Reconceptualizing Research and Scholarship in Educational Administration: Learning to Know, Knowing to Do, Doing to Learn

Abstract

In this article, the authors explore common and emerging conceptions of what consti-tutes knowledge in educational administration, how knowledge relates to practice, and how individuals in universities and schools can engage in a particular kind of knowledge work—research. The authors suggest that a fully articulated perspective on research in educational administration might characterize research as occupying a multidimen-sional space delineated along three dimensions: why the research is done, who conducts the research, and how the research is done. Productive, interesting, and generative research can be situated anywhere on these dimensions, and five principles can be used to guide various forms of research. The implication is that although currently the field of educational administration encompasses two communities of practice, we should strive toward becoming one community of scholars. The authors discuss how doctoral pro -grams might develop students for this community of scholars and provide a case example from one university.

Partnerships for preparing leaders: what can we learn from PDS research?

“…In addition to concerns regarding the need for partnerships, there have been a number of criticisms in recent years about the amount of research in school administration and, in particular, leadership preparation programmes (Immegart 1990, Riehl et al 2000. According to Pounder (2000) much of the research that has been conducted in educational leadership lacks coherence and does not generate growth of understanding within the field over time.…”

Re-examining Current Career Development Experiences of Non-Euro-American Male Aspirants Toward the Academy

“…(k) the current polarized communities of practice between academic practitioners and academic researchers (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990) and their failure to understand what they have in common, (1) the need to see scholarship beyond the conventional forms produced with academe (Boyer, 1990),(m) the current systematic failure in academe to coalesce its graduate students into a community scholars through not shifting the image of what a scholar is and does, through not making research meaningful and through not embracing students as knowers adds to the dysfunctional complexity of the academy's landscape dimensionalizing the exceedingly rough terrain which is often not successfully negotiated by its aspiring minority or non-Euro-American male members (Riehl, Larson, Short, & Reitzug, 2000). Riehl, Larson, Short, and Reitzug (2000) conclude this exceptional analysis of various educational administration within the academy (e.g.…”

“…Riehl, Larson, Short, and Reitzug (2000) conclude this exceptional analysis of various educational administration within the academy (e.g. focusing primarily on research one institutions) by asserting the ethical and the moral need (Kidder, 1995;Shapiro & Stefkovich, 2001;Starratt, 1994) for the providers of educational leadership doctoral programs to (a) lay the foundation for creating a single community through developmental work with students, (b) assist its students in developing habits of scholarship that will enhance their abilities to use multiple ways of knowing to identifying and addressing critical issues and problems embedded in their practice as well as the practices of their schools, (c) prepare all its students (e.g.…”

“…This need forms the primary basis and the salient rationale of this study as it teases out the implications of such conditions upon minority aspirants to the professoriate. This study's phenomenological explorations concurrently promotes a tentative hope and reasoned expectation that if the gatekeepers and power-brokers of Academe attempt to understand more about the experiences of its non-minority graduate student and faculty members from a culturally sensitive perspective of respect, regard, and appreciation (Banks, 2002;Zmuda, Kuklis, & Kline, 2004) for the contribution of each of its distinctive members, perhaps the academy would be able to develop more effective and systemically embedded supportive structures, processes and strategies that would embrace and enhance the journey of its minority members toward the professoriate in their professional development (Gaff & Lambert, 1996; (Green & Scott, 2003;Guskey, 1997;Riehl et al, 2000;Sergiovanni, Burlingame, Combs, & Thurston, 1999;Wheatley, 2001). This hope is however tempered and limited due to the findings past scholarship and of the current research as faculties of color are finding that institutional practices and practiced polity within predominately White Institutions (PWIS) do not accommodate the needs of its minority members.…”

“…E. Dovidio, Gaertner, & Bachman, 2000;J. F. Dovidio & Gaertner, 1986;Green & Scott, 2003;Hamilton & Trolier, 1986;Riehl et al, 2000).…”