Making Trouble in/for Educational Leadership

Abstract

This article presents critical and previously neglected perspectives in many current debates around education and educational leadership. Based on an interdisciplinary literature review we analyse the mission and the role of educational organizations in their commitment to an improvement in society. We examine the role of principals and other organizational members in the development of the educational organization they represent and how their understanding of the different factors which influence the exercise of educational leadership may or may not lead to a more just society. Our analysis highlights how these numerous and multivariate factors affect goal attainment, organizational and group members— teachers, students, and others—leadership, and leadership identity. Democracy, equality, capitalism, and social justice are some of the topics discussed. Change and change agent roles and status are considered, particularly tensions between insider and outsider critical friends and change agents. The article concludes with a discussion that revisit the concept educational leadership and bring back its essence. These ideas should be taken into account to design new education policies in a more informed way.