Ten prominent feminist researchers from diverse backgrounds examine educational leadership by focusing on critical questions about the theories, methods, and epistemologies feminist researchers use. The contributors analyze the impact of research on participants and assess the ethical and political implications of researching across groups. They explore the types of strategies feminist researchers have developed to address the problems of the field and propose alternative epistemologies that provide for more sensitive research methods and more complex research results. The book provides a timely examination of how gender inequalities were created and structured within U.S. systems of school administration, how they are maintained and perpetuated, and how they might best be understood and dismantled.

Drawing together diverse research perspectives and theoretical underpinnings, this handbook explores gender as a social category and examines cultural and social differences. Bringing together diverse perspectives from around the world, including from Africa, Europe, the Middle East, the UK and the USA, the volume sets out the gender and educational leadership and management field, providing a snapshot of the field as it stands, signalling its development and directions for future development. It offers focused reviews of empirical research on particular aspects of the field and presents new insights from research findings and methodological approaches.

This volume provides diverse perspectives and paradigms in educational administration and leadership. Focusing on particular philosophical and theoretical schools of thought, it traces the contemporary history of debates in the field while also exploring emerging, non-traditional schools for insight and potential contributions to educational administration in multi-cultural contexts. It critically examines trends and issues in society and their impact on educational theory, and gives an overview of the scholarly study of organizations, administration, and leadership to develop introductory understandings of significant concepts and theories.

This fully updated Second Edition offers an unflinching and comprehensive overview of the full range of both practical and theoretical issues facing educational leadership today. Editor Fenwick W. English and 30 renowned authors boldly address the most fundamental and contested issues in the field, including culturally relevant and distributed leadership; critical policy and practice issues predicting the new century′s conflict; the paradox of changes; and the promises, paradoxes, and pitfalls of standards for educational leaders.

The idea for this book was born from discussions at several recent academic events including the Women Leading Education (WLE) International Conference in Volos, Greece (2012) and the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (2011) as well as from informal dialogue amongst ourselves and various colleagues, both new and veteran to the field of educational leadership and, in particular, dedicated to the study of women in leadership. At both the WLE Conference and the UCEA Conference, we heard frustration from veteran women in the field that the study of women in leadership is stagnant and has not moved forward in several years; with scholars new to the field continuing to write and publish work about barriers to aspiring and practicing women leaders (the same types of reports that began the "formal" inquiry into women's lives as leaders back in the 1980s) without being able to push forward with "new" information or ideas for change. In essence, the concerns and questions that were posed from some veteran women were: Why are we continuing to report the same things that we reported 30 years ago?; Why are we still talking about barriers to women in leadership?; and Why haven't we moved past gender binaries in regard to leadership ideas and practice? Considering these questions, some women new to the field countered with their own set of responses and questions that included: Is it not significant to report that some women are still experiencing the same types of barriers in leadership that were highlighted 30 years ago?; Is it accurate to report that all women's voices have now been heard/represented?; and How can we report something different if it hasn't happened? The discussions that have ensued between veteran women and those new to the field inspired us to develop a book that situates women in leadership exactly where we are today (and reports the status of girls who are positioned to continue the "good fight" that began many years ago) and that both highlights the changes that have occurred and reports any stagnancy that continues to threaten women's positionality in educational leadership literature, practice, and policy. It forefronts the voices of women educational scholars who have (and are) interrupting, disrupting, and revolutionizing educational policy and practice. Our book reports women's leadership activities and knowledge in both the k-12 and university settings and concludes with chapters ripe with ideas for pushing for change through policy, advocacy, and activism. The final chapter presents themes that emerged from the individual chapters and sets forth an agenda to move forward with the study of women in leadership.

Here, the authors focus on educators who dare to lead their schools, districts, universities, and educational organizations to new possibilities. The leadership practices of the individuals featured contribute significantly to craft knowledge and to the discourse on contemporary issues of educational leadership. These leaders develop collaborative decision-making processes, push the bureaucratic boundaries, claim power through politics, and live and lead from values. The authors contend that the leadership practices depicted reflect a redefinition of leadership that emanates from a constructive postmodern paradigm aimed at social reconstruction. These leaders are redefining leadership by integrating doing and being. This book is a report of the results of a collective qualitative inquiry into the leadership of eighteen impressive women educational leaders from Illinois, representing a diversity of roles, community sizes, institutional types, and racial perspectives. The chapters intertwine personal stories with the scholarship about leadership. No pseudonyms are used. Although several recent books have been published about the experiences of women as leaders, leadership studies have generally not included women or failed to point to women leaders as role models who could, even should, be emulated by leaders of both genders. It is past time to close the gender leadership gap in educational administration. This book will contribute to the ongoing redefinition of leadership and perhaps after reading this book leaders who dare will move themselves and our culture closer to gender inclusive perceptions of what leadership is and who leaders are.

The complexity of the decisions that today’s higher education leaders face—as they engage with a diversifying student body, globalization and technological advances—requires embracing new ways of thinking about leadership. This book examines the new theories and concepts of leadership that are described in the multidisciplinary literature on leadership, and are being applied in other sectors—from government to the non-profit and business communities—to explore the implications for leaders and leadership programs in higher education. At a time when the heroic, controlling, and distant leader of the past has given way to a focus on teams, collectives and social change, the contributors to this book ask: What new skills and competencies should leaders and programs be addressing?The recognition of the interdependence of groups within organizations, and between organizations; of cultural and social differences; and of how technology has sped up decision time and connected people across the globe; have changed the nature of leadership as well as made the process more complex and diffuse. This book is addressed to anyone developing institutional, regional or national leadership development programs; to aspiring leaders planning to participate in such programs; and to campus leaders concerned with the development and pipeline of emerging leaders. It will be particularly useful for administrators in faculty development offices who are planning and creating workshops in leadership training, and for staff in human resource offices who offer similar training.Contributors: Laurel Beesemyer; Rozana Carducci; Pamela Eddy; Tricia Bertram Gallant; Lynn Gangone; Cheryl Getz; Jeni Hart; Jerlando F. L. Jackson; Lara Jaime; Adrianna Kezar; Bridget R. McCurtis; Sharon McDade; Robert J. Nash; Elizabeth M. O’Callahan; Sue V. Rosser; Lara Scott.