Understanding Educational Leadership: Critical Perspectives and Approaches

Understanding Education Leadership guides you through critical perspectives and approaches across the world, taking in the global north and south, and explores a range of models of and methods in educational leadership. The book also covers a range of contemporary issues, including gender, sexual identity and race, as well as topics such as governance, performativity and corporatisation. It brings together evidence and ideas that illuminate the power structures and relations in educational leaders, leading and leadership and helps you to consider the impact on policy and practice, and to think about changes needed to mitigate any issues identified. The book showcases a wide-range of theorists, including Bourdieu, Foucault, Lewin, approaches, from collectivist to historical, and neoliberalist to post-critical, and leadership styles, including distributed, instructional and organisational. Carefully curated by the editors, the world-leading contributors draw on their wealth of knowledge about research and practice to provide you with an overview of leadership today, looking at global research, evidence, arguments and conceptualisations. Each chapter is written in an engaging and inspiring way, following a consistent approach to help you to develop your understanding in each of the areas covered. Full pedagogical features throughout, including chapter summaries, key questions, case studies, questions for readers and further reading suggestions with questions on key texts. A companion website provides links to open access outputs, research-project outcomes, and networking seminars, conferences with links to local, national and global events and connections.