Glanz History of Supervision Notes

Glanz, J. (1998). Histories, antecedents, and legacies of school supervision. In G. R. Firth & E. F. Pajak (Eds.), Handbook of research on school supervision (pp. 39-79). New York: MacMillan.

Review of Research

·      Most of the research regarding the history of supervision is superficial and partially inaccurate because attempts have tried to explain it using time as the defining factor rather than searching for underlying currents or trends.

·      Prominent Dissertations

o   Henry Bunton (1961)

o   Scientific management = efficiency

o   Problems with current research on the history of supervision: "The first deals with the treatment of the history of supervision in terms of periods. The writing of public school supervision cannot be undertaken by merely describing its development through periodization (i.e., specific periods tied within specific time frames) (p. 42)."

·      Published Book on Supervision History

·      Other Historical Treatments

Toward a Theory of Understanding the History of Supervision

·      That which has been done has been broad overviews.

·      "It is uncomplicated in a sense that little has been done to investigate supervision historically (p. 45)."

·      Applying the Bureaucratic-Professional Model

o   Post WWII: "Emphasis was placed on the function of supervision and its role in terms of improving instruction (p. 46)."

o   "The theory for understanding the evolution of public school supervision in the United States, especially since the late nineteenth century, is based on the bureaucratic-professional construct that affected supervision as both a role and a function of schools (p. 46)."

·      Research on Bureaucracy and Professionalism

The Emergence of Bureaucracy

·      European Antecedents and Early Developments

            *  "Professional supervision performed by specially trained educators, as thought of today, was absent prior to the civil war (p. 47)."