The so-called disciplinary nature refers to the category attribution and unique character of a discipline in the whole scientific system of mankind. Because of the important and decisive influence of discipline nature on discipline construction, the discussion on discipline nature once became a classic topic in the construction of discipline theory system. There are many opinions and arguments about the disciplinary nature of educational management: educational management can belong to both pedagogy and management; It can be regarded as an interdisciplinary or marginal discipline, and it can also be regarded as an applied or comprehensive discipline. However, in essence, educational management should belong to management discipline.

First, the educational organization system has the basic characteristics of other organizational systems. For example, a school has the same or similar organizational structure system as the government, enterprises and the military, and has a similar position system, hierarchical structure and responsibility system. Educational management should study the establishment and development of educational organization system.

Second, education management has the same or similar management process or flow as other management activities, such as planning management, organization and personnel management, leadership control management, etc. Educational management must study these management processes.

Third, education management should also study the technology, control and methods of education management. First of all, if educational management belongs to a branch of management, we can build the science and theory of educational management with the help of the existing theoretical framework and research results of management. Daniel Rehn, an authoritative expert on the evolution of management thought, believes that the development of management science has experienced the era of early management thought, the era of scientific management, the era of social man hypothesis and the era of contemporary theory coexistence. There are many management theories in every era. Since the 1960s, management theory has been developed in many countries, and formed a research upsurge. After 1970s, postmodern management theory began to appear, which provided a solid foundation for the establishment and development of educational management. Secondly, educational management is a branch of management science, which is convenient for learning from and talking with other management disciplines. Because the basic concepts of educational management science are the same as those of all branches of management science, it provides a context for the communication between educational management science and other management sciences.

Finally, with the foundation of dialogue with other management disciplines, education management can find a suitable discipline orientation and the discipline construction and development will have a direction.

To sum up, taking education management as a management discipline is beneficial to its own development and construction. The education management in developed countries such as the United States has made considerable progress, because the basic theories of education management are management, psychology and sociology, and these theories have developed quite maturely in developed countries and enjoy an important position. Due to the late development and twists and turns, the basic discipline of education management in China has not been well developed and is still a weak discipline.