The aim of this symposium is to examine the extent to which our International team's European Education Model; Empowering Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal (EYSIER), has the potential to build capacity through education governance systems. We wanted to find out if Senior Leaders including Superintendents (US, Trinidad and Tobago), Supervisors (Arab-Israel), and Chief Executive Officers of Multi Academy Trusts (UK) are empowered to bridge between legislation, education governance systems, top district administrators, School Boards, school and college staff, parents and students, and the academy, and thereby have the conditions of readiness to build capacity for EYSIER. The Senior Leaders are from marginalised groups and lead marginalised groups and/or diverse communities. 

The innovative EYSIER model has been developed over 7 years with a team from twenty five different nation states representing different cultural heritages of people living in, and moving to Europe, and different parts of the world (Taysum et al, 2016).

The five first principles of the EYSIER Model are: 

• Inclusion through recognition to realise social justice (Taysum and Gunter, 2008; Marshal & Gerstl-Pepin, 2005) 

• respect to realise social justice (Barnett, 2000) 

• trust in the search for truth (Möllering, 2001; Barnett, 2000; Wagner, 2008) 

• courage to engage in constructive cross-cultural critique of alternative world views to arrive at a shared multicultural world view (Ishii et al, 2007; Darling-Hammond & Rothman, 2011; Gerstl-Pepin & Aiken, 2012); 

• the generation of new knowledge that prudently synthesises traditional and new knowledge to enable the re-imagining of new futures where young people are mobilisers of stable and sustainable social change for equity and renewal (Taysum, 2012).

Each team of the symposium from Arab-Israel, Northern Ireland, Trinidad and Tobago, the UK and the US present their findings, using the same methodologies in each case, that address four research questions. First, how do Senior Leaders from marginalized groups who lead marginalised groups, and/or dominant groups, describe and understand how education governance systems empower them to Empower Young Societal Innovators for Equity, and Renewal? Second, how do these Senior Leaders describe and understand the role mentors, and/or advocates play to support their navigation through turbulence? Third, to what extent do these Senior Leaders believe a cultural change is required to empower them to act as bridges between different groups, to develop communities of practice to Empower Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal? Finally, what theories of knowledge to action emerge to assure Senior Leaders in education governance systems are empowered to successfully navigate turbulence, and Empower Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal? Each international research team reviews the literature to shed light on the research questions in their particular glocal context. Next, each team presents their findings compared and contrasted with the literature. The findings are read through Gross (2014) Turbulence Theory to categorise the level and the impact of the challenges the key agents of change need to navigate as they mediate between the governance systems. Gross (2014, p. 248) theory of turbulence states: ‘turbulence can be described as ‘light’ with little or no movement of the craft. ‘Moderate with very noticeable waves. ‘Severe’ with strong gusts that threaten control of the aircraft. ‘Extreme’ with forces so great that control is lost and structure damage to the craft occurs’. Conclusions from each team reveal the extent to which education governance systems empower senior leaders to act as bridges between different groups. Such empowerment is evidence of the conditions of readiness for Senior Leaders to build capacity for cultural change in education governance systems to Empower Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal.

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