When I started to do my master’s degree in the field of educational administration in Turkey, everything was almost very normal. In classes, the professors, who were at the centre, were enjoying the silence of Taylorism’s bedrock which made me fall asleep in the clouds of industrial metaphors that were very close to the machines, Leibnez (as cited in English, 2002) dreamed, into which questions could be put with a corresponding answer of “true” or “false (Beycioglu, 2012; p.350).

This is an extract from our beloved friend and colleague, Prof. Dr. Kadir Beycioglu, who honored us with his personal and academic legacy in the Educational Leadership and Policy field during his lifetime. In this paper, through his interior monolog, he left us with the question “Is there anyone who would like to go sailing on a non-linear ship to know, to explore and to do educational administration and leadership?”  Sailing through the tumultuous waters with his activism for democracy, equality and social justice; Kadir ceaselessly battled with the rights of the oppressed and inequalities / injustices in the society; more specifically in education. His scholarship in educational leadership and policy rested upon the epistemology in educational leadership and social justice. In his quest for a better society, he was the pioneer of social justice scholars in the Turkish educational leadership community; which led us in this symposium to pay our tribute to him. He was famous for building associations with Greek mythology as he recently described his view of social justice, as quoted from his latest work (Beycioğlu, 2020; p. 2).

“I think the point in social justice issues at which I stand is intrinsically affected by the tales of Themis and Dike of Greek mythology and it is, properly speaking, closer to Dike’s role of distributing or redistributing justice from the divine one to our…..”

Drawing on Beycioğlu’s academic legacy, this symposium, as a tribute to him, aims to bring together the voices of educational leadership and policy scholars from 4 different countries to report on the educational leadership research on social justice and equity/equality challenges in their contexts through a variety of epistemological orientations.   We are all informed that the recent pandemic has deepened and reproduced the inequality across the globe. As school leaders face political, economic, cultural, and social injustices, they are expected to create equitable and just education for all students . In this respect, the notion of social justice and social justice leadership in education capture scholarly attention (Bogotch, 2022; Furman, 2012; Theoharis, 2007) . Despite the ambiguity of its definition (Bogotch, 2002); social justice is a means of fixing inequities (Marshall & Ward, 2004), whereby SJ leadership is associated with the leaders’ ability to change a school’s culture at micro level, reflecting the wider societal inequities and injustices (Beycioglu, 2020).  Given the role of schools as the sanctuary for compassion and care, educational leaders are expected to develop critical awareness to different types of oppression, exclusion and marginalization (Diem & Boske, 2012). Given that COVID-19 has dramatically changed conceptions of leadership and leadership practices (Harris&Jones, 2020), social justice and overcoming inequities become more critical in educational leadership. Therefore, we as colleagues and friends of Kadir, with insights from three different countries as Turkey; Cyprus and the USA,  would like to dedicate this symposium to him in our endeavour to continue his legacy in fighting with the inequities in education with our aim to discuss his and this teams’ contributions on social justice and social justice leadership in education.

Beycioğlu, K. (2020). Leadership Effect in Social Justice. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Beycioglu, K. (2012). Will Evers and Lakomski be able to find leadership's Holy Grail?. KEDİ Journal of Educational Policy, 9(2). Bogotch, I. E. (2002). Educational leadership and social justice: Practice into theory. Journal of School Leadership, 12(2), 138–15 Furman, G. (2012). Social justice leadership as praxis: Developing capacities through preparation programs. Educational administration quarterly, 48(2), 191-229. Harris, A., & Jones, M. (2020). COVID 19–school leadership in disruptive times. School Leadership & Management, 40(4), 243-247. Theoharis, G. (2007). Social justice educational leaders and resistance: Toward a theory of social justice leadership. Educational administration quarterly, 43(2), 221-258.