Conference Agenda

Educational leadership and management (EDLM) scholarship has long been shaped by Anglo-American epistemologies, privileging positivist traditions and marginalizing alternative perspectives (Campbell & Mertkan, 2025). While geographical diversification has increased, epistemic hegemony persists, sustained by editorial gatekeeping, citational hierarchies, and infrastructural asymmetries (Mertkan et al., 2017). This symposium interrogates these dynamics through life history narratives of non-Anglo-American scholars. Life history methods are particularly suited to foregrounding the nexus between career trajectories and knowledge production (Floyd, 2012) through temporal, relational, and contextual dimensions of academic careers. This allows for a nuanced understanding of how scholars navigate their professional paths and contribute to knowledge production within and beyond dominant epistemic traditions (Goodson, 2000) and reveals how scholars’ identities and contributions are shaped by discursive formations and institutional dynamics (Magalhães & Veiga, 2015).

The symposium comprises four interrelated papers, which focus on the knowledge producer dimension of knowledge production and circulation. They are based on ongoing comparative research in China, Hong Kong, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Except the first, all papers are based on data generated through timelines, photo-elicitation, and semi-structured interviews conducted with non-Anglo-American educational leadership and management scholars located in these geographies. Apart from Qatar, sites were selected based on recent systematic reviews identifying them as emerging leaders in educational leadership and management scholarship outside the Anglo-American sphere (Hallinger, 2020; McGinity et al., 2022). Qatar was included based on its similarity to United Arab Emirates.

The opening paper introduces the comparative project, outlining its rationale, design, and analytical framework. It situates the inquiry within debates on epistemic diversity, drawing on recent critiques that geographical diversification alone does not dismantle entrenched hierarchies (Campbell & Mertkan, 2025; Hallinger & Kovačević, 2019; Mertkan & Campbell, under review; Santos, 2014; R’Boul, 2022).

The second paper examines the role of networks, mentorship, and relational support in shaping scholarly careers. It highlights how the absence of such support disempowers non-Anglo-American scholars, limiting their access to publishing opportunities and epistemic legitimacy.

The third paper explores identity construction and agency, analysing how scholars negotiate Anglo-American norms and epistemic hegemonies. It considers the extent to which agency enables resistance, legitimacy-seeking, or the cultivation of belonging, while also revealing constraints imposed by dominant paradigms.

Together, these papers advance a critical reconceptualization of EDLM scholarship. By foregrounding the lived experiences of scholars navigating uneven epistemic terrains, the symposium contributes to ongoing debates about pluriversal perspectives and the reconfiguration of knowledge production. It offers conceptual and methodological insights that enrich theory, policy, and practice, moving the field toward a more inclusive and equitable landscape.

Drawing on Campbell & Mertkan (2025) and Mertkan & Campbell (under review), the paper argues that although geographical diversification has increased in numerical terms, this expansion is yet to translate into a genuine multiplicity of voices. Epistemic hegemony persists, limiting the presence of pluriversal perspectives, diverse methodologies, and alternative theoretical frameworks needed to move the field beyond the “Anglo-American axis of influence” (Sugrue, 2005: 3) and honour the contextual factors moulding leadership in diverse settings into varied forms and practices (Dimmock & Tan, 2013; Takayama, 2017). Based on the above argument, the paper introduces the comparative life histories project being carried out in five countries: China, Hong Kong, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, setting out the need for life history perspectives to interrogate who produces knowledge, under what conditions, and with what impact. It establishes the project’s rationale alongside its design and analytical framework. Consequentially, it provides the conceptual scaffolding for the symposium, situating the project within debates on epistemic diversity and methodological pluralism.

References Campbell, P., & Mertkan, S. (2025). Geographical diversification of educational leadership research: Gaps in our understanding. Management in Education, 08920206251407030. Dimmock, C., & Yong Tan, C. (2013). Educational leadership in Singapore: Tight coupling, sustainability, scalability, and succession. Journal of educational administration, 51(3), 320-340. Mertkan, S., & Campbell, P. (under review). Theory of Academic Voice as Power Work: Formation and Amplification at the Intersection of Personal and Contextual. Sugrue, C. (2005). Passionate Principalship: Learning from the Life Histories of School Leaders. RoutledgeFalmer. Takayama, K., Kaplan, M., & Cook-Sather, A. (2017). Advancing Diversity and Inclusion through Strategic Multilevel Leadership. Liberal Education, 103, n3-4.

The paper examines distinct nuances of the means through which scholars get access to mentorship and ‘powerful’ academic networks, and how these can enable them to participate more fully in international scholarly conversations, become more mobile, and gain visibility in global knowledge production and circulation. Conversely, the absence of such relational and institutional support restricts scholars’ opportunities to contribute, limiting the reach and influence of their work (Campbell & Mertkan, 2025). Data are drawn from scholars located in Hong Kong and Turkey who vary widely in their academic visibility and influence, including those with strong local and global profiles as well as those with more limited reach. This draws on the broader methodological design of the comparative project outlined in paper 1, which employs life history narratives to capture the temporal, relational, and contextual dimensions of scholars’ careers. Data collection integrates timelines, photo-elicitation, and semi-structured interviews, enabling participants to reflect on critical incidents, influential relationships, and turning points in their scholarly trajectories. This approach is particularly suited to examining how mentorship and networks shape access to epistemic power, as it foregrounds the interplay between personal agency and structural constraints (Goodson, 2012; Floyd, 2012). The analysis highlights how uneven access to supportive networks shapes and reproduces epistemic power in the field of educational leadership and management, either reinforcing or challenging Anglo-American dominance in the production and circulation of knowledge. It also illustrating the extend to which non-Anglo-American scholars’ positionality influences the opportunities they are afforded for access to well-established networks and influential mentors.

References Campbell, P., & Mertkan, S. (2025). Geographical diversification of educational leadership research: Gaps in our understanding. Management in Education, 08920206251407030. Floyd, A. (2012). Narrative and life history. Research methods in educational leadership and management, 223-235. Goodson, I. F. (2012). Developing narrative theory: Life histories and personal representation. Routledge.

Ongoing work, with initial cases pointing to tensions in identity negotiation. The paper explores the means through which non-Anglo-American scholars navigate the dominance of Anglo-American frameworks in global knowledge production and circulation, and the knock-on effects of their practices on their positionality within educational leadership and management scholarship. It focuses on the pressures scholars feel to align with dominant theoretical traditions, publication and citation practices, and epistemologically powerful voices to secure legitimacy within hierarchical academic structures (Campbell & Mertkan, 2025). At the same time, the paper examines whether non-Anglo-American scholars feel able to exercise agency in cultivating alternative discourses or locally grounded epistemologies within uneven epistemic landscapes, as well as the conditions they believe would enable such agency. Methodologically, the paper is situated within the life history design of the comparative project outlined in paper 1, which emphasizes narrative inquiry as a means of exploring how scholars construct meaning across their careers. Data are drawn from scholars located in China, UAE, and Qatar. The use of timelines and photo-elicitation prior to interviews provides a scaffold for participants to articulate identity negotiations and strategies of resistance or adaptation. Semi-structured interviews then allow for deeper exploration of how agency is exercised within uneven epistemic landscapes. This narrative approach highlights the articulation between individual stories and broader discursive formations, revealing how scholarly voice is shaped by institutional and cultural dynamics (Magalhães & Veiga, 2015; McMahon & Patton, 2018). Through this focus, the paper illuminates the micro-level strategies of resistance and adaptation through which scholarly voices are constructed within hegemonic structures in ways that reveal how non-Anglo-American scholars negotiate dominant expectations throughout their career trajectories and how these choices shape the evolution of educational leadership and management scholarship, including the pluriversal possibilities that are enabled or constrained.

References Campbell, P., & Mertkan, S. (2025). Geographical diversification of educational leadership research: Gaps in our understanding. Management in Education, 08920206251407030. Magalhães, A., & Veiga, A. (2015). The narrative approach in higher education research. In Theory and method in higher education research (pp. 311-331). Emerald Group Publishing Limited. McMahon, M., & Patton, W. (2018). The systems theory framework of career development: Accommodating context, complexity, and culture. In Contemporary theories of career development (pp. 105-120). Routledge.