Knowledge Base, of the Field

Connie Fulmer & Rodney Muth

Perhaps the earliest educational leadership knowledge base appeared in William Payne's 1875 book on school supervision, which called for a science to support the art school leadership. William Torrey Harris's introduction to Payne stressed a phenomenological approach to school administration, because both physical and sociological characteristics of schools can be differentiated over time and place. From the very beginning, the theory-practice debate was engaged. Harris's perspective was supported in 1929 by John Dewey, who stipulated that an educational science could only be developed within practice contexts. Alternatively, Jesse Newlon argued in 1934 that administration should become an applied social science. By the 1950s, social science theories and methods were ascendant in educational leadership programs, based in part on the 1954 National Conference of Professors of Educational Administration, which focused on theory in educational leadership research, and in part on the work of Roald Campbell. Jack Culbertson's 1988 review of the ...

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