Educational Leadership and Critical Realism

Part One: Educational leadership and critical realism: context, theories and debates 1. Introduction: the context for educational leadership and critical realism 2. Why critical realism has not featured more in educational leadership 3. Critical realist theoretical underpinnings and key tenets Part Two: Applied critical realism in educational leadership practice and research 4. Critical realism and the practice of day-to-day leading 5. Critical realist reflexivity in educational leadership literature and practice 6. Critical realist lens for policy development and enactment 7. Framing the DRC’s education systems: an Ubuntu and critical realist vision for education development in sub-Saharan Africa 8. Leadership development for emancipation 9. Conclusion: critical realism and educational leadership research.

Biography

Anthony Thorpe is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Education at the University of Roehampton, London, where he previously led the PhD and professional doctorate programmes and established the MA in Education Leadership and Management.

Jean Pierre Elonga Mboyo is Senior Lecturer at Teesside University, Middlesbrough, UK. Fellow of Higher Education, he teaches across the undergraduate and postgraduate levels after a professional career spanning more than a decade as a secondary school teacher.

"This book is a significant addition to the emergent discourse on critical realism. In particular, the authors make a compelling case for adopting critical realism as a framework for transformative and emancipatory research and practice of educational leadership. Theorists, policymakers, practitioners and students of educational leadership (and allied disciplines), will find the book of immense value".

—Professor Benedicta Egbo, Professor Emeritus of Education, University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

“Thorpe and Elonga Mboyo’s contribution to educational professionals is to enable researchers and teachers to think and practise in ways that are for education but also educative regarding how we learn about what it actually means to do leading and leadership. Notably critical realism provides the opportunity to shift away from corporate technologies about what works, towards the values that underpin the contested issues of inclusive pedagogy, assessment and the curriculum. This book is a clear statement that change is actually about and for education rather than about turning schools into private businesses”. 

— Professor Helen Gunter, Professor Emerita, The Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, UK.

“At a time when educational leadership is increasingly prone to fads, fetishes and populism, this book provides a very welcome addition to more critical studies in educational leadership by advancing the ideas of critical realism. This book provides an outstanding and much needed exploration of how critical realism can better develop key themes and ideas in the field of educational leadership by putting the theory ‘upfront’ in its analysis. This book is very highly recommended for scholars of educational leadership but also has important implications for practising educators worldwide.”

—Professor Richard Niesche, School of Education, UNSW SYDNEY, Australia.