Resurrecting Pragmatism as a Philosophical Frame for Understanding, Researching, and Developing Performance in the Small District Superintendency

Abstract

In this article, the authors propose that pragmatism is a perspective with great promise for understanding and researching the work of small district superintendents and developing the abilities of both pre-service students and in-service practitioners to do that work. They maintain, based on their reading of focus group interviews with small district superintendents, that pragmatism adds important dimensions to understanding, researching, and developing the superintendency largely absent in other philosophical frames currently in use. They discuss how they are inspired by their reading of the transcripts and their considering the perceptions of their participants to review philosophical perspectives currently in-use in scholarship on educational leadership. They contrast pragmatism with three other commonly-used epistemological frames: (1) positivism/postpositivism; (2) postmodernism/poststructuralism; and (3) critical theory to explain why they think pragmatism brings a perspective essential to researching and developing the superintendency. (Contains 2 endnotes.)