Abstract
This chapter examines the evolution of thinking in the field of educational administration/leadership. A field is a site of practice in a contested social space. Bourdieu (Practical reason. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988) indicates that a field contains doxa, that is, knowledge, ideas, processes, outlooks, procedural shortcuts, assumptions with an approved set of linguistic words and ideas. Over time the doxa of a field undergo changes. The reasons for the change may relate to significant new discoveries, which lead to replacements and shifts among the doxa. In other cases, political influence may be behind such changes. The distinctions between Foucault’s three enunciative fields are never hard and fast. The reason is that a “field” is a fluid social space, one in which there is no final authority to determine or define its “true” nature. A “field” therefore is a social space of constant struggle and uneasy peace. The shifting nature of the field of educational administration/leadership is examined in this chapter highlighting some of the major “turnings” that have endured.