著者

堀 和郎

出版者

日本教育行政学会

雑誌

日本教育行政学会年報 (ISSN:09198393)

巻号頁・発行日

no.19, pp.250-266, 1993-10-09

---

Educational administration as a field of study in the U.S.A. was reorganized as an empirical social science by the so-called theory movement after World War II. Since then, many conceptual frameworks that this theory movement created provided scholars with theoretical and methodological base for studying educational administration. However, after 1975 circa, many kinds of critiques against the theory movement and its paradigm appeared and educational administration as a discipline is now in the period of academic restructuring. New trends are being formed. It should be said that the study of educational administration is now in the stage of a post-'theory movement'. New trends include newly developed frameworks, such as contingency theory, organized anarchy-garbage can model, institutional 'myth and symbol' approach and educational policy analysis. Qualitative and fieldwork methods are adopted by many researchers. There are seen new academic interests into, the consequences of educational administration on educational practice, value problems, and epistemological issues. In this paper, author tries to make sense of these intellectual trends in the theory and research on educational administration in the U.S.A. Especially, the focus is on their backgrounds and origins, that is, what has been promoted, and who initiated the restructuring of the field and how? As for their backgrounds, it was pointed out that critical consciousness and revisionist thinking were caused among scholars by their recognition of a theory-practice gap in the study of educational administration, which was promoted by challenging developments and turbulent environments surrounding public schools after 1970, such as increasing numbers of underachievers, school vandalism, increasing educational costs, taxpayers' revolt, call for equity school finance policy, public demand for access to school policy making, and demand for school accountability. And under the influence of new study in history of science and philosophy of science that criticized positivism, radical social sciences appeared which began to attack theory and research based on a positivistic concept of science. This trend led to severe critiques against, and critical reassessment of the theory movement paradigm that is basically founded on positivism. Who initiated the restructuring of the field? Was it the Canadian scholar T. Greenfield? Surely, we must not underestimate the importance of his challenge, but, it was self-critical reassessment of its paradigm by leaders of the theory movement themselves that played a leading role in the making of new trends. First of all, critical reassessment had begun before Greenfield's challenge to the theory movement paradigm, though it was sporadic. Secondly, at almost the same time, seminars were held, by scholars who led theory movement, that took a serious look into problems inherent in the theory movement paradigm.