Session Information
26 SES 13 A JS, Emerging Paradigms and Practice in Leadership for Social Justice:Advocacy, Activism and Indigenous Culturally Responsive Leadership
Joint Symposium NW 07 and NW 26
Contribution
Objectives and Perspective. This paper focuses on the biographies of five pioneer Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) headteachers and their role as community builders and advocates. The study situates the educational philosophies and leadership practices of early Black and South Asian school leaders in relation to historical race equality efforts in the UK. Research questions include: How did pioneer UK headteachers of color construct their role as leader? How were their identities as activist leaders shaped by the historical, political, and social contexts in which they led? Methods. Archival research on the first BAME headteachers who led schools in the 1970s and 1980s in London, Birmingham, Leicester, Leeds, and Cardiff was conducted at the Black Cultural Archives, the University of Leicester archives, the West Yorkshire Archives, the Birmingham Black Oral History Project, and the Cardiff Public Library local history collection. Oral histories were conducted with those leaders still living, as well as interviews with colleagues who had personal knowledge of the headteachers’ community work. Oral history interviewees contributed archival material and photographs from their personal collections. Findings. The lives of these pioneer headteachers intersected with many of the major educational developments in racialized communities in 20th century Britain: tracking in government schools, the formation of supplementary schools, the rise of race equality legislation, and the forging of a British Muslim identity.1 As “outward facing” leaders they served as boundary spanners and advocates who connected their schools with wider community concerns.2 Clifton Robinson (Leicester) led two schools in the Highfields neighborhood where he faced down National Front activity and police brutality.3 Gertrude Paul (Leeds) was a leader in the United Caribbean Association, started a Black Supplementary school, and supported a parent strike to remove a racist administrator.4 Robinson and Paul promoted equity policies through the Commission for Race Equality in the 1980s. Naz Bokhari (London) was the founding president of the Muslim Teachers Association and worked in international organizations to form partnerships between British communities and the global South.5 Carlton Duncan (Birmingham) and Betty Campbell (Cardiff) incorporated Black history and Black cultural knowledge in their schools long before it was popular.6 Significance. Current investigation of BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) school leaders might be characterized as barrier research documenting their shortage and failure to progress into senior leadership positions.7 A historical approach emphasizes the community funds of knowledge and activist orientation that pioneer BAME leaders brought to their schools.
References
1. Coard, B. (1971). How the West Indian child is made educationally subnormal in the British school system: The scandal of the Black child in schools in Britain. London: New Beacon Books; Gerrard, J. (2013). Self help and protest: The emergence of Black supplementary schooling in England. Race Ethnicity and Education, 16, 32 – 58; Hoque, A. (2015). British-Islamic identity: Third-generation Bangladeshis from East London. London: Trentham Books. 2. Johnson, L. (2016). Boundary spanners and advocacy leaders: Black educators and race equality work in Toronto and London, 1968 - 1995. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 15(1), 91– 115. 3. Oral history interview of Clifton Robinson, March 12, 1993, East Midlands Oral History Archives, 01586/01 CD ER/01. University of Leicester Special Collections. 4. “Monday June 25 Strike Day,” Chapeltown News, July 1973, Number 9, p. 3. 5. Interview with Rowie Shaw, April 3, 2015; Interview with Nick Maurice, May 6, 2015. 6. Interview with Betty Campbell, Butetown Community Centre, Cardiff, Wales, July 24, 2015. Carlton Duncan, Birmingham Black Oral History Project. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh39ERWDk1U 7. Coleman, M. & Campbell-Stephens, R. (2010). Perceptions of career progress: The experience of Black and minority ethnic school leaders. School Leadership and Management, 30(1), 35 - 49.
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