Support for Marginalized Children: Influences of Micro and Meso Contexts on Socially Just Principal Practices

Abstract

This qualitative case study research examines the perceptions of three U.S. principals as they work for social justice in the school level meso context as enacted through the lens of their micro contextual values and beliefs. Through interviews with three rural high school principals, we look to the influence of context on decision making through a study of the principals’ articulations of the role of context in supporting or hindering their work for marginalized children. Findings from this study point to the culture of the community in which the school was situated and the challenges sometimes associated with the community as the most mentioned meso factor that guided the principals’ practice. The micro context of the leader’s personal story was a testament to what they valued and how they enacted these values as a leader for social justice. The study concludes with a model which reconceptualizes the macro, meso, and micro relationships not as a directional relationship that indicates the influence of one context onto another, but as a structural bond suggesting interdependency.