ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some areas for scholars situated in educational administration to take up and engage with Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as a conceptual tool for exploring networks, processes, socio-material relations and knowledge production. The term actor-network was first developed by Michel Callon in Paris between 1978 and 1982 though John Law pointed out that the approach itself is broad and could be considered itself a network, spread over time and place, so that its particular origin seems arbitrary. Annemarie Mol focused on the ontological politics of ANT and emphasised the possibilities of multiple ontologies. Fenwick examined large-scale reform through a study of the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) to examine the local mobilisations of mandated reform. ANT is not without its adversaries those who criticise its perspectives as too realist or too relativist, or too ambiguous to offer a critical look at social science studies.
