Exploring Educational Administration: Coherentist Applications and Critical Debates

"Exploring Educational Administration", the second book in a planned 3 volume work, begins the task of extending the authors' ideas into more applied domains. It provides some introductory accounts of their theory, some extension of the theory in new directions, particularly in response to the post-modernist challenge, and signals the development of some important applications to educational management issues, notably leadership, policy, decision-making, and organisational design. Since their work has generated a significant amount of controversy they have drawn together, in the last section, three debates on their views from prestigious international journals. The book extends considerably the claims made in "Knowing Educational Administration" by demonstrating how a post-positivist science of administration can deal with traditional and vexed issues in the field. Hence, it will appeal to practitioners, students and researchers alike.

Paul T. Begley, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/UT
It is generally understood that sustained scholarly dialogue is one of the chief ways in which an academic knowledge base expands and develops. The field of educational administration is no exception and Evers & Lakomski deserve much credit for fostering and fuelling productive debate through their work of recent years. Their important first book, Knowing Educational Administration (1991), now comfortably among other essential works of our field...this book delivers on a promise made in the introduction to extend and further explore key debates in educational administration. Anyone familiar with the educational administration literature would confirm this after reading the book. More to the point, the work of a decade by Evers and Lakomski has been usefully consolidated for the first time in this single text....This book's greatest strength is that it compiles in one volume most of the key issues associated with the field of educational administration. Not only have the authors assembled their key works from the preceding decade, they have courageously invited their critics to participate in the dialogue be devoting generous portions of the book to contrary positions. Strategic consideration notwithstanding, this produces a book which is a valuable introduction to the field for newcomers and, in particular, a great basic text for graduate level core courses in educational administration. For such purposes it is well recommended.
Journal of Educational Administration