Educational Leadership and Critical Realism

“Thorpe and Elonga Mboyo’s contribution to educational professionals is to enable researchers and teachers to think and practise in ways that are for education but also educative regarding how we learn about what it actually means to do leading and leadership. Notably critical realism provides the opportunity to shift away from corporate technologies about what works, towards the values that underpin the contested issues of inclusive pedagogy, assessment and the curriculum. This book is a clear statement that change is actually about and for education rather than about turning schools into private businesses”. — Professor Helen Gunter, Professor Emerita, The Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, UK. “At a time when educational leadership is increasingly prone to fads, fetishes and populism, this book provides a very welcome addition to more critical studies in educational leadership by advancing the ideas of critical realism. This book provides an outstanding and much needed exploration of how critical realism can better develop key themes and ideas in the field of educational leadership by putting the theory ‘upfront’ in its analysis. This book is very highly recommended for scholars of educational leadership but also has important implications for practising educators worldwide.” —Professor Richard Niesche, School of Education, UNSW SYDNEY, Australia.