Journal of Educational Practice and Research (Dec 2018)
Educational Administration as a Technology of Control? - A Study on the Educational Implications of R. Bates Critical Theory
Abstract
R. Bates is one of the most important educational administration scholars in modern time. However, there has been little research about Bates in Taiwan. The uniqueness of Bates’s theory lies in the analysis of educational administration based on sociology, combining critical theory with educational administration practice. For Bates, the purpose of educational administration is liberation rather than control, which corresponds to the aim of needing to anti-control the administration process, bringing to the forefront the contrary of every means of learning knowledge and administration regulations. Based on this theory, a new direction of educational administration perspective may begin in Taiwan, with focus on reflecting what the significance of the theory movement is. This study begins with the reflection on the origin of administration control, revealing the municipal reform movement, occupational professionalization, and the cult of efficiency as a source, which leads to four major problems: (1) reinforcing social reproduction on education, (2) knowledge as a product of school reproduction, (3) producing a didactic pedagogy, and (4) lacking a fundamental commitment to the ideas of community and to the mutuality of social concerns. The researcher also analyzes the three differences of control theory and critical theory, and deduces the three implications of educational administration democratization, multiculturalism, and justice, with expectation to reach different perspectives in educational administration by means of a new voice.
