The world is replete with racism, xenophobia, divisions, tensions, and hate as evidence by the wars being waged in many countries over power, land, riches, as well as religious and ethnic rights. Moreover, the world of education is not immune, but reflects the strains and pressure of our wider societies. In the United States, three Muslim students on their way to dinner were shot by a stranger because they were wearing a traditional shawl or keffiyeh. In the last three months of 2023, approximately 75% of Jewish students reported incidents of anti-semitism; Black and brown students consistently report excessive and harsher disciplinary measures than their white peers. Educational leaders need to understand the persistence of these and similar incidents as well as how to address them.

In 1991, examining what they call the “period of confusion” of education, Quantz et al., argued that “traditional leadership theories are inadequate for meeting the challenge” and indicated that “only the concept of transformative leadership appears to provide an appropriate direction” (p. 96). Although transformative leadership comprises two major principles and eight tenets, it is the second tenet that seems relevant here, as it asserts the need to “deconstruct knowledge frameworks that perpetuate inequity and to reconstruct them in equitable ways” (Shields, 2018). And this is true whether the frameworks relate to ethnicity, sexuality, religions, ability, gender and so on. Johnson (2008) found that “what separates successful leaders from unsuccessful ones is their mental models or meaning structures, not their knowledge, information, training, or experience per se” (p. 85). In other words, the knowledge frameworks of leaders as well as of society will need to be addressed in order to create schools that are able to ensure inclusive and equitable education for all students.

Moreover, if we wish to deconstruct unacceptable knowledge frameworks, it is essential to identify and then understand them, their history, and their trajectory. This is particularly salient in that this year’s conference theme asserts the need to understand the history of the challenges we are living through in order to address them. And this is particularly relevant for this conference because of the centuries of history represented in Cyprus and because many current challenges have their roots in the European history of the Middle Ages. If one looks to the Crusades, beginning in the 11^th century, one finds that the desire to rid Holy lands of Muslims, often then called “infidels” was the overriding motivation. Later, the Christian Church (first Roman Catholic and then others) sanctioned wars against both Jewish and Muslim rule, as well as the acquisition of lands and the condemnation of their inhabitants to perpetual enslavement in order to convert them to the “use and profit” of the Church. This history is nevertheless not straight forward in that it has been marked by alternate perspectives, tensions and contestation from the outset. Nevertheless, colonization, justified in part by the Doctrines of Discovery, has not only affected Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and US, but many countries in Africa and South America.

Although Pope Francis finally repudiated the Doctrines of Discovery in March 2023, there can be little doubt that centuries of entrenched discrimination in which peoples were villainized, believed to be animals, savage, or sub-human, must be understood in order to be eradicated. Further, this is true whether one is considering societal change or the transformation of our schools to be inclusive of and successful with, all students.

Plato argued that “the life which is unexamined is not worth living” as others (see Southgate, 2003) would argue about history. Khalifa (2020) argues that to address the gaps in our education systems, we must “understand something of the origins and nature of oppression.” Further, Oakes and Rogers (2006) argue that “technical knowledge is insufficient to bring about equitable education, even when attention is paid to changing the school’s professional culture … [and that] equity reforms must engage issues of power by extending beyond the school” (p. 31). Thus, this paper is conceptual, aimed at promoting understanding through historic and document analysis’ it draws inspiration from the numerous commentators who assert the need to understand history in order not to replicate its results (Khalifa, 2020; Tosh, 2015). It argues the need to transform education by extending beyond school, and it suggests educators need to develop beyond memory to knowledge of history, go beyond knowing facts, and understand their current impact. Thus, scholars like van Drie and van Boxel (2003) argue that one needs to go beyond historical facts to make meaning of them. Limon (2002) also points out that historical facts are ill-defined, i.e., they have a different meaning over time. Knowing, for example, about the events of the Crusades and reflecting on how they still might influence our thinking about Muslims are different. We need to ask evaluative questions about the past and its current impact. It is important to note, however, that most theorists view “interpretation as the very soul of historiography” (White, 1973, p. 283) and yet acknowledge that interpretation itself is not objective and is guided by the epistemology and ontology of the interpreter. McCullagh (2000) asserted that bias may occur when only some of the facts are presented. However, he also insists that “the form of a history is indeed constrained by the events it describes.” (p. 59), and hence that one could not describe the death of Kennedy (or I would maintain the crusades and the papal bulls) as a comedy. Thus, although I assert that there are multiple interpretations of history and each person enjoys the right to interpret history for themselves, my position is that the data I present support the argument of this paper that prejudice has been deeply entrenched in our societies and institutions and that to overcome it, requires a critical and thoughtful approach.

A biased history excludes some of the reasons for something to have happened, but omits others. Here I do not purport to explain, for example, all of the causes of exploration and settlement of foreign lands, which include, of course, local disruption, economics and so on. However, what I am arguing here is that when people are disregarded, or considered in undesirable ways, or explained with harmful epithets or assumptions, then long-standing negative impacts may be felt. For example, one 1244 letter from Pope Innocent IV to King Louis IX of France, described Jewish people as “a flock of pagan sheep” and as a “perfidious race” –a term that remained in the Roman Catholic liturgy until 1962 (McDermott, 2022). My argument is that when such concepts are repeated, enshrined in formal tradition, ceremony, speech, or policy, they become normalized and generally accepted “truth.” Hence, we must take measures to counteract each of these occurrences. It is not enough to decry antisemitism, for example, but to counteract it, we must examine the role of the Christian Church as well as of policymakers throughout history. We must acknowledge that antisemitism did not begin with the Holocaust, but was a major contributing factor, just as anti-Blackness did not begin with slavery, but from long before. Nevertheless, we must look to these origins to help explain world events like considering Australia “Terra Nullius” (land owned by no-one), or South African Apartheid, or more current events. Thus, the fact that a group of Black high school students in the United States were labelled “monkeys” in a facebook post, cannot be considered an isolated event, but must be addressed in context. This paper is intended to provoke debate and reflection and in so doing help educators learn to fully address the persistent discrimination in today’s schools.

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