Greenfield on Educational Administration: Towards a Humane Craft (Educational Management)

295 Pages·1993·1.57 MB·English

by  T. Greenfield

GREENFIELD ON EDUCATIONAL
ADMINISTRATION
This collection is a representative set of ten of the key papers which Thomas
Greenfield, arguably the doyen of contemporary theorists of educational
administration, has published over the last twenty years. His writings as they
appear are eagerly sought after and studied by scholars, students and
practitioners in Britain and across the English-speaking world, and increasingly
beyond it, but are not always readily available individually.
The collection charts the development of Greenfield’s views of social reality
as human invention, and explores strands of argument on the nature of
knowledge, on administrative theory and research, on values, on the limits of
science and the importance of human subjectivity, truth and reality. The volume
is concluded by a discussion between Thomas Greenfield and Peter Ribbins,
which reflects on Greenfield’s career and elaborates on the range of his complex
and often controversial ideas.
Thomas Greenfield was formerly Professor at the Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education. Peter Ribbins is Reader in Educational Management at the
University of Birmingham.
GREENFIELD ON
EDUCATIONAL
ADMINISTRATION
Towards a Humane Science
Thomas Greenfield
and Peter Ribbins
London and New York
First published 1993
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of
thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY10001
© 1993 Thomas Greenfield and Peter Ribbins
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-203-97356-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-08045-2 (hbk)
0-415-08080-0 (pbk)
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Greenfield, Thomas Barr.
Greenfield on educational administration: towards a humane
science/by Thomas Greenfield and Peter Ribbins; with a
foreword by Christopher Hodgkinson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-415-08045-2.—ISBN 0-415-08080-0 (pbk)
1. School management and organization. 2. School management
and organization—Social aspects. I. Ribbins, Peter. II. Title.
III. Title: On educational administratration
LB2805.G695 1993 92–160303
CIP
What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension
how like a god; the beauty of the world, a paragon of
animals.
Hamlet, William Shakespeare
CONTENTS
Foreword by Christopher Hodgkinson ix
Notes x vi
1 THEORY ABOUT ORGANIZATION: A NEW PERSPECTIVE 1
AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOLS
Organizational science and the profession of administration 2
Two views of social reality 5
Implications 16
Notes 21
References 21
2 RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION IN THE 25
UNITED STATES AND CANADA: AN OVERVIEW AND
CRITIQUE
Theoretical foundations of administrative research 26
Reviewing the reviews 32
The future of research in educational administration 42
Notes 47
References 47
3 ORGANIZATIONS AS TALK, CHANCE, ACTION AND 51
EXPERIENCE
A false dichotomy between organization and individual 52
Methodology as an end in itself 56
Validating theory 58
Image, reality and method 60
Can there be one best theory of experience? 62
vi
Other images, other theories 65
Chance as truth 66
Conclusion 68
Notes 69
4 ORGANIZATION THEORY AS IDEOLOGY 72
The individual and social reality 74
Social structure in terms of human meanings 76
Values and methodology 78
Logic, will, submission and images of reality 80
Notes 85
References 86
5 THE MAN WHO COMES BACK THROUGH THE DOOR IN THE 88
WALL: DISCOVERING TRUTH, DISCOVERING SELF,
DISCOVERING ORGANIZATIONS
Interpreting social reality: reasoning with angels and others 92
Prolegomenon for a new study of organization 99
Problematics 1 07
Conclusion 1 10
Notes 1 14
6 AGAINST GROUP MIND: AN ANARCHISTIC THEORY OF 1 17
ORGANIZATION
An anarchistic conclusion 1 25
Notes 1 26
References 1 27
7 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF SCIENCE IN EDUCATIONAL 1 28
ADMINISTRATION
The rise of science in administration 1 29
Simon and positivism in administrative science 1 31
The failure of administrative science 1 32
What Simon omitted: right, responsibility, reflection 1 34
The infusion of science into educational administration 1 36
vii
The consequences of the new science of organizations 1 38
The alternative 1 45
An agenda for the future 1 48
Notes 1 51
References 1 52
8 ON HODGKINSON’S MORAL ART 1 55
Notes 1 61
9 RE-FORMING AND RE-VALUING EDUCATIONAL 1 62
ADMINISTRATION: WHENCE AND WHEN COMETH THE
PHOENIX?
Looking back 1 64
Looking forward 1 77
Notes 1 87
References 1 88
10 SCIENCE AND SERVICE: THE MAKING OF THE PROFESSION 1 92
OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
A troubling foundation 1 93
Remembering 2 05
Prospects for educational administration as a field of study 2 09
Conclusion 2 12
Notes 2 17
11 EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AS A HUMAN SCIENCE: 2 21
CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN THOMAS GREENFIELD AND
PETER RIBBINS
Scene setting 2 21
Before 1961: towards the scholar’s life 2 22
1961–1971: objectivist years—from certaintly to you 2 23
1971–1974: towards an alternative paradigm 2 29
After 1974: the subjectivist year—from Bristol to Edmonton 2 37
References 2 61
viii
APPENDIX: PUBLICATIONS AND PAPERS 2 62
Index 2 66
FOREWORD
It is not possible to properly comprehend the contemporary discipline of
educational administration without some familiarity and acquaintanceship with
the thought of Thomas Barr Greenfield. That is the main raison d’être for this
book and ought to be the chief motivation of its readers. But is this strong
assertion truly justified?
I shall argue that it is on several grounds. To begin, consider the fact that
educational administration is neither unitary nor homogeneous nor monolithic. It
is fragmented and factional, obscure in its dimensions, vague in its ends, and
contentious in its methodologies. But above all it is divided along a major fault
line into two camps or schools of thought, two Weltanschauungen. These
outlooks and their infinite ramifications have not only been clarified by
Greenfield, their greatest expositor, but in a sense have been initiated by him, a
point to which I shall advert later. Which is why this text and its collation is so
sorely needed. It deserves and will certainly reward study by graduate students,
practitioners, and theorists alike.
The content of this book reaches beyond the conventional boundaries of
educational administration into that general subset of human behaviour known
severally by such deceptive names as administration, management, leadership,
policy making, and executive skills. Since all of these activities are real and all
of fundamental importance to the quality of human life, not to mention the
quality of life in that other set of mysteries called education and schooling, it
follows that enlightenment about them is eminently desirable. Greenfield throws
such light.
But there are, as it happens, two unevenly matched contenders for the role of
light-bearer. Science and art. Both lay their claims to the territory of educational
administration. To be sure it is not a simple matter of either-or and of course it is
a complex bedevilment of both-and. Nevertheless, there is little doubt which is to
bear the burden of Lucifer when the author quotes Hoy and Miskel’s text as
aspiring to make educational administration ‘more of a science and less of an
art’. Hoy and Miskel as standard- bearers of the science-oriented camp do seek,
in the best (but somewhat jaded) spirit of American pragmatic empiricism, for an
explanatory order of things, for predictabilities, for law-like interpretations of
complex social phenomena, perhaps even for a mechanism or quasi-mechanistic