Every day, discretion shapes the decisions that run our schools, colleges, and universities. Every day, it alters the lives and futures of students, educators, and administrators. It’s hard to overstate the impact of discretion on the incidents and issues that arise in every educational institution. Discretion affects disciplinary actions, school climate and safety, student engagement, and the health and well-being of everyone in a classroom or on a campus.

What is involved in the exercise of discretion by educational administrators? This collection of papers furthers research into this important question. It presents seminal work from scholars and graduate students, as well as path-breaking analyses from other disciplines. An understanding of how discretion works—the “calculus” that bridges the rational world of empirical observation and the normative world of ethics—can lead to better decision making in our educational institutions, and a clearer perspective on how to achieve just and effective outcomes.

Michael Manley-Casimir, PhD, is a professor of education and director of the Tecumseh Centre for Aboriginal Research and Education at Brock University. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago. Prior to his appointment as dean of education at Brock in 1998, he spent 24 years in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University in a variety of academic and administrative roles. In 2004, he completed an LLM through the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia and wrote a thesis on the meaning of “freedom of conscience” in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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Alesha D. Moffat is currently a PhD student at the Faculty of Education at York University in Toronto. Prior to engaging doctoral studies, she completed her MEd at Brock University. She has taught secondary school English in Scotland, Indonesia, and Nunavut. She is focusing her academic work on issues in Inuit schooling.

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