Reviewing fifty years of EMAL scholarship: Longitudinal perspectives on the journal and the field of educational leadership and management

Abstract

Welcome to this very special 50th Anniversary edition of EMAL. The issue features longitudinal overview papers on several significant aspects of educational leadership, by influential authors who play a major part in the development of the journal, and of the field of educational management, administration, and leadership. All lead authors are members of the UK or International Editorial Boards, and thus contribute strongly to the strategic direction of the journal. As noted in my previous editorial, the first edition of the journal was published in June 1972, with the title of Educational Administration. Initially, there were only two issues per volume, but this increased to three each year in the 1980s and to four from 1989. This continued until 2009, when the current pattern of six editions of each volume was introduced, with up to 54 articles published each year. This expansion reflects the growing importance of the field as an arena for study and practice. The increase in the size of each volume is also a response to author demand to publish in the journal, with more than 600 submissions in both 2020 and 2021. A related development is the internationalisation of the journal, with submissions from 80 countries in the past year (see Table 1). Table 1 shows the international spread of submissions to the journal, illustrating the global significance of the field, amid increasing recognition of the importance of effective leadership for school improvement and student learning. Knowledge production is one measure of the priority given to school leadership in each jurisdiction. The widespread interest in EMAL is in sharp contrast to the early years of the journal when all contributors were British. The journal quickly became a forum for debates about the nature of educational administration. A prominent example came in 1976, when Educational Administration featured a symposium entitled ‘Barr Greenfield and Organisational Theory: A Symposium’. Greenfield challenged 1970s conventional wisdom about organisations, arguing that they have no meaning beyond that of the people who work in, or relate to, schools or other educational institutions. He rejected the widespread assumption that organisations exist, have goals, and can act independently from the people who inhabit them. Greenfield’s critique led to an extended debate, played out in the journal and elsewhere, and remains important deep into the 21st century. My book on Theories of Educational Leadership and Management (Bush, 2020), now in its fifth edition, features his work extensively in the chapter on subjective models. The debate includes contemporary issues, such as vision and mission, and whether such constructs Editorial