THROUGH A LOOKING GLASS DARKLY: CONSIDERATIONS OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION IN AN AGE OF DIVERSITY

As the ever‐changing social matrix affects all public institutions, so does it affect the public school. In fact, because of the school's unique status as the repository of our collective aspirations and its accessibility to the general public, the school frequently becomes the central agent in the drama of larger social change. By assuming the role as mediator between present and developing values, the school in effect sponsors its own institutional transformation. Against a background of emerging social trends, this paper attempts to explore a number of such transformations and the pedagogical “futures” which they suggest. Specifically, this discussion centres on the administration of public education in Canada, and to a lesser extent that of the United States. For the most part, focus is directed at separating administrative characteristics which might be labelled “constants”—that is, those that are unlikely to change over time—from an array of other organizational elements which are likely to experience profound revision (for example, the role of the principal). As might be expected, this is a speculative venture.