Although Griffiths (1979) argued that the turmoil in the field of organizational theory would inevitably spill over into educational administration, presaging a paradigm shift, the professoriate in educational administration in North America has largely ignored, or reacted with hostility, to debate over the theoretical foundations of the field. This essay accordingly surveys current thinking in America and in the British Commonwealth countries on the crisis in the theoretical foundations of educational administration. Topics include a critique and reformulation of the notion of leadership, a cultural perspective on the work of schools, the problem of school evaluation, the economics of schooling, and the administration of gender in education. The essay concludes by delineating the premises of a new theory of educational administration being developed at Deakin University in Australia, based on neo-Marxian critical theory: the notion that educational administration is socially constructed and that organizational structures serve to reproduce the existing unequal social order. (TE)