A New Agenda for Research in Educational Leadership

Citation

Normore, A.H. (2006), "A New Agenda for Research in Educational Leadership", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 44 No. 5, pp. 520-522. https://doi.org/10.1108/09578230610683796

In their book, A New Agenda for Research in Educational Leadership, co‐editors Firestone and Riehl have compiled a volume of compelling works of prominent scholars in the field who provide a review of current knowledge about leadership, frame new questions to generate important research in the field, and direct researchers and policymakers to rethink how educational administration, leadership, and policy should be understood. The product of the task force on research co‐sponsored by the American Educational Research Association Division A and the University Council on Educational Administration, this book provides a comprehensive agenda for research in educational leadership. Armed with an air of optimism and covering a broad range of topics, from accountability systems and school‐community relationships to the education of students from diverse backgrounds, the authors discuss current research to critical scrutiny in order to develop innovative frameworks for new research that can have a tremendous impact on policy and practice.

The timeliness of this book could not be more appropriate considering the recent scrutiny of leadership preparation and training programs as well as leadership development. While nearly all research on educational leadership has potential relevance for how educational leaders can increase student learning and foster equity in educational outcomes, the authors claim that:

… the impact of research has been weakened by a lack of overall focus and by the frequent failure to articulate how a given instance of research addresses the linkages among leadership, learning, and equity (p. 1).

Given the changing expectations that leaders can and ought to influence learning, it is important to search for deeper understanding about how leadership, learning, and equity are linked.

The format of the book is clear, easy to follow, and organized into 11 chapters. Each chapter deals with separate but connected issues that face educational leaders with the first and final chapters written by the editors who set the context for the need of a new research agenda and then at the end summarize suggestions for methodologies that can be useful for producing significant knowledge about educational leadership that can inform policy and practice. In Chapter 2, Leithwood and Riehl synthesize what is already known about school leadership by offering a definition of leadership that encompasses basic leadership practices in all contexts. These authors offer four claims about school leadership based on the role of individual leaders, their context, and the nature of the goals being pursued. Stein and Spillane offer perspectives on what we need to know about how leadership influences and contributes to student learning in Chapter 3. The underlying message in this chapter is that research on teaching can be used to determine how leaders can create opportunities for teachers to learn to promote equitable student outcomes. These authors offer four broad categories of research that “cut across research on teaching and learning and research on educational leadership” (p. 29) by capitalizing on what is known about teaching and teacher learning and its implication for what researchers could engage in regarding the roles and functions of educational administrators.

In Chapter 4, Prestine and Nelson provide a comprehensive overview about how educational leaders can support teaching and learning. They argue for a new definition of instructional leadership that informs leadership practices and call for an exploration of educational leader' content knowledge. Their conceptualization of teaching, learning and leadership are grounded in a “constructivist framework centered on three major tenets of cognitive learning theory” (p. 47). In Chapter 5, Driscoll and Goldring focus on relationships between school and community. They emphasize the importance of capitalizing on the resources that exist in communities to support learning both within the school and the larger community by focusing on three bodies of literature that include research on “new science of learning, social capital and schools, and recent work connecting schools with community development” (p. 62). Chapter 6, presented by Firestone and Shipps, examines the intricacies of accountability, leadership and teaching. These authors argue for the new ways to “cope with multiple accountabilities that create contradictory pressures” (p. 9) by offering insights about how external accountability is less crucial for improved student learning than internal accountability. Their main hypothesis of research focuses on the idea that:

… leaders can contribute to student learning by interpreting external and internal accountabilities to help educators promote a shared sense of ethical obligation, that is internal accountability (p. 82).

Reyes and Wagstaff address issues of equity in Chapter 7. They inquire into the ways which leaders can contribute to the success of schools that serve diverse student populations. The authors offer several suggestions for new research on how to link leadership practices to the achievement of students from diverse backgrounds where powerful contextual variable such as “race, ethnicity, social class, teacher quality, and leadership skills strongly influence the kind and quality of education available to students” are at its core (p. 101). The crux of their argument focuses on context‐specific leadership. In Chapter 8, Furman and Shields propose an agenda that examines how educational leaders learn about social justice and democracy in schools. They argue that leadership grounded in “democratic community and social justice is, at its core, instructional leadership” (p. 10). Hence, they propose an agenda that focuses on “the links between educational leadership practice and the normative concepts of social justice and democratic community in schools” (p. 120).

In Chapter 9, Smylie, Bennett, Konkol and Fendt argue for a need to recruit a more:

… diverse and well‐qualified leadership workforce, focusing on demographics, value orientations, and competencies that must be present among the next generation of school leaders (p. 10).

Based on contested conventional assumptions and practices of school leader development in the policy arena and the real world of schools, these authors take stock of what is known and what is necessary to know about “how to promote school leader development effectively” (p. 139). Their argument focuses on innovative ways in which potential leaders can be identified, recruited, prepared, and supported throughout their careers. In Chapter 10, Riehl and Firestone present an overview of appropriate methodologies for significant new research on educational leadership by focusing on ideas that extend in new ways what have been common practices in the field of leadership research (i.e. comprehensive case studies, design research, quantitative research, and experimental research).

There are implications for educational leadership as a result of this volume. A New Agenda for Research in Educational Leadership offers a comprehensive cutting‐edge look at crucial issues in educational leadership. For educational leadership, the book implies a collective expertise that assures us that various constituents of educational research are actively engaged in challenging, relevant, and interesting leadership for learning situations – situations that connect past and present experiences and engage in constructing new and compelling experiences. In the opinion of this reviewer, this book is one of the most highly valuable and recommended volume of its time, often presented insightfully and rigorously by contributors who have much experience in the field of educational leadership research. It is especially recommended by this reviewer as a comprehensive and viable resource for university and college professoriate particularly for those involved in teacher and leadership preparation programs. It is equally recommended for aspiring and practicing school administrators, policy makers, and teachers for it clearly identifies the gaps in research and how research and practice can be connected. As reiterated in Chapter 1, the entire volume will:

… stimulate further inquiry and vigorous conversation among practitioners, policymakers, and scholars alike who are part of, and who support, the educational leadership profession (p. 27).

This book is available from the following address: Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027