This paper explores the increasing imperative of political acuity in contemporary school principalship and the implications therein for professional development that will prepare school leaders to leverage social, political and technological dynamics that threaten future democratic education (Norris, 2023). Political literacy, as a leadership attribute, is promoted in many systems globally (GTCS, 2021), increasingly so through the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic that heightened and exposed political and systemic injustices. Amidst global turbulence, the development of politically literate principals, who will lead with cognizance of the extent to which educational policy can perpetuate intersectional inequalities, is essential. In short, the world needs principals with the courage and capacity to act as empowered contributors to future local and global policy trajectories (Brooks & Normore, 2010), especially if they are to help reconcile fundamental tensions within education policy and governance structures that privilege performativity or undermine democracy. This chapter is structured in three sections. First, it offers a critical review of contemporary literature around the preparation and development of political literacy in principalship, as a compelling objective to support a more democratic, stable and sustainable educational future. Second, the chapter presents data from a case study research-practice, (university/district) partnership: the Enhanced Political Cognizance program for aspirant school principals in Scotland. Enhanced Political Cognizance was designed to strengthen school leaders’ critical understandings and interrogations of the political foundations of education and social policy, developing the courage and capacity to advance and enact positive social change (Lash & Sanchez, 2022; Magill & Rodriguez, 2022) through their leadership praxis in and beyond their communities. While the Enhanced Political Cognizance program was evaluated positively, the individual leaders still wrested with contextual applications of their learning, which required personal courage, reflexivity and understanding of the “political nature in which they, their privilege and their institutions are positioned” (MacDonald, 2023, p. 2). The chapter concludes with reflections on the tensions experienced in enactment of political acuity in the case study system, the importance of practical application of academic learning through research-practice partnerships and implications therein for education leadership preparation and development globally, if we are to reimagine a democratic and sustainable educational future (Carney, 2022).

Brooks, J. S., & Normore, A. H. (2010). Educational leadership and globalization: Literacy for a glocal perspective. Educational policy, 24(1), 52-82. Carney, K. (2022). Review of Reimagining our futures together: a new social contract for education: by UNESCO, Comparative Education, 58(4), 568–569. GTCS. (2021). GTC Professional Standards for Teachers. [online] Available at: https://www.gtcs.org.uk/professional-standards/professional-standards-for-teachers Lash, C.L. and Sanchez, J.E. (2022). Leading for equity with critical consciousness: how school leaders can cultivate awareness, efficacy, and critical action. The Clearing house: a Journal of Educational strategies, issues and ideas, 95(1), 1-6. MacDonald, K. (2023). Social justice leadership practice in unjust times: leading in highly disadvantaged contexts, International Journal of Leadership in Education, 26:1, 1-17, DOI: 10.1080/13603124.2020.1770866 Magill, K. R., & Rodriguez, A. (2022). Intellectual leadership for social justice. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 1-22. Norris, T. (2023). Educational futures after COVID-19: Big tech and pandemic profiteering versus education for democracy. Policy Futures in Education, 21(1), 34-57. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2021). Into the Future: Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence, Paris: OECD.