A seminar examining the strategies, techniques, and problems involved in the conduct of research in educational administration. This seminar prepares the student for defining research problems, reviewing relevant literature, writing research proposals, conducting research and writing reports in educational administration. During this course the student will prepare the proposal for their Major Research Paper.

The goals of this course are to provide students with an introduction to the purposes of research in educational leadership and policy and to assist students in learning how to obtain, evaluate, interpret, and use research in their work as educators and in their graduate studies. Possible topics include: overview of different research paradigms and research strategies used in studies of policy, leadership, and change; how to critically analyze the strengths and weakness of research; how to conduct a review of literature and build a bibliography; dissemination of research; the connections between research, policy, and practice; the role of research and evaluation departments; leadership roles in sponsoring, directing, using, and communicating research.

This course provides an introduction to quantitative methods of inquiry and a foundation for more advanced courses in applied statistics for students in education and social sciences. The course covers univariate and bivariate descriptive statistics; an introduction to sampling, experimental design, and statistical inference; contingency tables and Chi-square; t-test, analysis of variance, and regression. Students will learn to use Excel or SPSS software.

At the end of the course, students should be able to define and use the descriptive and inferential statistics taught in this course to analyze real data and to interpret the analytical results. No prior knowledge of statistics is required.

An analysis of the organizational culture of educational organizations. The implications for action resulting from research and theory relating to organizational culture are examined. Case studies and field experiences are used as bases for the analysis of decision-making within the context of specific organizational cultures.

This course examines how to effectively develop the people who work in education throughout their careers. The course includes attention to different education systems’ approaches to developing and organizing people in education in Canada and internationally. Topics for investigation include induction, mentoring, coaching, effective continuing professional learning and development, leading and developing educators including performance appraisal and support, and leadership development for aspiring and current school and system leaders.

An analysis of issues and problems in conceptualizing, operationalizing, and evaluating a total school environment in terms of a range of divergent goals and values. Major topics include strategies for program development and change in the context of education in Ontario, Canada, and internationally; theoretical and empirical bases differentiating educational environments, the role of the program manager, and skills needed to manage program development, organization, implementation, and evaluation.

Practical considerations in solving political problems in and about schools. Focus is on the five levels of local governance: family/school, micro-politics (within the school), neighbourhood, meso-politics (the school and the central office), and the board. Special attention to understanding background variables such as the environment, institutions, power, and issues. Workshop activities centre around processes such as coalition-building, advocating, believing, and co-producing. Readings include procedural, fictional, and conceptual materials.

Administrators in education and teachers are continually asked to decide on matters of equity, to adjudicate between conflicting value positions, and to accommodate different rights and human interests in their planning. Often administrative practice in these areas is less than successful. This course will study various ethical schools of thought and modern approaches to social justice. It will apply that content to administrative practice in education. Particular attention will be given to equity issues in areas of race, culture, gender, age, social class, national origin, language, ancestry, sexual orientation, citizenship, and physical or mental abilities.

This course deals with how teachers contribute to and are affected by administrative processes. It looks at the determinants of teachers' classroom strategies, the work culture of teachers, teachers' careers, the role of teachers in school decision-making, the relationship of teachers' educational commitments to aspects of their broader lives (such as age, religious and political beliefs, and gender identity), and the role of teachers in fostering or inhibiting educational change. The course will be of interest to elementary and secondary teachers and to educational administrators.

An examination of the current context of legal discourse related to the practical exigencies of present-day school experience. A detailed study of statutory and common law sources under which educators operate. The law is not immutable. Emphasis on negligence, malpractice, human rights and the school system, teacher rights, and student discipline and the Young Offenders Act and Zero Tolerance.

This course provides students interested in educational policy analysis with a working understanding of the relevant conceptual, methodological, ethical, and political issues. In this course, students conduct in-depth analysis of educational policy issues that are in recent public discourse as well as those that they are personally interested in. Students are guided through relevant readings, class discussions, and assignments to examine the different aspects of educational policy: historical, political, social, and personal. We also examine different educational policy issues from the perspectives of different stakeholders: students, family, teachers/educators, unions, administrators, bureaucrats/civil servants, politicians, and society-at-large.

Course assignments support students in learning how to frame an educational issue; critique and analyze policies through a critical and anti-colonial perspective; use existing research evidence to analyze the implications of the issue and to develop options for addressing the issue; collaborate with stakeholders; and communicate policy issues with different audiences. Visits by guest speakers will ensure that students are exposed to a range of policy topics as well as contrasting framing and communication styles. Major assignments for the class will consist of carrying out in-depth policy analysis or some of the aspects of an applied research project.

This course introduces the theoretical and empirical methods used in the modern economic analysis of education policy. We will apply economic theory and econometric methods to a wide range of educational policy issues, including the demand for and returns to schooling, the impact of school resources on student outcomes, education and growth, student incentives, school choice, accountability, teacher labour markets, and the equity and efficiency of school funding. Throughout the course, attention will be paid to the ability of statistics and econometric methods to make causal inferences about the effects of education policies and predict the likely impact of policy changes.

This course offers a broad survey of contemporary research, theory and debates in Sociology of Education. The course is organized by 3 major connections between schools and society: social organization, selection, and socialization. It will examine how schooling has become a core institution in modern society, central for understanding emerging forms of culture, economy, inequality, and social organization. The course will prepare students to conduct research on many educational topics at both K-12 and post-secondary levels. It will focus on trends that have shaped education in the modern era, particularly over the past 30 years. Most readings will be by North America-based empirical sociologists, though we will also look at many international trends.

This course counters conventional approaches to the study and research of education policy by setting it against the dynamic and shifting context of policy enacted on the ground. Through critical policy sociology, it places emphasis on variables impacting teachers' sensemaking as well as the negotiation, contestation, and struggle of actors outside of official processes to change the conditions of oppressive social practices and injustice in schooling.

This course offers a critical approach to evaluate education technology (EdTech) through the lens of pre and (post) pandemic education policies. A critical approach engages structures of power and the politics of choice and access; it holds tension between the promise of EdTech as revolutionary and the application of EdTech as a site of social reproduction and injustice. Topics include but are not limited to product enabled surveillance, market-driven education reforms, social-stratification, artificial intelligence, and internationalization.

This course provides an introduction to educational policy, leadership and change in general and to this program in particular by focusing on foundational concepts and theories significant to the understanding of education and educational administration. It offers a critical examination of a wide range of topics central to educational administration, educational policy, leadership and change, such as organization, community, power, authority, change, difference, leadership, and values. This examination will take into account major historical developments in the field as well as differing theoretical stances or paradigms, such as positivism, functionalism, interpretivism, critical pedagogy, feminism, post-structuralism and post-modernism. The course will help students understand how to use theory to make sense of educational practice in productive ways.

This course will focus on the social and policy contexts in which elementary and secondary educators work. Students will be exposed to a variety of issues related to schooling in a diverse and complex environment such as: differing purposes, philosophies, and values of education; multiculturalism and social justice; equity issues related to race, class, gender, and language; parental influences on schooling; the relationship of schooling to the labor market and the economy; choice of school and program; decentralization and centralization; standards and accountability; educational finance; school reform; educational and non-educational pressure groups and stakeholders. Through an exploration of these or related topics, this course will help students to continue to develop their understanding of different paradigms and methods used in research in educational administration, leadership, policy and change.

This course will examine various leadership approaches in K-12 schools with a view to informing educational leadership theory and practice. Schools operate in diverse contexts and as such school leaders must be prepared to engage with the diversity presented in schools and school communities. The course will examine, among other things, the connections between school leadership practices, theories, student engagement, and student achievement. Possibilities, challenges, and tensions of various school leadership frameworks such as culturally responsive, transformative, social justice leadership, decolonizing leadership, among others will be explored.

This course takes a broad view of school leadership and asserts that everyone in a school can lead, and leadership is about choosing decisions and actions that support all students to thrive. This course will be of value to students seeking to deepen their understanding of school leadership theorizing and practice in diverse contexts, and develop skills and knowledge needed to effectively lead schools.

The course explores ways in which discourses and practices grounded in white supremacy and coloniality have been operationalized in the field of educational leadership. Education and schooling are sites of continued contestations of knowledge that impacts learners in these spaces. The course examines how issues of race, anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, whiteness and other forms of oppression are theorized and practiced in educational leadership. Examining these issues offers alternative leadership epistemologies that scholars and practitioners can explore with the aim of changing the educational outcomes for those who continue to be oppressed in educational spaces. The course offers educators, educational practitioners, administrators, researchers and others to better understand and critique approaches to leadership within different educational and organizational contexts. Students will have the opportunity to engage with multiple perspectives and approaches to leadership framed within contemporary socio-cultural and political shifts and complexities. Overall, the course provides students with an opportunity to re-imagine school leadership undergirded by critical decolonizing antiracist frameworks.

This course explores the meaning of educational change, addressing such issues as contemporary views on educational reform, and the challenges in implementing change. The perspective is then used to better appreciate how those in leadership roles can facilitate efforts by stakeholders (principals, teachers, staff, and others) to improve their own practice as well as meaningfully respond to pressures for change. Through the readings, course work, and assignments, students will gain a broader comprehension of the pertinent skills required to manage educational change, with an emphasis on both knowledge acquisition and practice.

A companion course to 1047. Contemporary conceptions of leadership are examined for their value in helping present schools improve and future schools serve their publics well. Understanding of expert leadership is developed through the study not only of expert leaders' behaviors, but also of their feelings, values, and problem-solving strategies. The formal and informal experiences that contribute to the development of leadership expertise will be examined.

This course has been designed to be the final course for students in the 10-course M.Ed. Program in Educational Administration. The course provides an opportunity for students to explore and develop a comprehensive view of the field of educational administration, through a series of seminars designed to help summarize, integrate and consolidate knowledge of the field. Students will link particular problems in practice to the theoretical bases of the field, through the lenses of the major strands of our program: change, leadership, policy and social diversity. There will be a focus on analysis, synthesis and application, building a deeper understanding, situated in the broader field. The culmination of this course will be the creation of a comprehensive portfolio reflecting the student's understanding of the breadth and depth of the field.

Specialized study, under the direction of a staff member, focusing upon topics of particular interest to the student that are not included in available courses. While credit is not given for a thesis investigation proper, the study may be closely related to a thesis topic.

To enrol in this course, students must also be currently enrolled in the Education Leaders (Principal's Qualification) Program, PQP1, offered by OISE's Continuing and Professional Learning department. This course is the first of two courses to develop people to become school principals in Ontario. A key component of the course is the critical evaluation and focus on current research in the areas related to leadership practices and their effects, instructional leadership, education change, and reform efforts.

The course's content includes a critical awareness of current problems associated with educational leadership practice and application to current issues and problems in education informed by cutting-edge research and professional practice. The outcome of these courses is to hone the judgment of practitioners within the educational setting.

To enrol in this course, students must also be currently enrolled in the Education Leaders (Principal's Qualification) Program, PQP 2, offered by OISE's Continuing and Professional Learning department. This is the second of two courses which explores the role of the principal, one of the most influential roles in our educational system. It provides a foundation for candidates assuming the role of principal or vice-principal in Ontario schools and is one component of ongoing professional learning focused on the development of the personal and professional knowledge, and the skills and practices that lead to exemplary practice in the role of principal.

The program is designed to support candidates in becoming reflective educational leaders who are informed consumers of education research in their ongoing professional growth, and who can lead effectively in the dynamic, diverse contexts of Ontario, characterized by rapidly changing events and circumstances.

Numbers and data have a growing influence in educational policy-making at the local, national and international levels. Large-scale assessments are increasingly used for monitoring and accountability; randomized controlled trials are considered the ‘gold standard’ in assessing the effects of educational policies, with important implications for resource allocation. This course is an introduction to the uses of quantitative research in comparative, international and development education. The goal is for students to be able to read, understand, critique and synthesize quantitative evidence, and to formulate policy recommendations on key educational debates. We will read empirical research on topics such as privatization of schooling, international large-scale assessments (PISA, PIRLS, TIMSS, etc.), school segregation, vocational education, decentralization, private tutoring and gender inequality. We will compare economic versus sociological approaches to quantitative comparative research in terms of major underlying theories and assumptions and how these guide methods and analyses. Students will learn how to evaluate which evidence is credible, including what to look for in high-quality sampling, measurement, assessment, analysis and interpretation. No background in statistics or quantitative research methods is required.

Gender issues and gendered practices in education have global relevance and have received sustained scholarly and policy interest in northern and southern societies, as well as in the work of major international organizations such as the World Bank, the OECD, and various United Nations' agencies, bilateral donors, and transnational civil society organizations. This course will provide students with an opportunity to critically and comparatively explore different theoretical (e.g., feminist, womanist, Women in Development, Women and Development, Gender and Development, social change, education etc.) and discursive frameworks (e.g., human capital, human rights, human capabilities), policies and practices (e.g., Education for All, United Nations Girls' Education Initiative, affirmative action, single-sex education initiatives, feminist pedagogy etc.) that have constituted and shaped the broad and interdisciplinary field of gender and education over the last century. Given that the emphasis in this course is on "gender" as a socially constructed, performed, and contested identity(s), we will critically and comparatively investigate the educational opportunities, experiences and outcomes for girls, boys, women and men, as well as people identifying as non-binary, from early childhood to adulthood. Critical attention will also be given to the intersections of gender, race, class, age, and sexual orientation (among other categories of social difference) in relation to educational access, survival, output, and outcomes.