Critical Approaches to Researching Educational Leadership

Jill Blackmore is Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Education, and Director of the Centre for Research in Educational Futures and Innovation at Deakin University, Australia. Helen Gunter is Professor of Education Policy, Leadership and Management in the School of Education, University of Manchester, UK. Pat Thomson PSM, PhD, FAcSS is Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham, UK. She is a Visiting Professor at the University of the Free State, South Africa, Deakin University, Australia and The University of Iceland.

Part A What does it mean to be a critical ELMA researcher? What is 'critical"?the taken for grated nature of the field and its terminology k tanks and policy makers. daries. eofhistory. What is the role of theory in framing research? How do you conduct critical research? Part B What critical leadership researchers are interested in researching Purposes How do leaders work for social justice? How do leaders deal with questions of intersectionality? diverse communities? What are the experiences of minority groups of leaders - what do they do? How is leaders work and practice shaped by policy? What does policy say about/for leaders? How do leaders form an identity as leader? Practices How do leaders change their organisations? What do leaders do in hard times? How do leaders work with others - staff, students, parents? How do leaders work with others - church, industry, partnerships? What is the dark side of leadership? Who is selected and appointed as leaders? How are leaders retained in the system? Why do they leave and who leaves what kinds of institutions? Performances How does one learn to be a leader? How is knowledge about ELMA created and taught to others? How did leadership get to be this way? How are leaders represented in media - what is the job represented to be? Part C The toolkit from which you would construct your repertoire Methodology and methods eg case study, ethnography mixed methods are methodologies. Decolonising research. Standpoints. Beyond the commatised list, the intersectionality move. The basic tools - talking to leaders and those who work with them - survey, interview, focus group, narrative, life history, conversation, diary/journal. Watch them at work - observation, shadowing, video and audio recording, walking and live methods, the materialist tangle, online ethnography How do other people experience and perceive leadership -students and parents voice research including arts methods, facebook, critical incidents. Working with leaders to research their practice/researching own practice - researching own practice - action research, reflective journals, arts based, photo elicitation, blogging, policy trajectory/enactment. Leadership as relational, how leadership works in this place or places - photo-survey, social media analysis, documentary analysis. Also interactions and networks - network analysis, document analysis, mapping, time and space analysis, co-constructed research, actor network, artefactual analysis. What shapes ELMA - archive and document analysis, policy analysis, web - based analysis, discourse analysis, media, genealogy Part D Analysis and creating text Conclusion