This paper focuses on strategies to strengthen communities, promote inclusion and participation, all of which are essential in the pursuit of social justice. The authors of this paper were all involved in the International Teacher Leadership initiative (2010-12) (Frost, 2025) and have been key players in a range of subsequent projects that contribute to the development of the core values of inclusion, voice and participation. Assumptions common to this work is that stable democracy and social justice require human agency to be strengthened, whether that be for children in school, for teachers or for parents and families. Agency is a resource for both learning and leadership, and it is further enhanced through the successful experience of learning and leadership (MacBeath et al., 2018). In the projects discussed in this paper, we see the fruitful collaboration between non-governmental organisations such as the HertsCam Network in the UK, Step-by-Step in Macedonia, the Pedagogical Centre of Montenegro, Promente Social Research in Bosnia and Herzegovina and academic entities such as Leadership for Learning at the University of Cambridge and CREA (Community of Research on Excellence for All) in Spain. All of these groups have been committed to the core values mentioned above and have been engaged in research-based social activism. In this paper, the authors trace the concerns, goals and activities that are manifest in a wide range of projects which includes the joint international work on non-positional teacher leadership, the work on learning communities and ‘readers as leaders’ in Macedonia, the work on self-regulation and agency in pre-school children and that which supports good health in Roma families in Montenegro and the Schools Without Borders project in Bosnia & Herzegovina. The importance of international collaboration is underscored.

Frost, D. (2011) The International Teacher Leadership project, inForm 12, Cambridge: LfL. MacBeath, J., Dempster, N., Frost, D., Johnson, G. and Swaffield, S. (2018) Strengthening the Connections between Leadership and Learning. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Vranješević, J. and Frost D. (2016) Stories From Intercultural Education in Serbia: Teacher Leadership and Parent Participation European Education 48 (1) 63-78.