Move over Rover! An essay/assay of the field of educational management in the UK

UK educational administration scholars have undertaken a survey to redefine the field of knowledge in educational management and/or administration. In responding to the resulting corpus of work, I argue that that this is an e xercise in 'turf talk'. I draw on theorizations of the socio-spatialities o f fields of knowledge to consider educational management and/or administrat ion and its border scuffles with policy sociology and the exclusion of deba tes about knowledge and truth claims that characterize the 'new humanities' . I suggest that the lack of regard accorded the situated empirical and pra ctical knowledges of practitioners, and the invisibility in the analyses of the active role of head teacher professional associations in the current c ontext, places the academy in an adversarial position vis-a-vis practitione rs. As government moves to make research 'more useful', and positions acade mics as training providers and management consultants for head teachers, I propose that educational management and/or administration scholars must mov e over to share ground and dialogue with the emerging head teacher professi on.