Chapter 5: Leadership as a Master Class: Joining Role and Task in the Practice of Educational Administration

This chapter examines the phenomenon of educational administration within a cultural/symbolic conceptual frame. Drawn from the author’s experience as principal of a small Montessori school, the argument concentrates on the interrelationship of technical and cultural expertise as they arise out of particular educational cultures and are constructed in practice. Using the metaphor of the Master Class, the author highlights the manner in which educational administrators embody valued expertise in symbolic action. In characterizing leadership as “cultural activity” (Heibert, Gallimore, & Stigler, 2002), the chapter elaborates a theory of leadership practice as deeply and reciprocally linked to culture-bound norms and ideologies and made visible in the actions of practitioners.