On Being and Becoming an Educational Administrator: Some Methodological Issues

Abstract

This article draws on the theory and the methodology of recently completed research in an attempt to encourage departures from observational studies in the Mintzberg style. It argues for another approach to the interpretation of action: for one that begins with the existential meanings of an adminstrator and is cognizant over time of how the administrator's changing relationship with his or her position and context is in turn relative to (and embedded in) wider "host"structures. In short, an existential and ethnographic approach is advocated in understanding what is termed the being and becoming of an educational administrator.