The relationship between education and democratic development has been a growing theme in debates focussed upon public education, but there has been little work that has directly related educational leadership to wider issues of freedom, politics and practice. Engaging with ELMA through the work of Hannah Arendt enables these issues of power to be directly confronted. Arendt produced texts that challenged notions of freedom and politics, and notably examined the lives of people, ideas and historical events in ways that are (...) pertinent to the purposes and practices of education. This significant volume examines the main texts in the Arendt library and explains each of the key ideas and how they can enable critical thinking about knowledge production and practice in educational leadership. The analysis draws upon a range of exemplars and empirical projects from the field of educational leadership, investigating utility issues regarding Arendt's ideas, and engaging with the debates concerning her insights and contribution. Included in the book: -using Arendt to think about ELMA -the relationship between policy and practice, and organisation and leadership -critiques of the Vita Activa and Vita Contemplativa -thinking with and against Arendt. Gunter uses the work of Arendt to challenge the purposes and practices of intellectual work, with a view to developing perspectives on the responsibility for research and ideas. The book will be of value to all those working and researching in the field of Educational Leadership, Management and Administration. (shrink)

_New Public Management and the Reform of Education_ addresses complex and dynamic changes to public services by focusing on new public management as a major shaper and influencer of educational reforms within, between and across European nation states and policy actors. The contributions to the book are diverse and illustrate the impact of NPM locally but also the interplay between local and European policy spheres. The book offers: A critical overview of NPM through an analysis of debates, projects and policy (...) actors A detailed examination of NPM within 10 nation states in Europe A robust engagement with the national and European features of NPM as a policy strategy The book actively contributes to debates and analysis within critical policy studies about the impact and resilience of NPM, and how through a study of educational reforms in a range of political systems with different traditions and purposes a more nuanced and complex picture of NPM can be built. As such the book not only speaks to educational researchers and professionals within Europe but also to policymakers, and can inform wider education and policy communities internationally. (shrink)

Presenting a detailed and critical account of the ideas that underpin the practice of educational leadership, this book moves from abstracted accounts of knowledge claims based on studying field outputs, towards the biographies and practices of those actively involved in the production and use of field knowledge. It presents a critical account of the ideas underpinning educational leadership, and engages with those ideas by examining the origins, development and use of conceptual frameworks and models of best practice.

Successive UK governments have adopted failure as a strategy in the reform of public education in England: first, to construct crises in order to blame professionals/parents/children for a failing system; and second, to provide rescue solutions that are designed to fail in order to sustain the change imperative. We describe this as policy mortality, or the integration of systemic and organisational ‘death’ within reform design. Our research demonstrates the interplay between the blame for the ‘wrong’ type of school, leader, teacher, (...) pupil, parent, and the claimed ‘solutions’ in the form of new schools (e.g., between 70 and 90 different types in England), organisations (e.g., MATs), professionals (e.g., CEOs), pupils (e.g., branded access to a school place), and parents (e.g., consumer choice). Our research contribution is conceptual through the development of new thinking about policy mortality, whereby the claim is for ‘success’ but the reality is that some professionals, schools, children and parents are required to fail. (shrink)

Based on over twenty years of empirical and intellectual work about knowledge production in the field of educational administration, I examine the origins and development of the canon, methodologies and knowledge workers in England. I focus on the field as being primarily concerned with professional activity and how and why this was established from the 1960s, and the way knowledge workers have variously positioned themselves over time and in context. Using a case study of knowledge production at the time of (...) the New Labour governments (1997—2010) I show how the emphasis on activity has left the field vulnerable to colonisation by markets and private interests, but how policy studies continues not only to reveal this but also to provide a model for how engagement with the social sciences can be productive. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: We draw on empirical data and theorising that focuses on the relationship between the state, public policy and knowledge in the construction and configuration of school leadership under New Labour from 1997. Specifically we show how a school leadership policy network comprises people in different locations who operate as policy entrepreneurs in shaping policy.

We draw on empirical data and theorising that focuses on the relationship between the state, public policy and knowledge in the construction and configuration of school leadership under New Labour from 1997. Specifically we show how a school leadership policy network comprises people in different locations who operate as policy entrepreneurs in shaping policy.

The field of educational leadership is multi-site, in which those who study and practice leadership are located within networks which connect across institutions and sectors. Charting the growth of this dynamic field is the central purpose of this paper and six interconnected typologies of knowledge production are presented: Producers, Positions, Provinces, Practices, Processes and Perspectives. We argue that these typologies enable those involved to generate descriptions and understandings of the interplay between researching, theorising and practising in educational settings. This focus (...) on knowledge production enables us to be mappers, to undertake mapping and to produce maps. These, we would stress, are all political processes through which we challenge what is said to be known and make our own claims to know. As such our agency to make choices within our practice as researchers, theorists, and practitioners is exercised within a complex setting of organisational, cultural and social structures. (shrink)

In the past 40 years there have been a number of significant developments across the fields of educational administration and history. In this volume, the authors have selected a number of key issues to illustrate and trace these changes. The seven articles by leading scholars in the field offer an analysis of contemporary educational administration, history and policy debates and how this has impacted on teachers, leaders, schools and the education sector. This book offers readers a valuable insight into continuing (...) and contemporary debates in the field and the authors offer a refreshing interpretation of these debates. This book provides a rich analysis from a range of theoretical, methodological perspectives and highlights the extent to which these debates remain a contemporary concern. This book was published as a special issue of the _Journal of Educational Administration and History_. (shrink)

In the past 40 years there have been a number of significant developments across the fields of educational administration and history. In this volume, the authors have selected a number of key issues to illustrate and trace these changes. The seven articles by leading scholars in the field offer an analysis of contemporary educational administration, history and policy debates and how this has impacted on teachers, leaders, schools and the education sector. This book offers readers a valuable insight into continuing (...) and contemporary debates in the field and the authors offer a refreshing interpretation of these debates. This book provides a rich analysis from a range of theoretical, methodological perspectives and highlights the extent to which these debates remain a contemporary concern. This book was published as a special issue of the _Journal of Educational Administration and History_. (shrink)

This book systematically elaborates Scott Eacott's "relational" approach to organizational theory in education. Contributing to the relational trend in the social sciences, it first surveys relational scholarship across disciplines before providing a nuanced articulation of the relational research program and key concepts such as organizing activity, auctors, and spatio-temporal conditions. It also includes critical commentaries on the program from key figures such as Tony Bush, Megan Crawford, Fenwick English, Helen Gunter, Izhar Oplatka, Augusto Riveros, and Dawn Wallin. As (...) such, the text models an approach to, or social epistemology for building knowledge claims in relation rather than through parallel monologues. Eacott's relational approach provides a distinctive, post-Bourdieusian variant of the relational sociological project. Shifting the focus of inquiry from entities (e.g., leaders, organizations) to organizing activity and recognizing how auctors generate - simultaneously emerging from and constitutive of - spatio-temporal conditions unsettles the orthodoxy of organizational theory in educational administration and leadership. By presenting its claims in the context of other approaches, the book stimulates intellectual debate among both relational sociologists and opponents of relational approaches. Beyond Leadership provides significant insights into the organizing of education. As it does not fit neatly into any one field, but instead blends educational administration and leadership, organizational studies, and relational sociology, among others, it charts new territory and promotes important dialogue and debate. (shrink)

Es soll ein Beitrag zur epistemischen Charakterisierung von Computersimulationen als jenseits von Experiment und Theorie geleistet werden. Es wird argumentiert, dass die in der Simulationstechnik eingesetzten Verfahren nicht numerische Lösungen liefern, sondern deren Dynamik mittels generativer Mechanismen imitieren. Die Computersimulationen in der Klimatologie werden als systematisches wie historisches Fallbeispiel behandelt. Erst "Simulationsexperimente" gestatten es, mittels Modellen eine Dynamik zu imitieren, ohne deren Grundgleichungen zu "lösen". /// Computer simulations will be characterized in epistemic respect as a method between experiment and theory. (...) It will be argued that simulations do not provide numerical solutions, rather they use generative mechanisms to imitate a dynamics. Climate science will be considered as a case both systematically and historically. Only simulation experiments allow to build models that imitate a dynamics without solving the relevant equations. (shrink)

In nineteenth-century Britain, captive snakes in menageries and zoological gardens were routinely fed with live prey – primarily rabbits, pigeons and guinea pigs. From the late 1860s, this practice began to generate opposition on animal welfare grounds, leading to a protracted debate over its necessity, visibility and morality. Focusing on the c.1870–1914 period, when the snake-feeding controversy reached its zenith, this article charts changing attitudes towards the treatment of reptiles in captivity and asks why an apparently niche practice generated so (...) much interest. By looking at the biological arguments put forward for and against live feeding, the article traces the changing nature of humanitarian activism in the late nineteenth century and shows how the shifting character of the live-feeding debate paralleled wider trends in the animal welfare movement. It also highlights the different types of knowledge and expertise involved in the debate, as naturalists, veterinary surgeons, legal professionals, zookeepers and humanitarians offered conflicting perspectives on questions of reptilian dietary requirements and animal sentience. (shrink)

Explores the avant-garde history of twentieth-century Europe through the lifestyle and music of the Sex Pistols.

Much philosophical attention has been paid to the question of whether, and why, one may divert a runaway trolley away from where it will kill five people to where it will kill one. But little attention has been paid to whether the reasons that ground a permission to divert thereby ground a duty to divert. This paper defends the Requirement Thesis, which holds that one is, ordinarily, required to act on lesser-evil justifications for harming for the sake of others. Cases (...) in which we have lesser-evil justifications of harming for the sake of others are rescue cases. Ordinarily, an agent is under a duty to rescue unless doing so imposes too great a cost on her, or violates someone else's rights. When neither of these defeating conditions obtain, one is required to rescue even if this involves causing harm to innocent people. (shrink)

Psychological evidence suggests that laypeople understand the world around them in terms of intuitive ontologies which describe broad categories of objects in the world, such as ‘person’, ‘artefact’ and ‘animal’. However, because intuitive ontologies are the result of natural selection, they only need to be adaptive; this does not guarantee that the knowledge they provide is a genuine reflection of causal mechanisms in the world. As a result, science has parted ways with intuitive ontologies. Nevertheless, since the brain is evolved (...) to understand objects in the world according to these categories, we can expect that they continue to play a role in scientific understanding. Taking the case of human evolution, we explore relationships between intuitive ontological and scientific understanding. We show that intuitive ontologies not only shape intuitions on human evolution, but also guide the direction and topics of interest in its research programmes. Elucidating the relationships between intuitive ontologies and science may help us gain a clearer insight into scientific understanding. (shrink)

Es soll ein Beitrag zur epistemischen Charakterisierung von Computersimulationen als jenseits von Experiment und Theorie geleistet werden. Es wird argumentiert, dass die in der Simulationstechnik eingesetzten Verfahren nicht numerische Lösungen liefern, sondern deren Dynamik mittels generativer Mechanismen imitieren. Die Computersimulationen in der Klimatologie werden als systematisches wie historisches Fallbeispiel behandelt. Erst "Simulationsexperimente" gestatten es, mittels Modellen eine Dynamik zu imitieren, ohne deren Grundgleichungen zu "lösen". /// Computer simulations will be characterized in epistemic respect as a method between experiment and theory. (...) It will be argued that simulations do not provide numerical solutions, rather they use generative mechanisms to imitate a dynamics. Climate science will be considered as a case both systematically and historically. Only simulation experiments allow to build models that imitate a dynamics without solving the relevant equations. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss the structural domination of whiteness as it intersects with the potential of individual critique and reflexivity. I reflect on my positioning as a white nurse researcher while researching international nurse migration. I draw on two large qualitative studies and one small focus group study to discuss my reactions as a white researcher to evidence of institutional racism in the British health services and my growing awareness of how racism is reproduced in the British nursing profession.

I argue that any successful account of permissible self- defence must be action-guiding, or practical . It must be able to inform people’s deliberation about what they are permitted to do when faced with an apparent threat to their lives. I argue that this forces us to accept that a person can be permitted to use self-defence against Apparent Threats: characters whom a person reasonably, but mistakenly, believes threaten her life. I defend a hybrid account of self-defence that prioritises an (...) agent’s subjective perspective. I argue that it is sufficient to render the use of defence permissible if an agent reasonably believes that (a) she is morally innocent, and (b) if she does not kill this person, then they will kill her. I argue that the correct account of self-defence must distinguish between whether an agent is permitted to inflict harm, and whether the target is liable to bear that harm. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a new realist idealist account of perception, on which perception is not essentially representational. Perception, rather, involves an overlapping of two phenomenal unities: the perceiving subject, and the phenomenal tapestry of reality. This renders it intelligible that we can stand in precisely the same relation to distal objects of perception as we do to our own pains. The resulting view captures much that naïve realists take to be central to perception. But, I argue, such a (...) view is only intelligible if distal objects are themselves fundamentally mental. Idealism is thus uniquely posed to intelligibly capture the benefits of naïve realism. (shrink)

The role of the ‘ideal’ in political philosophy is currently much discussed. These debates cast useful light on Mill's self-designation as ‘under the general designation of Socialist’. Considering Mill's assessment of potential property-relations on the grounds of their desirability, feasibility and ‘accessibility’ (disambiguated as ‘immediate-availability’, ‘eventual-availability’ and ‘conceivable-availability’) shows us not only how desirable and feasible he thought ‘utopian’ socialist schemes were, but which options we should implement. This, coupled with Mill's belief that a socialist ideal should guide social reforms (...) (as the North Star guides mariners), reveals much more clearly the extent of his socialist commitments (even if he thought political economists would be concerned with forms of individual property for some time to come). Moreover, this framework for assessments of ‘ideal’ institutions makes a useful contribution to an ongoing contemporary debate. (shrink)

This article analyses the underlying interpretation of the natural world as mechanical during the early modern period. It describes the so-called mechanical ideal and discusses three cases involving important interpretations of the philosophical implications of this ideal. It suggests that the mechanical ideal raised new problems in different contexts and inspired antagonistic views of its philosophical implications in proponents who operated within the same intellectual context. It also discusses foundationalism versus mitigated scepticism and animated machines versus mechanical animations.

This paper explores the relationship between a person's claim right not to be harmed and the duties this claim confers on others. I argue that we should reject Jonathan Quong's evidence-based account of this relationship, which holds that an agent A's possession of a claim against B is partly determined by whether it would be reasonable for A to demand B's compliance with a correlative duty. When B's evidence is that demanding compliance would not be reasonable, A cannot have a (...) claim against B. I suggest that some of the putatively problematic cases that Quong identifies can be resolved by plausibly narrowing the scope of the right not to be harmed. I also argue that Quong's view leads to implausible conclusions, and that his account of what happens to A's claim in the face of lesser-evil justifications is inconsistent with his broader view. I then defend the view that agents are required, and not merely permitted, to act on lesser-evil justifications. I further argue that A may not defend herself against the infliction of harms that are justified on lesser-evil grounds. However, she may defend herself in cases where B is only evidentially, and not objectively, justified in harming her. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that an operational organism concept can help to overcome the structural deficiency of mathematical models in biology. In our opinion, the structural deficiency of mathematical models lies mainly in our inability to identify functionally relevant biological characters in biological systems, and not so much in a lack of adequate mathematical representations of biological processes. We argue that the problem of character identification in biological systems is linked to the question of a properly formulated organism concept. (...) Lastly, we demonstrate how a decomposition of an organism into independent characters in the context of a specific biological process--such as adaptation by means of natural selection--depends on the dynamical properties and invariance conditions of the equations that describe this process. (shrink)

When making a decision, humans consider two types of information: information they have acquired through their prior experience of the world, and further information they gather to support the decision in question. Here, we present evidence that data from search engines such as Google can help us model both sources of information. We show that statistics from search engines on the frequency of content on the Internet can help us estimate the statistical structure of prior experience; and, specifically, we outline (...) how such statistics can inform psychological theories concerning the valuation of human lives, or choices involving delayed outcomes. Turning to information gathering, we show that search query data might help measure human information gathering, and it may predict subsequent decisions. Such data enable us to compare information gathered across nations, where analyses suggest, for example, a greater focus on the future in countries with a higher per capita GDP. We conclude that search engine data constitute a valuable new resource for cognitive scientists, offering a fascinating new tool for understanding the human decision-making process. (shrink)

Howard’s moral fortification theory of criminal punishment lends itself to justifying correction for children in schools that is supportive. There are good reasons to include other students in the learning opportunity occasioned by doing right in response to wrong, which need not exploit the wrongdoing student as a mere means. Care ethics can facilitate restorative and problem-solving approaches to correction. However, there are overriding reasons against doing so when this stigmatises the wrongdoing student, since this inhibits their learning. Responses that (...) avoidably stigmatise students impermissibly undermine both the developmental ethos of education, and students’ recognition and respect for each other as equals. (shrink)

Adam Hosein has recently proposed that a sufficient degree of intervening agency between a person’s contribution to an unjust lethal threat and the posing of that threat can exempt the contributor from liability to defensive killing. Hosein suggests that this will exempt most civilians from liability to lethal defence even if they contribute to unjust killings. I argue that intervening agency does not bear on a person’s responsibility for a threat, and does not exempt her from liability to defensive killing.

According to Jonathan Quong’s _moral status account_ of liability to defensive harm, an agent is liable to defensive harm only when she mistakenly treats others as if their moral status is diminished (for example, as if they lack a right that they in fact possess). Quong argues that, by the lights of the moral status account, a conscientious driver (Driver) who faultlessly threatens to kill Pedestrian is not liable to defensive harm. Quong argues that Driver’s action is evidence-relative permissible, despite (...) the risks it imposes, because the general practice of prudent driving is permissible. The practice is permissible because (a) its risks do not disproportionately fall on some groups rather than others, (b) the threatened harms are incidental, and (c) the risk that driving imposes is acceptable in light of the benefits everyone derives from driving. Because the correct moral theory tells us that prudent driving is permissible, Pedestrian lacks a right that Driver refrain from driving. Hence, Driver does not, by driving, treat Pedestrian as lacking a right that Pedestrian in fact possesses. Driver is not liable to defensive force. I argue, against Quong, that cost–benefit analyses of types of risky activity cannot justify individual tokens of risk imposition. Actions that risk incidentally harming others must be justified by the prospective benefits of that token action. Hence, Driver’s imposition of risk on Pedestrian cannot be justified by the benefits of the general practice of driving. I argue that the permissibility of Driver’s imposing risk on Pedestrian via prudent driving turns on whether Driver is willing to internalise at least the foreseeable costs of that risky action. One can lack a right that a person refrain from performing a risky action whilst possessing a right not to be harmed by that risky action. Even if Pedestrian cannot reasonably demand that Driver refrain from driving, she can reasonably demand that Driver refrain from forcing her to bear the costs of his driving. (shrink)

Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) are common and costly in both primary and secondary health care. It is gradually being acknowledged that there needs to be a variety of interventions for patients with medically unexplained symptoms to meet the needs of different groups of patients with such chronic long-term symptoms. The proposed intervention described herewith is called The BodyMind Approach (TBMA) and promotes learning for self-management through establishing a dynamic and continuous process of emotional self-regulation. The problem is the mismatch between (...) the patient’s mind-set and profile and current interventions. This theoretical article, based on practice-based evidence, takes forward the idea that different approaches (other than cognitive behaviour therapy) are required for people with MUS. The mind-set and characteristics of patents with MUS are reflected upon to shape the rationale and design of this novel approach. Improving services for this population in primary care is crucial to prevent the iterative spiralling downwards of frequent GP visits, hospital appointments, and Accident and Emergency attendance, all of which are common for these patients. The approach derives from embodied psychotherapy (authentic movement in dance movement psychotherapy) and adult models of learning for self-management. It has been developed from research and practice-based evidence. In this article the problem of MUS in primary care is introduced and the importance of the reluctance of patients to accept a psychological/mental health referral in the first instance is drawn out. A description of the theoretical underpinnings and philosophy of the proposed alternative to current interventions is then presented related to the design, delivery, facilitation and educational content of the programme. The unique intervention is also described to give the reader a flavour. (shrink)

Many criminal offenders come from disadvantaged backgrounds, which punishment entrenches. Criminal culpability explains some disadvantageous treatment in state-offender interactions; yet offenders remain people, and ‘some mother’s child’, in Eva Kittay’s terms. Offending behaviour neither erases needs, nor fully excuses our responsibility for offenders’ needs. Caring is demanded in principle, recognising the offender’s personhood. Supporting offenders may amplify welfare resources: equipping offenders to provide self-care; to meet caring responsibilities; and enabling offenders’ contribution to shared social life, by providing support and furthering (...) the choices of others seeking to engage with them. The desistance paradigm (viewing desistance from offending as a process, following from an offender’s active choice in the context of stabilising social structures and personal circumstances), implies that a supportive environment may facilitate reduced recidivism. While decisions about criminal culpability need justice, we may use state resources most effectively by also including care ethics in our thinking about punishment. (shrink)

Poetics of futurism: Zaum, shiftology, nonsense -- Poetics of Deleuze: structure, stoicism, univocity -- The materialist manifesto -- Shiftology #1: from performativity to dramatisation -- Shiftology #2: from metaphor to metamorphosis -- The see-sawing frontier: linguistic spatiotemporalities -- Concllusion: Suffixing, prefixing.

Preference utilitarians are concerned to maximize the autonomous choices of individuals; for this reason, they argue that nurses ought to advocate for those patients who desire assistance with ending their lives. This approach prompts us to consider, then, the moral validity of nursing involvement in measures intended to end the lives of patients. In this article, the terms of preference utilitarianism are set out and considered in order to determine whether this approach offers sufficient philosophical support for sanctioning a role (...) for nursing in euthanasia. Ultimately, it is found that preference utilitarianism is lacking in this respect, as well as in its fitness for guiding nursing activity in general. In particular, it is found that nurses are required to exchange a handmaiden relationship with the medical profession for an equally undignified relationship with patients. If nursing involvement in measures intended to end the lives of patients is to find sufficient philosophical support, then we need to look elsewhere. (shrink)

Adil Ahmad Haque argues that civilians who contribute to unjust lethal threats in war, but who do not directly participate in the war, are not liable to defensive killing. His argument rests on two central claims: first, that the extent of a person’s liability to defensive harm in virtue of contributing to an unjust threat is limited to the cost that she is initially required to bear in order to avoid contributing, and, second, that civilians need not bear lethal costs (...) in order to avoid indirectly contributing to unjust lethal threats. I argue that Haque’s defence of each claim fails. (shrink)