1.4 Theories of educational management

The process of deciding on the aims of the organization is at the heart of educational management. In somesettings, aims are decided by the principal, often working in association with senior colleagues and perhaps a small group of laystakeholders. In many schools, however, goal setting is a corporate activity undertaken by formal bodies or informal groups.

School aims are strongly influenced by pressures from the external environment. Many countries have anational curriculum and these often leave little scope for schools to decide their own educational aims. Institutions may be left withthe residual task of interpreting external imperatives rather than determining aims on the basis of their own assessment of studentneed. The key issue here is the extent to which school managers are able to modify government policy and develop alternative approachesbased on school-level values and vision. Do they have to follow the script, or can they ad lib?

Distinguishing educational leadership and management

The concept of management overlaps with two similar terms, leadership and administration.“Management”is widely used in Britain, Europe, and Africa, for example, while“administration”is preferred in the United States, Canada, and Australia.“Leadership”is of great contemporary interest in most countries in the developed World. Dimmock (1999) differentiatesthese concepts whilst also acknowledging that there are competing definitions:

School leaders [experience] tensions betweencompeting elements of leadership, management and administration. Irrespective of how these terms are defined, school leadersexperience difficulty in deciding the balance between higher order tasks designed to improve staff, student and school performance(leadership), routine maintenance of present operations (management) and lower order duties (administration). (p.442)

Administration is not associated with“lower order duties”in the U.S. but may be seen as the overarching term, which embraces both leadership and management. Cuban (1988)provides one of the clearest distinctions between leadership and management.