Introduction
Leadership for social justice has arisen in recent years as an approach in which school leaders make “issues of race, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and other historically and currently marginalizing conditions central to their advocacy, leadership practice, and vision.” (Theoharis, 2009). While there are a range of practices and perspectives which have been described as “leading for social justice,” the parameters of this leadership theory are still under development and warrant further international exploration.
Objectives and Framework
This proposed symposium focuses on emerging practices and paradigms in leadership for social justice—specifically those that address advocacy, culture, and race. Advocacy leaders have been defined by Anderson (2009) as those who advocate for children and their communities, defend public education, and work towards achieving ideals of democracy – equity, inclusion, social justice, participation in decision-making – by looking for solutions to systemic issues. The school leaders profiled here were not socialized to neutrality, but instead challenge the status quo and lead “against the grain” (Marshall & Anderson, 2009). Their advocacy and activism ranges from “implicit activism” and “everyday acts of resistance” to rallying community support against unfair practices (Zembylas, 2013; Wilson, 2015). As school leaders their efforts are aimed at collective uplift, not individual career advancement (Wilson & Johnson, 2015). But they often face marginalization and repercussions from their activism, and given the risks some researchers argue that advocacy leaders must learn to be strategic (Ryan, 2015).
Culturally responsive leadership is another emergent leadership perspective under the umbrella of leadership for social justice that aims to create inclusive environments for students and families from ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds. Common practices include emphasizing high expectations for student achievement, incorporating the history, values, and cultural knowledge of students’ home communities in the school curriculum, working to develop a critical consciousness among both students and faculty to challenge inequities in the larger society, and creating organizational structures at the school and district level that empower students and parents from diverse racial and ethnic communities (Johnson, 2014). This symposium aims to advance the conversation about culturally responsive leadership internationally through a focus on non-Western contexts and indigenous schooling.
The proposed symposium will address the following research questions:
What leadership practices constitute advocacy leadership? Culturally responsive leadership? How might they differ from other social justice approaches? What is the role of context (historical, social, political, geographical) in their enactment?
What might researchers, practitioners, policy developers, and leadership development programs learn from studying activist and culturally responsive leaders?
Methods and Overview of the Papers
In this symposium we draw from diverse perspectives and methodological approaches— qualitative case study, historical analysis, literature review, and Critical Race Theory—across six national contexts: USA, England, Wales, Spain, Mexico, and Costa Rica. The first paper investigates the views of teacher leaders in Spain, Mexico and Costa Rica about social justice leadership and advocacy through qualitative interviews. The second paper constructs historical portraits of Black and South Asian headteachers who advocated for race equality and multicultural education in England and Wales in the 1970s and 1980s. The third paper profiles the CRT counter narratives of two African American principals who led high poverty schools through critical care and interconnectedness with their students’ lives and the broader community. The final paper surveys the literature on indigenous culturally responsive school leadership practices in non-Western contexts. The discussant, a Canadian researcher who studies leaders’ intercultural competence, will relate common themes across the papers. Symposium participants are members of the new WERA (World Educational Research Association) research network on “Families, Educators, and Communities as Educational Advocates: Cross National Perspectives” which involves 40 researchers across ten countries.
