Product Description

This book probes the intellectual foundations of scholarly inquiry into educational administration, policy, and politics. The question of whether, and if so how, social science theories and methods contribute to an understanding of these issues is hotly debated today. Is there really a scientific basis for evaluating and/or improving educational administration, politics and policy? The contributorsall recognized scholars in the fields of educational organization, administration, policy and politicstackle the question of epistemology directly, addressing anew what rules of scholarly conduct should guide research and practice in the field, and how those rules of inquiry should guide the training of scholars and education professionals. The Introduction places the chapters in a common intellectual framework for rebuilding confidence in social science inquiry and of the legitimacy of the university as an arbiter of scientific knowledge claims.