Re-forming and Re-valuing Educational Administration: Whence and When Cometh the Phoenix?

Abstract

At the IIP in Bristol in 1974 Tom Greenfield delivered a paper which profoundly challenged traditional thinking on theory and research within educational administration. Since then he has played a key role in the continuing debate on how we are to understand the nature of the field and has published a stream of articles which have developed and defended his position. This paper, written on the occasion of his retirement from the Ontario Institute of Educational Studies, represents a major review and restatement of his views on the fundamental problem of theory and knowledge in the field of educational administration and of the place of values in such an enquiry.