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Program Theme: "Disciplined Inquiry: Education Research in the Circle of Knowledge"

As mentioned in the AERA’s website (please visit www.aera.net for more information) with regards to the upcoming conference for 2009, at a time when knowledge creation and use require spanning boundaries between academic disciplines, education researchers can take pride in their long tradition of multidisciplinary work. AERA's 2009 Annual Meeting will celebrate this tradition and look ahead to assess new ways that education research and disciplinary inquiry might be more effectively integrated. Relations between education research and disciplinary inquiry have been reciprocal and multifaceted. The disciplines have contributed a diverse array of theoretical insights and research methods to the study of education and its societal roles. Education research, in turn, has provided a major venue for testing theory and developing analytical methods, and its studies have helped refine and expand those theories in significant ways. More than multidisciplinary endeavors in many other fields, education research has been inclusive in its application of disciplinary perspectives and in its respect for quantitative and qualitative methods. The result has been a uniquely rich capacity for education research to draw on a broad range of humanistic and scientific disciplines and to contribute widely to the improvement of education policy and practice.

Based on the above, the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration and Management (CCEAM) invites proposals for papers to be presented in a two-hour symposium to be held during the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in San Diego, California.

In keeping with the AERA annual meeting theme of Disciplined Inquiry: Education Research in the Circle of Knowledge, the CCEAM symposium theme is The Quest for Knowledge: Theory and Praxis in Educational Leadership and proposals should address some of the following questions: How can interdisciplinary research enhance the preparation and development of educational leaders? Are there any best research methods or paradigms that can best enhance and take forward the field of educational leadership? Is there a real dilemma between quantitative and qualitative methods in researching educational leadership? Is there room for collaboration between researchers and practitioners in the field of educational leadership? What factors influence the effectiveness or lack thereof of school leaders and how can we best be informed through interdisciplinary research?

Proposals, which should be a maximum of 500 words and include authors’ names, institutional affiliations, and contact information, should be sent as an attached Word file to the CCEAM President, Professor Petros Pashiardis, at the Open University of Cyprus at p.pashiardis@ouc.ac.cy. The deadline for receipt of paper proposals is June 30, 2008.

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