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Department of Education, Unit Catalogue 2011/12


ED60277: Educational management, leadership and administration

Click here for further information Credits:  
Click here for further information Level: Doctoral (FHEQ level 8)
Click here for further information Period: Modular (no specific semester)
Click here for further information Assessment: CW 100%
Click here for further information Supplementary Assessment: Like-for-like reassessment (where allowed by programme regulations)
Click here for further information Requisites:
Click here for further information Description: This unit is designed to enable participants to fulfil aims of the EdD degree through three sets of processes:
i. understanding, critically evaluating, and contributing to debates about the focus, goals, techniques, and evaluation of the practice of educational management, leadership and administration in contemporary contexts;
ii. critically examining the theoretical underpinnings of the field of educational management, leadership and administration with particular regard to the bases of knowledge claims that have been, and are presently being, made;
iii. following from i and ii above, understanding and critically evaluating an influential contemporary view within the field that the field is lacking in a coherent theoretical base, and contributing to debate about how the theoretical base might be developed.
Through the unit participants will carry out work that is distinctive to the field of educational management, leadership and administration and be enabled to provide appropriate feedback to these contributing disciplines and contexts.
Aims:
The unit's aim is to provide students with a critical understanding of:
i. the multiple disciplinary influences on, and contributions to, the field of educational management leadership and administration;
ii. the applied nature of the field of educational management leadership and administration, and the potential and actual complexity of theory/practice relationships within it;
iii. the influence of social, economic, political and legislative contexts upon theory and practice within the field;
iv. the significance of different types of institutional context for theory and practice within the field;
v. the value and limitations of different approaches to researching, reporting, and evaluating educational management, leadership and administration theory and practice;
vi. the value and limitations of a range of principles, theories, and techniques in educational management, leadership and administration;
vii. how to evaluate literature that is relevant to the field.

Learning Outcomes:
As a result of the development of this critical understanding, participants will be better able to:
i. understand and evaluate the methodologies and products of research in the field of educational management leadership and administration;
ii. make appropriate judgements about which approaches to educational management, leadership and administration they can best apply in their own educational contexts;
iii. conceive, plan, and justify appropriate research methodologies designed to promote development in their own educational area of responsibility;
iv. contribute collaboratively to educational management, leadership and administration projects and programmes, both providing expertise themselves, and responding appropriately to the expertise of others;
v. carry out all the above at a level which meets the requirements of the EdD degree as a whole;
vi. review critically literature that is relevant to the field.
Hence, participants will become both more skilled in the application of appropriate skills, theories and techniques within particular contexts, and more critically aware of the way in which values and cultural assumptions necessarily underpin such application.
Assignment: Students will be expected to complete an assignment of 8,000 words. This will be in two parts of approximately 4,000 words each. The first will be a comparative critical review of at least two pieces of literature to be agreed between the student and tutor. The second will be negotiated between student and tutor, based on one of the following:
i. Elaborating how new knowledge may be generated by research in educational management, leadership and administration with reference to not more than two of the following: postmodernism; markets; learning organisations; educational change; globaalisation; educational resources; evaluation. Students may draw on their own professional experience, and on their review of publications in the first part of the assignment.
ii. designing a piece of research to address a particular issue within the context of educational management leadership and administration, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the design;
iii. analysing a current piece of educational management, leadership and administration practice with specific regard to its theoretical underpinnings, and social, economic, political, and institutional contexts (for instance, an organisational structure, or a process of organisational change).

Content:
Students will be introduced to a small number of educational management, leadership and administration case studies at an early stage of the course. These will be used to illustrate and exemplify particular ideas and concepts through the course, and will be evaluated by students towards the end of the course.
Studies will be organised under the following headings, but pursued with due regard to their interconnectedness:
* Conceptualising the field of educational management, leadership and administration.
* The influence of context on educational management, leadership and administration.
* Management, leadership and administration within educational organisations.
* Management, leadership and administration of the organisational environment.
* Evaluating educational management, leadership and administration.
Click here for further informationProgramme availability:

ED60277 is Optional on the following programmes:

Department of Education
NB. Programmes and units are subject to change at any time, in accordance with normal University procedures.