitative forms of evidence, this study protocol has the potential to play a defining role in the area of school consolidation reforms. The applicability of the study design holds promise as an adaptable, focused, and sustainable protocol for generating understanding of school consolidation transitions and developing an empirical evidence base that is localised, internationally benchmarked, and critical for school decisions about investments and outcomes for educators, students, and communities.

In recent times considerable attention has been devoted to the performance of schools and in particular, of students in literacy and numeracy. As part of a national agenda addressing what is portrayed as a crisis in numeracy, and hence mathematics education, governments have introduced a wide range of reform initiatives to improve performance. Examples include, national testing, a national curriculum and the "Education Revolution" just to name a few. Comparative international tests such as TIMSS and PISA contribute to the performative nature of this policy environment which has significantly impacted on the leadership and management of mathematics education reform. The most significant influence has been the reduction of teaching and learning to what can be measured and the numerous, often uncritical, uses of comparative data on school and student performance. In this paper we examine the complexity of mathematics education reform by bringing together the discourses of mathematics education and educational leadership. In doing so, we develop and argue against a prescriptive "how to" lead mathematics education reform, in favour of a more sophisticated framework of leadership for mathematics education which embraces both global and local developments in the field. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

Journal rankings are increasingly being used as proxies for assessing the quality and worth of individual faculty and their contribution to institutional performance. Problematic within this agenda is the historical mapping and projection of current journal rankings. Individual papers are being assessed against criteria far removed--temporally--from when decisions were made regarding where to publish. Drawing upon three examples of publishing in educational administration journals, this paper explores how the assessment of paper quality is dislocated from the scholarly labour that generates those outputs in the first place. Different ranking systems and often lengthy submission to publication processes mean that the worth of individual papers can dramatically shift independent of any actual engagement with the content of the paper. The value of an individual's track record can fluctuate quickly and any intervention to alter the situation takes time to come into effect. This paper does not suggest replacing one ranking system with another, or even remove research assessment. Rather, it offers a means of problematising the application of journal rankings by calling into question their timelessness. In doing, it provides the intellectual resources to make strange the status quo and open the prospect of alternatives.

As one of the central institutions of society, schooling is subject to significant public interest and scrutiny. Fads and fashion successfully developed elsewhere are often rebadged and relaunched in education for the purpose of improvement. Such interventions are often quickly identified as intruders and frequently fade into obscurity, but what of internal interventions, the education research that becomes widely accepted and promoted? In this paper I argue that contemporary thought and analysis in Australian school leadership has submitted to the cult of the guru. Specifically, I contend that dialogue (much less debate) has settled on the work of John Hattie's meta-meta-analysis giving rise to the Cult of Hattie. This paper is not an attack on Hattie as a person, or even his work, rather an argument about the conditions which have facilitated the rise of a guru. I argue that the uncritical acceptance and proliferation of this cult is a tragedy for Australian school leadership.

Contemporary discourses in educational administration have exponentially grown the number of adjectival leaderships, challenged traditional organisational structures, and offered autonomy as a solution to performance issues. In this theoretical paper, I ask "what does the principalship look like after autonomy?" Despite the range of objections that could be raised in relation to thinking with and through an organisational role, it is the contention of this paper that it is in the principalship that we find important resources for theorising educational administration, even if, at first sight, these resources appear to bear little connection to, or resonance with, contemporary discourses of "leadership" in education. Working within a relational approach to educational administration that I am advancing, my argument is built around three key markers: the centrality of temporality, the (im)possibility of the local, and the imposition of "quality".

On an international scale, public administration is undergoing considerable restructuring as principles of private enterprise are becoming the orthodoxy. At the same time, economic instability (or crisis) is gripping both national and global financial markets, suggesting a flaw in the system or even that capitalism has reached it limits. Crises in capitalism are frequently met with shifts in the rhetoric of management. In this article we mobilize an emerging research program (Relational Administration) to argue that contemporary discourses of school leadership in Australia have a hybrid--part normative part rational--management rhetoric as a result of the unique economic conditions compared with many developed nations. With particular attention to the role of accountability in constituting and sustaining this hybrid rhetoric, we craft an argument for greater attention to sociogeographic location and temporality when thinking of, with, and through leadership.

In this paper, we weave the auto-ethnographic narratives of the two authors with Bourdieu's key concepts of "habitus," "field" and "capital," as we seek to bring to a level of explicitness the reflexive lens which has shaped our scholarly work. In particular, we examine the process of becoming educational administration academics who share a scholarly disposition towards critical approaches to theory and practice. Such a location positions our work as marginal at best in educational administration scholarship and research, for it is a field characterized primarily by an orientation towards problem-solving and scientific rationality. We explore how our positioning as "outsiders within" the field, combined with our multiple positions in fields such as feminism, unionism, schools and academia, has shaped a disposition towards critical scholarship. We suggest that the resources, which a disposition towards the critical may engender, are urgently required forms of capital at a time when there may be a powerful political investment in ignoring or overlooking the moral, ethical and political life force of educational administration scholarship as a potentially fertile site of intellectual activity. (Contains 2 notes.)

Purpose: "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. Design/methodology/approach: 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. Findings: 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. Research limitations/implications: The central argument of this paper challenges the hegemonic position of educational leadership scholarship, particularly its mobilisation of context, both time and space. Originality/value: Unlike scholarship focused on developing an explanation of what constitutes leadership, this paper engages with the abstraction of "leadership" as an educational administration concept. (Contains 5 notes.)

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the role of an under-graduate educational leadership in introducing students to the complexity of school leadership practice. Design/methodology/approach: 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. Findings: 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. Research limitations/implications: 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. Practical implications: 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. Originality/value: 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. (Contains 3 notes and 1 table.)

Strategy is a much debated concept in the field of educational leadership. This article draws on a variety of data from a larger research programme focused on reconceptualising strategy in the specific context of school leadership. Rather than offering a definitive voice, this article lays the foundations for further inquiry on the topic through a greater "practice" orientation. Drawing on policy analysis, questionnaire and interview data, this article proposes an alternate theoretical frame for strategy in educational leadership that takes into account the various social, political, historical and cultural forces which seek to influence the behaviour of both leaders and schools. (Contains 1 table.)

The preparation of educational leaders is a global phenomenon. Education systems have developed numerous means by which current and aspiring leaders are prepared for the role. Through the example of a large public school system in Australia, this paper argues that the doxa of school leadership establishes a particular identity of the principalship. One which constructs the principal as the deliverer of state initiated reforms. Theoretically informed by Bourdieu, this paper argues for an alternate way of thinking about leadership preparation, one based on introducing participants to the conversation of the world. (Contains 66 footnotes.)

Purpose: 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. Design/methodology/approach: Using a conceptual framework developed by the researcher, a static/cross-sectional questionnaire-based study on a convenience sample of public primary school principals in NSW, Australia, was used to collect data. Analysis included ANOVA and correlations. Findings: Despite few statistically significant differences in the data set, there is evidence to suggest that, based on the small sample size, the demographic variables of tenure and functional track have a moderating effect on the strategic leadership and management of public primary school principals. Research limitations/implications: The study serves as little more than a scoping project. The small sample 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. Practical implications: 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. Originality/value: 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. (Contains 3 tables.)

This paper seeks to engage the field of educational leadership in a methodological conversation. It outlines a methodological position taken by the author (a focus on leadership practice using Bourdieu) in a currently funded project and seeks discussion with the wider field. The paper is structured to provide the reader with background to the theoretical position of the author and the implications this has for the study of school leadership practice. The discussion highlights the need for multi-layered descriptions of leadership and the dual purpose of leadership research. This provides for a greater understanding of the phenomenon of leadership, and the subsequent implications for leadership practice and, potentially, preparation. The intent of this paper is not merely to critique existing works in the field, nor to create a modernistic binary between the positions of others and those presented here. Rather, the value of this work is its potential to intervene in the scholarship of the field and disrupt the status quo, highlighting the benefits of embracing the complexity, ambiguity and moment-by-moment contestation that defines the social practice that is school leadership.

Despite the ubiquity of programmes in educational administration and leadership little is known about the resources used to teach them. This article reviews the sources currently employed in such programmes in Australia by examining the textbooks, book chapters and journal articles specified for 53 separate units (papers) offered at 15 of the key institutions that responded to requests for copies of their reading lists. Surprisingly, few of the units prescribed textbooks (35), relying instead on book chapters (243) and journal articles (362). While there was a very eclectic spread of sources across institutions, 10 major themes emerged. However, there appeared to be little emphasis on Australian research on educational leadership and little reference to major Australian authors of the previous decades. This may be because the field has become global. The second part of the article therefore examines an audit of the contributions made by Australian authors to the global literature represented by leading journals in the field. The audit shows that during the period 1977-2007 an average of 12-13% of papers in key journals were contributed by Australian authors, perhaps more than might be expected given the comparative size of the Australian community. (Contains 1 figure, 16 footnotes and 4 tables.)

In this paper, contemporary literature on strategy in education is examined in an integrative and analytical manner. To achieve this, an empirical investigation on strategy in education was undertaken. As the goal is to understand and propose specific research directions, the findings are both descriptive and analytical. Initially, peer reviewed journal articles that had been published relating to strategy in education were identified. Such a list provides a valuable insight into contributions to this area of research and serves as the foundation for the paper's other purposes. The second purpose was to analyse strategy in education publications over time (1980-2005), to see how the topic has evolved. Third, an integrative analysis of works on strategy in education allowed an identification of needs for future research. The over-riding purpose of this paper was to ensure that there was an understanding of the contributions and their limitations, so that research on strategy in education can progress with an appreciation of the past. (Contains 2 figures and 5 tables.)

This paper analyses the composition, distribution, and history of school funding in Australia through a spatial lens (Soja 2010). We explore multi-scalar school funding policy through three layers of economic maldistribution. We sketch the funding disparities between the three school sectors (public, Catholic, and independent) exposing a spatial injustice in policies of school choice; the spatial and economic maldistribution between state jurisdictions; and the economic maldistribution within state public systems, including the ability of their school communities to contribute funds. Spatial injustice is uncovered in economic maldistribution within and across these policy layers, adding nuance to existing school funding debates. The Australian case is relevant to international explorations of school funding as an example of 'unjust practice' in the hierarchies between schools across sectors, between jurisdictions, and within systems of public [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Often considered dumping grounds for those who cannot function in mainstream schools, alternative education providers are seen as outliers in the provision of schooling. With schools as relatively stable workplaces, alternative education provision makes for a rich laboratory to further our understanding of the causal impact of schooling on a range of outcomes. They are naturally occurring experiments in schooling through interventions in instruction, curriculum and student cohort. Montessori school-based education in Australia is one such case. Experiencing a 31% growth in enrolments since 2009, they offer useful insights for different measures of education. A pre-requisite to such insights is a situational analysis of current provision. Drawing on an interview-based study with 20 Montessori school leaders, this investigation identified three problems and possibilities for schools working on the margins: i) clarity about what is their distinctive form of education; ii) building the collective; and iii) evidencing quality of provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools for specific purposes (SSP) are and have been a significant feature of the education ecosystem since the roll out of mass schooling in Australia and elsewhere. SSPs serve some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. While their social and emotional worth to their communities (students, educators, families) is rarely questioned, the role of SSP in the pursuit of equity and inclusivity remains contested. This has significant implications for those charged with leading such schools, particularly principals. Drawing on the emerging field of relational studies, this paper undertakes a relational inquiry into the provision of education (RIPE) analysis of specific purpose schools for students with moderate and high support needs in the Australian state of New South Wales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages with an innovative approach to school consolidation in regional New South Wales, Australia. Adopting a 'one school, two sites' model, it is argued that this innovative approach to school consolidation requires new theoretical resources to understand 'the school'. Theoretically informed by Eacott's relational approach and drawing on publicly available data (e.g. MySchool) and focus groups with school leaders, this paper argues that: (i) complicity with the idea and materiality of 'the school' makes it difficult to thinking differently about schooling; (ii) the image of the school is at once constitutive of, and emergent from, community identity; and (iii) to articulate an alternative requires a shift away from an entity-based (substantialist) perspective. Working with the three key concepts of the relational approach – organizing activity, auctor, and spatio-temporal conditions – this paper proposes an alternate way of thinking about school consolidation and the intellectual resources to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current COVID19 pandemic has forced major adjustments, often at short notice, on schools and schooling. Educators have been working in a constantly changing environment to continue to deliver for students, families and communities all the while maintaining the necessary supports for themselves and colleagues. In Australia this has led to debates concerning when and who can close schools, the authority of schools to enact context-sensitive activities, and amplified existing inequities. Informed by a larger Australian Research Council grant focused on school autonomy and social justice, we argue that the pandemic and responses to it have highlighted the idiosyncratic nature of Australian federalism, drawn greater attention to the role of school autonomy, and amplified inequities in the access to quality education irrespective of location [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the central institutions of society, schooling is subject to significant public interest and scrutiny. Fads and fashion successfully developed elsewhere are often rebadged and relaunched in education for the purpose of improvement. Such interventions are often quickly identified as intruders and frequently fade into obscurity, but what of internal interventions, the education research that becomes widely accepted and promoted? In this paper I argue that contemporary thought and analysis in Australian school leadership has submitted to the cult of the guru. Specifically, I contend that dialogue (much less debate) has settled on the work of John Hattie’s meta-meta-analysis giving rise to the Cult of Hattie. This paper is not an attack on Hattie as a person, or even his work, rather an argument about the conditions which have facilitated the rise of a guru. I argue that the uncritical acceptance and proliferation of this cult is a tragedy for Australian school leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – 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. Design/methodology/approach – 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 example of estimating the return on leadership investment. Findings – Using an illustrative example 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 individual, organisational and systemic levels. Research limitations/implications – 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. Practical implications – The methodology demonstrated in this paper provides a basis for individuals, organisations and school systems to make decisions regarding the resourcing, or not, of school leadership preparation and development. Social implications – The methodology demonstrated in this paper provides a basis for individuals, organisations and school systems to make decisions regarding the resourcing, or not, of school leadership preparation and development. Originality/value – 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 individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge production in educational leadership, management and administration has been, and continues to be, seduced by fads. One of the most significant trends in recent decades has been the ascendancy of ‘leadership’. In this introductory paper, I both introduce the contributions to this special issue and, more importantly, locate this collection within the intellectual tradition of disruptive Australian scholarship and the discourses of JEAH. Specifically, I argue that this collection of papers provides new ways for thinking about leadership, leaders and leading grounded in histories not bounded by historical categories, images and metaphors. This issue is however not the final word, and I encourage the reader to think with, beyond and where necessary against what is argued in the spirit of the intellectual enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the ‘practice’ turn in the broader management literature, very little work in educational administration has engaged in a theoretical discussion about what constitutes leadership practice. Theoretically informed by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this paper contributes to the long-established critical tradition in the educational administration literature, to argue that: (i) ‘leadership’ is a label of the managerialist project of the state; (ii) leadership should be thought of as a disruptive practice; and (iii) Bourdieusian theory can enable this thinking, but not as it is frequently mobilised in the educational administration literature. The alternative put forth in this paper is not merely replacing one external narrative (managerialism) with another (Bourdieusian), but rather advancing a theoretical position on what is leadership that paves a way forward for a research programme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The preparation of educational leaders is a global phenomenon. Education systems have developed numerous means by which current and aspiring leaders are prepared for the role. Through the example of a large public school system in Australia, this paper argues that the doxa of school leadership establishes a particular identity of the principalship. One which constructs the principal as the deliverer of state initiated reforms. Theoretically informed by Bourdieu, this paper argues for an alternate way of thinking about leadership preparation, one based on introducing participants to the conversation of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the ubiquity of programmes in educational administration and leadership little is known about the resources used to teach them. This article reviews the sources currently employed in such programmes in Australia by examining the textbooks, book chapters and journal articles specified for 53 separate units (papers) offered at 15 of the key institutions that responded to requests for copies of their reading lists. Surprisingly, few of the units prescribed textbooks (35), relying instead on book chapters (243) and journal articles (362). While there was a very eclectic spread of sources across institutions, 10 major themes emerged. However, there appeared to be little emphasis on Australian research on educational leadership and little reference to major Australian authors of the previous decades. This may be because the field has become global. The second part of the article therefore examines an audit of the contributions made by Australian authors to the global literature represented by leading journals in the field. The audit shows that during the period 1977-2007 an average of 12-13% of papers in key journals were contributed by Australian authors, perhaps more than might be expected given the comparative size of the Australian community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]