In the past three decades politicians, journalists, researchers within the academy, and neo-liberalist critics of state schools have articulated that educational research is neither meaningful nor worthwhile. Yet empirical evidence has revealed that research plays a key role in informing decisions made by educational leaders. This book explores the tools needed to conduct ethical educational research, and the contribution postgraduate research might make to the training and development of educational leaders and their thinking and practice within educational settings. Recent debates position the production and use of ethical educational research as important for Nation States' governments; Alison Taysum investigates the thinking tools required for such research and examines what good practice looks and feels like. Supported by international case studies, the study approaches and engages with the role evidence informed leadership might play in making the social justice agendas contained within the policies of a number of nations become reality.

Foreword by Richard Pring 1. Evidence Informed Leadership: Why bother? 2. Policy and Evidence Informed Leadership: Every Child Matters and No Child Left Behind in focus 3. Tools to Facilitate Evidence Informed Leadership 4. Moving Towards Shared Understandings in Complex Educational Settings 5. Confronting Taken-for-Granted Ways of Thinking and Doing that Limit Change 6. Ethical Frameworks for Developing Evidence Informed Leadership: Guarding against false and dangerous promises 7. Practical Cases Where Evidence Informed Leadership Enhanced Educational Opportunities Whilst Meeting the Social Justice Agenda of Educational Policies 8. Evidence Informed Leadership Takes Time Because it Matters Index