The basic concepts of the positivistic paradigm are traced historically in this paper from Aristotle through Comte, the Vienna Circle, empiricism, Durkheim, sociobehavioral theory, and organizational theory. Various concepts have been added, deleted, and transformed through positivism's history, but its fundamental basis has remained the same:…

The school leader's behaviors are inspired by theories, and theories are intrinsic to practice. This paper provides an overview of an emerging perspective in educational administration, critical theory. The paper first highlights the philosophies of Immanuel Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Marx, and the Frankfurt School. It then discusses critical theory…

This paper has three purposes. First, it places in scientific perspective the growing acceptance in educational administration research of alternative methods to empiricism by an explication of chaos theory and its assumptions. Second, it demonstrates that chaos theory provides a scientific basis for investigation of complex qualitative variables…