William P. Foster’s Promises for Educational Leadership: Critical Idealism in an Applied Field

Abstract

In 1986, William P. Foster added another measure of insight to the growing awareness that traditional approaches to explaining leadership phenomena in schooling had proven more illusion than illumination. With the publication of Paradigms and Promises: New Approaches to Educational Administration (1986), Foster’s scrutiny on market-bound and orthodox views of organizations challenged conventional scholarship on schooling and leadership. His promotion of a dialectically engaged and dynamic construction of education and educational leadership provided yet another impetus for the ensuing decades of reform in scholarship, preparation, and practices of the field. Upon the first anniversary of his death, Educational Administration Quarterly dedicates this edition to recognize and probe Foster’s scholarly legacy in addition to celebrating his generosity as a colleague and mentor.