Scott Eacott
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 762727 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Scott Eacott |
| NOMBRES | Scott |
| APELLIDO | Eacott |
| FIRMA | EACOTT S |
| AFILIACIONES | UNSW Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5612-5887 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 36 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 45 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 36 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1980 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
The complexity of teacher housing policies
Teacher shortages are a challenge for almost every nation. While substantial attention has been paid to the pipeline of teacher supply and to a lesser extent on working conditions, little has been made of the need for teachers to be proximally housed to where they are most needed. The provision of teacher housing was foundational to the establishment and sustainability of schools but has been decoupled from school provision and limited to an ince…
Schools and the city
Attracting and retaining a stable supply of effective teachers is critical to the provision of schooling that meets international commitments to equity, excellence, and inclusion. Initiatives targeting school staff are predicated on the accessibility of schools for the workforce. To this point, the empirical impact of housing and transportation costs on the school education workforce has been relatively poorly understood. Based on a novel approac…
Principals and the careless erosion of employment standards in the context of school autonomy and marketisation
Devolved governance, school autonomy and marketisation impact the employment practices of schools and the working conditions of teachers. However, the employment-related effects on school services staff are under-researched. This study draws on data from interviews with staff at one public high school to analyse school services staff experience of school autonomy and the employment practices of principals in the context of competitive education m…
Housing and transport costs for school education staff in high growth areas
Housing the Teacher Workforce
Globally, education systems are faced with dual workforce crises: a shortage of teachers and a lack of affordable housing. Attracting and retaining teachers through improved renumeration, working conditions, and quality preparation have been central. However, initiatives to attract and retain teachers mean little if the workforce cannot find appropriate (quality and affordable) housing within commuting distance to their workplaces. The present st…
The systemic implications of housing affordability for the teacher shortage
Legal attendance requirements and national declarations establish a social contract between the State and its citizens for the provision of schooling. Any shortage of teachers compromises the ability of the State to meet its contractable obligations. The sovereignty of the social contract is complex as no single body has ultimate responsibility for housing the teaching workforce, but everyone has a stake in it. Empirically focused on the largest …
School provision, workforce distribution, housing, and the staffing of schools
Pursuing Sustainable Development Goal 4 has led to more children and youth accessing schooling than at any point in history. However, this expansion of provision has not been without workforce challenges. UNESCO modelling indicates a global shortfall of 44 million teachers by 2030. The challenge of having a sufficiently qualified school education workforce where it is needed is amplified in locations where affordable quality stock of housing is l…
The effect of abolishing the New Schools Policy on the provision of schools and enrolments in Australia
Australia has been an enthusiastic embracer of school choice and has one of the highest levels of public funding for non-government schools. The 1996 election of John Howard's conservative government is a point of interest as it is often framed as a period of political and ideological attacks on public schooling. A key policy move was the abolishment of the New Schools Policy. The New Schools Policy withheld public funds from helping to establish…
Principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and educational leadership
This paper examines principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and leadership as part of a 3-year research project looking at the implications of school autonomy on social justice across four states of Australia (Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland). Drawing on interviews with principals and representatives from principal stakeholder organisations in these four state jurisdictions, the paper identifies a number of key issu…
The principled principal
Purpose Steiner schools represent a natural experiment in the provision of schooling. With a history dating back more than 100 years, leadership, leaders and the principal do not sit easily with Steiner educators. The contemporary regulatory environment requires a “principal” or legal authority at the school-building level, creating a tension for Steiner schools. This makes Steiner schools an ideal case study for understanding the contemporary ro…
School autonomy reform and social justice
Schooling on the margins
Often considered dumping grounds for those who cannot function in mainstream schools, alternative education providers are seen as outliers in the provision of schooling. With schools as relatively stable workplaces, alternative education provision makes for a rich laboratory to further our understanding of the causal impact of schooling on a range of outcomes. They are naturally occurring experiments in schooling through interventions in instruct…
Election or selection? School autonomy reform, governance and the politics of school councils
Neoliberal policies promoting school autonomy reform in Australia and internationally have, over three decades, appropriated earlier social democratic discourses of parental participation and partnership in school governance. Recent school autonomy reforms have repositioned school council/boards within a narrow frame of accountability and management operating in marketized systems of education. This paper considers the perceptions of 12 stakehold…
The spatiality of economic maldistribution in public-school funding in Australia
This paper analyses the composition, distribution, and history of school funding in Australia through a spatial lens (Soja 2010). We explore multi-scalar school funding policy through three layers of economic maldistribution. We sketch the funding disparities between the three school sectors (public, Catholic, and independent) exposing a spatial injustice in policies of school choice; the spatial and economic maldistribution between state jurisdi…
Leading schools for specific purposes
Schools for specific purposes (SSP) are and have been a significant feature of the education ecosystem since the roll out of mass schooling in Australia and elsewhere. SSPs serve some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. While their social and emotional worth to their communities (students, educators, families) is rarely questioned, the role of SSP in the pursuit of equity and inclusivity remains contested. This has significant i…
François Dépelteau and the generation of a relational intellectual community
François Dépelteau is a major figure in the contemporary rise of relational scholarship. His untimely passing casts a shadow over the relational research community, particularly those with close ties to the Canadian sociological association research cluster. This paper seeks to honour the contribution and legacy of François through a relational analysis of a relational research community. Mobilising Eacott’s relational approach, this paper turns …
Higher education leadership and context
Purpose Universities claim to provide many benefits to their context. What remains less clear is what is meant by context. Whatever it is, context is fundamental to decision-making. Understanding what context means is crucial to understanding leadership in higher education. Design/methodology/approach Theoretically informed by Eacott's relational approach, this study is based on interview data from a purposive sample of ten English vice-chancello…
Philosophy of education in a new key
Within the rough ground that is the field of education there is a complex web of ethical obligations: to prepare our students for their future work; to be ethical as educators in our conduct and teaching; to the ethical principles embedded in the contexts in which we work; and given the Southern context of this work, the ethical obligations we have to this land and its First Peoples. We put out a call to colleagues whose work has been concerned w…
Regional secondary school consolidation
This paper engages with an innovative approach to school consolidation in regional New South Wales, Australia. Adopting a ‘one school, two sites’ model, it is argued that this innovative approach to school consolidation requires new theoretical resources to understand ‘the school’. Theoretically informed by Eacott’s relational approach and drawing on publicly available data (e.g. MySchool) and focus groups with school leaders, this paper argues t…
School autonomy, marketisation and social justice
There remains strong political support for school autonomy reform within Australian public education despite evidence linking this reform to exacerbating school and systemic inequities. This paper presents interview data from key education stakeholders gathered from a broader study that is investigating the social justice implications of school autonomy reform across three Australian states. We focus on the concerns these stakeholders raise about…
Supplementary no more
As cross-country comparisons of education systems have become increasingly important for policy-making, different structural arrangements have attracted attention in the pursuit of equity and excellence. One area of interest has been instructional time in formal schooling. Missing in such comparisons is the role instruction outside of formal/compulsory schooling. Supplementary education in its many forms has a long history, global reach, and is i…
Relations, Organising, Leadership and Education
Social epistemology and the theory turn
This paper is a response to Richard Niesche’s recent JEAH paper claiming a ‘theory turn’ in educational leadership. Bringing Niesche’s argument into conversation with recent work on social epistemology in the field, I argue that any claim for a theory turn is premature and arguably requires further nuancing of enduring issues. Framed around the relational methodology, the argument articulates my own complicity with the proposed theory turn, befor…
Theoretical notes on a relational approach to principals’ time use
Principals’ time use has emerged as a serious policy problem in an era of reported decline in school outcomes – both organisational and individual student – and with difficulties in attracting quality candidates for vacancies. The contemporary crisis of the principalship is centred on an ever increasing workload (volume and complexity) and a deficit of time for instructional leadership. Units of the clock are the orthodox version of time in moder…
A social epistemology for educational administration and leadership
As a field of knowledge production, educational administration and leadership scholars do a substantial amount of talking past one another. These parallel monologues are a major issue for the advancement of knowledge. Original contributions can only be made in relation to others. That is, the innovation or significance of scholarship is an act of (social) scientific distinction. This means purposely engaging with the other. In this paper, I argue…
School autonomy, marketisation and social justice
There remains strong political support for school autonomy reform within Australian public education despite evidence linking this reform to exacerbating school and systemic inequities. This paper presents interview data from key education stakeholders gathered from a broader study that is investigating the social justice implications of school autonomy reform across three Australian states. We focus on the concerns these stakeholders raise about…
Philosophy of education in a new key
Within the rough ground that is the field of education there is a complex web of ethical obligations: to prepare our students for their future work; to be ethical as educators in our conduct and teaching; to the ethical principles embedded in the contexts in which we work; and given the Southern context of this work, the ethical obligations we have to this land and its First Peoples. We put out a call to colleagues whose work has been concerned w…
Preparing ‘educational’ leaders in managerialist times
The preparation of educational leaders is a global phenomenon. Education systems have developed numerous means by which current and aspiring leaders are prepared for the role. Through the example of a large public school system in Australia, this paper argues that the doxa of school leadership establishes a particular identity of the principalship. One which constructs the principal as the deliverer of state initiated reforms. Theoretically infor…
Election or selection? School autonomy reform, governance and the politics of school councils
Neoliberal policies promoting school autonomy reform in Australia and internationally have, over three decades, appropriated earlier social democratic discourses of parental participation and partnership in school governance. Recent school autonomy reforms have repositioned school council/boards within a narrow frame of accountability and management operating in marketized systems of education. This paper considers the perceptions of 12 stakehold…
Towards a theory of school leadership practice
Despite the ‘practice’ turn in the broader management literature, very little work in educational administration has engaged in a theoretical discussion about what constitutes leadership practice. Theoretically informed by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this paper contributes to the long-established critical tradition in the educational administration literature, to argue that: (i) ‘leadership’ is a label of the managerialist project of …
A social epistemology for educational administration and leadership
As a field of knowledge production, educational administration and leadership scholars do a substantial amount of talking past one another. These parallel monologues are a major issue for the advancement of knowledge. Original contributions can only be made in relation to others. That is, the innovation or significance of scholarship is an act of (social) scientific distinction. This means purposely engaging with the other. In this paper, I argue…
The principalship, autonomy, and after
Contemporary discourses in educational administration have exponentially grown the number of adjectival leaderships, challenged traditional organisational structures, and offered autonomy as a solution to performance issues. In this theoretical paper, I ask what does the principalship look like after autonomy? Despite the range of objections that could be raised in relation to thinking with and through an organisational role, it is the contention…
Rethinking ‘leadership’ in education
Knowledge production in educational leadership, management and administration has been, and continues to be, seduced by fads. One of the most significant trends in recent decades has been the ascendancy of ‘leadership’. In this introductory paper, I both introduce the contributions to this special issue and, more importantly, locate this collection within the intellectual tradition of disruptive Australian scholarship and the discourses of JEAH. …
Teaching educational leadership and administration in Australia
Despite the ubiquity of programmes in educational administration and leadership little is known about the resources used to teach them. This article reviews the sources currently employed in such programmes in Australia by examining the textbooks, book chapters and journal articles specified for 53 separate units (papers) offered at 15 of the key institutions that responded to requests for copies of their reading lists. Surprisingly, few of the u…
School provision, workforce distribution, housing, and the staffing of schools
Pursuing Sustainable Development Goal 4 has led to more children and youth accessing schooling than at any point in history. However, this expansion of provision has not been without workforce challenges. UNESCO modelling indicates a global shortfall of 44 million teachers by 2030. The challenge of having a sufficiently qualified school education workforce where it is needed is amplified in locations where affordable quality stock of housing is l…
Regional secondary school consolidation
This paper engages with an innovative approach to school consolidation in regional New South Wales, Australia. Adopting a ‘one school, two sites’ model, it is argued that this innovative approach to school consolidation requires new theoretical resources to understand ‘the school’. Theoretically informed by Eacott’s relational approach and drawing on publicly available data (e.g. MySchool) and focus groups with school leaders, this paper argues t…
Supplementary no more
As cross-country comparisons of education systems have become increasingly important for policy-making, different structural arrangements have attracted attention in the pursuit of equity and excellence. One area of interest has been instructional time in formal schooling. Missing in such comparisons is the role instruction outside of formal/compulsory schooling. Supplementary education in its many forms has a long history, global reach, and is i…
Theoretical notes on a relational approach to principals’ time use
Principals’ time use has emerged as a serious policy problem in an era of reported decline in school outcomes – both organisational and individual student – and with difficulties in attracting quality candidates for vacancies. The contemporary crisis of the principalship is centred on an ever increasing workload (volume and complexity) and a deficit of time for instructional leadership. Units of the clock are the orthodox version of time in moder…
New Frontiers in Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Theory
Educational leadership, management and administration as a field of study has a rich history of epistemological debate. From the work of Andrew Halpin and Daniel Griffiths in the 1950s and 1960s in
The pendulum swings
The pendulum swings: transforming school reform." Journal of Educational Administration and History, 43(1), pp. 85–86
On heautoscopy or the phenomenon of the double
A review of the literature on the phenomenon of the double is presented. The reasons for the use of the term heautoscopy instead of the more widely used autoscopy are given. The phenomenological characteristics of the phenomenon differentiate heutoscopic depersonalization from heautoscopic delusion. A case of the former is reported and an example of the delusional form is quoted
Teaching educational leadership and administration in Australia
Despite the ubiquity of programmes in educational administration and leadership little is known about the resources used to teach them. This article reviews the sources currently employed in such programmes in Australia by examining the textbooks, book chapters and journal articles specified for 53 separate units (papers) offered at 15 of the key institutions that responded to requests for copies of their reading lists. Surprisingly, few of the u…
The pendulum swings
The pendulum swings: transforming school reform." Journal of Educational Administration and History, 43(1), pp. 85–86
Preparing ‘educational’ leaders in managerialist times
The preparation of educational leaders is a global phenomenon. Education systems have developed numerous means by which current and aspiring leaders are prepared for the role. Through the example of a large public school system in Australia, this paper argues that the doxa of school leadership establishes a particular identity of the principalship. One which constructs the principal as the deliverer of state initiated reforms. Theoretically infor…
Rethinking ‘leadership’ in education
Knowledge production in educational leadership, management and administration has been, and continues to be, seduced by fads. One of the most significant trends in recent decades has been the ascendancy of ‘leadership’. In this introductory paper, I both introduce the contributions to this special issue and, more importantly, locate this collection within the intellectual tradition of disruptive Australian scholarship and the discourses of JEAH. …
Towards a theory of school leadership practice
Despite the ‘practice’ turn in the broader management literature, very little work in educational administration has engaged in a theoretical discussion about what constitutes leadership practice. Theoretically informed by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this paper contributes to the long-established critical tradition in the educational administration literature, to argue that: (i) ‘leadership’ is a label of the managerialist project of …
The generative temporality of teaching under revision
What we have come to understand as education has a temporal dimension: the school year, progression based on time, timetables, and so on. Similarly, our understanding of teaching is framed by temporality, primarily through salary structures and an implicit coupling of performance with time in the field. We argue that this underlying generative temporality is under revision. This revision is taking place through policy moves such as the profession…
Problematising the Intellectual Gaze of the Educational Administration Scholar
Whereas epistemological debates raged in educational administration during the Theory Movement, or inspired by intervention from Thom Greenfield, Richard Bates or Colin Evers and Gabriele Lakomski, epistemology and the quest for the scientific study of educational administration has somewhat diminished in the era of managerialism and the pursuit of research that has a direct impact on practice. Theoretically informed by the work of the French soc…
New Frontiers in Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Theory
Educational leadership, management and administration as a field of study has a rich history of epistemological debate. From the work of Andrew Halpin and Daniel Griffiths in the 1950s and 1960s in
The principalship, autonomy, and after
Contemporary discourses in educational administration have exponentially grown the number of adjectival leaderships, challenged traditional organisational structures, and offered autonomy as a solution to performance issues. In this theoretical paper, I ask what does the principalship look like after autonomy? Despite the range of objections that could be raised in relation to thinking with and through an organisational role, it is the contention…
Fluctuations in value
Journal rankings are increasingly being used as proxies for assessing the quality and worth of individual faculty and their contribution to institutional performance. Problematic within this agenda is the historical mapping and projection of current journal rankings. Individual papers are being assessed against criteria far removed – temporally – from when decisions were made regarding where to publish. Drawing upon three examples of publishing i…
A social epistemology for educational administration and leadership
As a field of knowledge production, educational administration and leadership scholars do a substantial amount of talking past one another. These parallel monologues are a major issue for the advancement of knowledge. Original contributions can only be made in relation to others. That is, the innovation or significance of scholarship is an act of (social) scientific distinction. This means purposely engaging with the other. In this paper, I argue…
Relations, Organising, Leadership and Education
Social epistemology and the theory turn
This paper is a response to Richard Niesche’s recent JEAH paper claiming a ‘theory turn’ in educational leadership. Bringing Niesche’s argument into conversation with recent work on social epistemology in the field, I argue that any claim for a theory turn is premature and arguably requires further nuancing of enduring issues. Framed around the relational methodology, the argument articulates my own complicity with the proposed theory turn, befor…
Theoretical notes on a relational approach to principals’ time use
Principals’ time use has emerged as a serious policy problem in an era of reported decline in school outcomes – both organisational and individual student – and with difficulties in attracting quality candidates for vacancies. The contemporary crisis of the principalship is centred on an ever increasing workload (volume and complexity) and a deficit of time for instructional leadership. Units of the clock are the orthodox version of time in moder…
School autonomy, marketisation and social justice
There remains strong political support for school autonomy reform within Australian public education despite evidence linking this reform to exacerbating school and systemic inequities. This paper presents interview data from key education stakeholders gathered from a broader study that is investigating the social justice implications of school autonomy reform across three Australian states. We focus on the concerns these stakeholders raise about…
Supplementary no more
As cross-country comparisons of education systems have become increasingly important for policy-making, different structural arrangements have attracted attention in the pursuit of equity and excellence. One area of interest has been instructional time in formal schooling. Missing in such comparisons is the role instruction outside of formal/compulsory schooling. Supplementary education in its many forms has a long history, global reach, and is i…
François Dépelteau and the generation of a relational intellectual community
François Dépelteau is a major figure in the contemporary rise of relational scholarship. His untimely passing casts a shadow over the relational research community, particularly those with close ties to the Canadian sociological association research cluster. This paper seeks to honour the contribution and legacy of François through a relational analysis of a relational research community. Mobilising Eacott’s relational approach, this paper turns …
Higher education leadership and context
Purpose Universities claim to provide many benefits to their context. What remains less clear is what is meant by context. Whatever it is, context is fundamental to decision-making. Understanding what context means is crucial to understanding leadership in higher education. Design/methodology/approach Theoretically informed by Eacott's relational approach, this study is based on interview data from a purposive sample of ten English vice-chancello…
Philosophy of education in a new key
Within the rough ground that is the field of education there is a complex web of ethical obligations: to prepare our students for their future work; to be ethical as educators in our conduct and teaching; to the ethical principles embedded in the contexts in which we work; and given the Southern context of this work, the ethical obligations we have to this land and its First Peoples. We put out a call to colleagues whose work has been concerned w…
Regional secondary school consolidation
This paper engages with an innovative approach to school consolidation in regional New South Wales, Australia. Adopting a ‘one school, two sites’ model, it is argued that this innovative approach to school consolidation requires new theoretical resources to understand ‘the school’. Theoretically informed by Eacott’s relational approach and drawing on publicly available data (e.g. MySchool) and focus groups with school leaders, this paper argues t…
Leading schools for specific purposes
Schools for specific purposes (SSP) are and have been a significant feature of the education ecosystem since the roll out of mass schooling in Australia and elsewhere. SSPs serve some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. While their social and emotional worth to their communities (students, educators, families) is rarely questioned, the role of SSP in the pursuit of equity and inclusivity remains contested. This has significant i…
Principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and educational leadership
This paper examines principals’ perceptions of school autonomy and leadership as part of a 3-year research project looking at the implications of school autonomy on social justice across four states of Australia (Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland). Drawing on interviews with principals and representatives from principal stakeholder organisations in these four state jurisdictions, the paper identifies a number of key issu…
The principled principal
Purpose Steiner schools represent a natural experiment in the provision of schooling. With a history dating back more than 100 years, leadership, leaders and the principal do not sit easily with Steiner educators. The contemporary regulatory environment requires a “principal” or legal authority at the school-building level, creating a tension for Steiner schools. This makes Steiner schools an ideal case study for understanding the contemporary ro…
School autonomy reform and social justice
Political science (28 obras) · Sociology (28 obras) · Pedagogy (18 obras) · Teacher Education and Leadership Studies (18 obras) · Law (16 obras) · Economics (13 obras) · Epistemology (13 obras) · Law (13 obras) · Public Administration (11 obras) · Public relations (11 obras)