Enacting Social Justice: Perceptions of Educational Leaders (original) (raw)
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Educational Administration Quarterly
""Background: Educational leadership for social justice and equity is the primary leadership response to inclusive and equitable education. This inquiry builds on multicultural education and educational leadership to explore an alternative approach to mainstream leadership practice. Purpose: To examine ways in which educational leaders of color in K-12 schools and higher education settings, tap into positive attributes of their identities to address issues germane to social justice and educational equity. Data collection and analysis: Qualitative data were examined to determine connections amongst participants with regard to literature reviewed and research questions. Analyses checked for evidence of culturally responsive leadership practice and the use of critical race theory (CRT). Findings: Nine common leadership characteristics were identified. Any leader can choose to use a CRT lens when practicing leadership for social justice and equity in diverse settings. Conclusions: These findings suggest the need for alternative models of leadership as a response to diversity in schools and universities and value in exploring connections between multicultural education and educational leadership. Key words: multicultural education, leadership for social justice, critical race theory, culturally responsive leadership, applied critical leadership ""
2014
PREPARING SCHOOL LEADERS TO ADVOCATE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE: A CASE ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE TENETS IN A LEADERSHIP PREPARATION PROGRAM Jessica Costa Old Dominion University, 2014 Director: Dr. Karen Sanzo School leadership preparation for social justice is a pressing concern in an era of achievement gaps and a rapidly increasing population of largely marginalized students: English learners. This case study explored how one university leadership preparation program infused social justice tenets into the training. Following a qualitative methodology, data collection focused on documents, interviews, and class observations. In recent years, critical race theory (CRT) has garnered much attention in education scholarship as a way to examine racialized practices and social injustices that persist in U.S. schooling. This study used CRT as a basis for the theoretical framework and interpretive lens to engage the instructors in reflecting on how the university program prepared future leaders ...
Leadership for Social Justice: Social Justice Pedagogies
Revista Internacional de Educación para la Justicia Social, 2014
The relationship between educational leadership and practices of social justice is now entering its second decade with respect to empirical research studies. There have been three distinct research agendas: the first involves attempts to define the meaning(s) of educational leadership for social justice; the second is the descriptive documentation of school leadership behaviors which address social injustices and inequities within schools; and, the third focuses on the development of leadership preparation programs that include social justice as a curricular foundation. This paper is delimited to a review of literature documenting the relationship between social justice and leadership preparation programs, highlighting specific pedagogies, and building towards a curriculum. We take a chronological perspective moving from early theoretical conceptions of social justice to early studies on preparation programs and then focus on second generation empirical research centered on social justice pedagogies and curriculum development.
2017
Thirty years after the report that started the latest round of educational reform, A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Education Excellence, 1983), the Wallace Foundation began funding a series of studies examining the preparation of school and district leaders. Bringing together findings from four reports, one each by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), The School Superintendents Association (AASA), the American Institutes for Research (AIR), and the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), the Wallace Foundation issued five key recommendations for university preparation of school leaders. This call to action was sounded at a time when a shortage of school leaders is both active and continuingly predicted, and in which a seemingly ever-increasing focus on accountability continues to prevail. The attention to quality of the next generation of educational leaders equipped to face challenges of leading schools for the future in the Wallace report includes a focus on a high-quality curriculum emphasizing the skills principals most need, such as the ability to be instructional leaders, and also enables candidates to practice important job skills (Wallace Foundation, 2016). In New York State, certification requirements for Educational leaders lay out the knowledge and skills deemed essential for emerging leaders to be successful in supporting high achievement by and for all students and in alignment with the National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA), which published the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders 2015. These standards were formerly known as the ISLLC standards. The Council of Chief State School Officers published the ISLLC standards for educational leaders in 1996, and revised them in 2008. However, the NPBEA sought to identify the gaps between previous standards, day to day work of educational leaders and the leadership demands of the future (NPBEA, 2015) as evidenced by an increased emphasis on student centered practices. At the time of this writing, a Wallace Foundation funded study of Principal Preparation programming in New York State is currently underway, a study informed in part by participants in and the current coordinator of the program examined herein. While the results of the Wallace Foundation study are not scheduled for presentation to the state's chief policy-making body for education, the Board of Regents, until summer 2017, it is routinely anticipated that they will highlight the need for educational leaders to be prepared to address issues of diversity, social justice and advocacy at multiple levels reflecting a student body comprised of increased racial, socioeconomic , and gender as well as gender-identity, difference.
Preparing Instructional Leaders for Social Justice
Journal of School Leadership
Neither providing a rhetoric of social justice in educational leadership preparation programs nor getting individual students to understand and to be committed to social justice is sufficient to enable them to succeed on the ground as leadership practitioners in creating socially just schools. They require additional practical knowledge, what might be called pragmatic knowledge, in various areas. One of these areas is instructional leadership; that is, how does the school leader facilitate teachers being successful in teaching literally all of their students well. This article offers a model of instructional leadership for social justice that school leaders can learn and apply. This pragmatic approach focuses on two specific teachable areas-equity consciousness and equity-oriented teaching skills.
Social Justice Leadership in Education: A Suggested Questionnaire
Research in Educational Administration & Leadership, 2018
Article Info This paper reports on the development of the revised Social Justice Questionnaire (SJQ2), an instrument which permits the quantitative examination of socially just school leadership. The SJQ2 is based on data drawn from an exploratory province-wide study to determine to what extent, and how, school principals on Prince Edward Island understand and enact principles of social justice in their work. Although this was a 'stand-alone' project, the research also provides a Canadian contribution to the International School Leadership Development Network (ISLDN). The researchers utilized a mixed methods approach to glean both qualitative and quantitative data for analysis. The findings indicated that there is a statistically significant correlation between socially just school leadership and the community context. This research supports and enhances current qualitative studies by adding a statistical perspective to show that effective social justice leadership cannot be segregated from the political, economic, and cultural context of the community.
Resisting Social Justice in Leadership Preparation Programs: Mechanisms that Subvert
Journal of Research on Leadership Education, 2010
It is well documented that the achievement gap between affluent students and economically disadvantaged students and between White students and students of color continues to widen. In addition to these achievement gaps, marginalizing practices are often imbedded in the structures of schooling. These challenges require educational leadership programs that effectively prepare school principals who can meet our most pressing school challenges and who, in particular, strive for social justice ends; however, the literature on leadership for social justice provides no clear consensus on what an entire educational leadership program oriented toward social justice would include. This study attempts to fill the gap in the literature by critically examining a curriculum and instruction leadership program that has social justice embedded into the program's core practices. Specifically we ask the following questions: What critical elements underlie programs that prepare professionals for s...