Literature on principal leadership in professional development offers important but underdeveloped conceptions of how school principals promote professional development for social justice. This article offers an empirically-based framework of the principal’s role in professional development for social justice. An in-depth qualitative multicase study design was used to examine how three school principals for social justice influenced professional learning in their schools. Data collection included 5 months of field work and more than 40 semistructured interviews with principals, teachers, specialists, and other personnel. Data suggest five principal roles worked together to optimize professional learning: transformative visionary, transformative learning leader, transformative structural leader, transformative cultural leader, and transformative political leader.
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