Decision Making in Educational Leadership

Stephanie Chitpin is Associate Professor of Leadership, Evaluation, and Curriculum at the Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, Canada.Colin W. Evers is Professor of Educational Leadership in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

"Both the content and processes of educational reform initiatives are the product of decisions. This text offered a wide ranging set of foundational perspectives about how those decisions are typically made and what educational leaders might do to improve them--a serious tool for the reflective leader."--Kenneth Leithwood, Emeritus Professor, University of Toronto"In this time of significant educational change across the globe, Chitpin and Evers's volume provides critically important information on the complexity of decision making for today's educational leader. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in a fresh perspective on educational decision making."-- Amanda Datnow, Professor of Education, University of California, San Diego"In this very readable text, Chitpin and Evers and their team of new and experienced scholars have contributed substantially to our understanding of the decision-making processes used by educational leaders. This book will be very useful to graduate students in educational leadership as they develop their research agendas, to their faculty advisors, to system leaders charged with the responsibility for developing professional development programs, and to school and school system leaders."-- John J. Stapleton, Dean Emeritus of Education, University of Manitoba"Chitpin and Evers have assembled a volume that does a first-rate job of setting the foundation for thoughtful decision making in school settings. This book provides powerful practical insights for transforming schools into the kinds of places that use data wisely to inform leadership practice and classroom pedagogy."--Sharon D. Kruse, Academic Director and Professor of Educational Leadership, Washington State University Vancouver

• Preface, Stephanie Chitpin and Colin W. EversPart I: Data Driven Decision MakingChapter 1: The Changing Dynamics of Educational Judgment and Decision Making in a Data Driven World, Andy Hargreaves, Alex Gurn, Beth Morgan and Henry BraunChapter 2: Principals’ Evidence-Based Decision Making: Its Nature and Impacts, Jingping SunPart II: Emotional and Epistemological Decision Making StructuresChapter 3: Capturing Principals’ Decision Making Processes in an Online Professional Learning Community, Stephanie ChitpinChapter 4: Decision Making as Problem-solving Trajectories, Colin W. EversChapter 5: Emotions, Emotional Intelligence, and Leadership: From Folkpsychology to Neuroscience, Gabriele LakomskiPart III: Complexity and Decision MakingChapter 6: On the Job Decision Making: Understanding and Evaluating how Leaders Solve Problems, Viviane Robinson and Rozanne Donald Chapter 7: Re-Visioning Decision Making in Educational Leadership, Peter GrimmettChapter 8: Principals’ Perceptions about Resistance to the Implementation of Major Decisions, Karen StarrChapter 9: Trusting our Schools: The ‘Soft’ Side of Decision Making, Dean FinkPart IV: Ethical and Legal IssuesChapter 10: Ethical Decision Making in Leadership: A Moral Literacy Perspective, Patrick JenlinkChapter 11: Justice and Equity in Educational Provision: The Case of Ontario, Marvin. A. ZukerChapter 12: Educational Leadership and Decision Making: Making the Politics and Policy Visible, Howard Stevenson