Forewords by William. F. Pinar, Carolyn Shields, Tomas Englund -- Part I: Re-Theorizing the Field - Foundations to a Research Program -- 1. Non-Affirmative Theory of Education Bridging Curriculum Studies, Didaktik and Educational Leadership; Michael Uljens and Rose Ylimaki -- Part II: Transnational Developments Challenging Leadership and Curriculum Work -- 2. Neo-Liberal Governance leads Education and Educational Leadership Astray; Leif Moos -- 3. Lead Learner or Head Teacher? Exploring Connections among Curriculum, Leadership and Evolution in an ”Age of Measurement”; Gert Biesta -- 4. Against the Epistemicide; Joao Paraskeva -- Part III: Curriculum Theory and Didaktik in US and Europe -- 5. The Didaktik/Curriculum Dialogue – what did we learn?; Walter Doyle -- 6. School Leadership as Gap Management – Curriculum Traditions, Changing Evaluation Parameters, and School Leadership Pathways; Mariella Knapp and Stefan Hopmann -- 7. Curriculum Theory in Contestation? American Curriculum, European Didaktik, and Chinese Wisdom Traditions as Hybrid Platforms for Educational Leadership; Tero Autio -- Part IV: Leadership, Didaktik and Curriculum Studies -- 8. Forging the Needed Dialogue Between Educational Leadership and Curriculum Inqury: Placing Social Justice, Democracy and Multicultural Perspective into Practice; Ira Bogotch, Dilys Schoorman and Daniel Reyes-Guerra -- 9. School Leadership and Curriculum - German Perspectives; Stephan Huber, Pierre Tulowitzki and Uwe Hameyer -- 10. Teachers and Administrators as Lead Professionals for democratic Ethics: From Course Design to Collaborative Journeys of Becoming; Daniel J. Castner, Rosemary Gornik, James G. Henderson and Wendy L. Samford -- 11. Codification of present Swedish Curriculum Processes – Linking Educational Activities Over Time and Space; Eva Forsberg, Elisabet Nihlfors, Daniel Pettersson & Pia Skott -- 12. Rethinking Authority in Educational Leadership; William F. Pinar -- Part V: Discursive and Multi-Level Perspectives -- 13. National Curriculum Development as Educational Leadership – A Discursive and Non-Affirmative Approach; Michael Uljens and Helena Rajakaltio -- 14. Curriculum and Leadership in Transnational Reform Policy: A Discursive-Institutionalist Approach; Kirsten Sivesind and Ninni Wahlström -- 15. Curriculum theory, Didaktik, and Educational Leadership: Reflections on the Foundations of the Research Program; Rose Ylimaki and Michael Uljens. .

Open Access

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This volume argues for the need of a common ground that bridges leadership studies, curriculum theory, and Didaktik. It proposes a non-affirmative education theory and its core concepts along with discursive institutionalism as an analytical tool to bridge these fields. It concludes with implications of its coherent theoretical framing for future empirical research. Recent neoliberal policies and transnational governance practices point toward new tensions in nation state education. These challenges affect governance, leadership and curriculum, involving changes in aims and values that demand coherence. Yet, the traditionally disparate fields of educational leadership, curriculum theory and Didaktik have developed separately, both in terms of approaches to theory and theorizing in USA, Europe and Asia, and in the ways in which these theoretical traditions have informed empirical studies over time. An additional aspect is that modern education theory was developed in relation to nation state education, which, in the meantime, has become more complicated due to issues of ‘globopolitanism’. This volume examines the current state of affairs and addresses the issues involved. In doing so, it opens up a space for a renewed and thoughtful dialogue to rethink and re-theorize these traditions with non-affirmative education theory moving beyond social reproduction and social transformation perspectives. .