Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This case highlights the challenges faced by the principal of Forest Middle/Senior High School. In the surrounding school community, White middle-class families are increasingly opting to send their children to private schools. Within the school, critical incidents between White teachers and Black and Latino/a teachers and students mirror the neighborhood unrest. Privately, the principal, a White male, acknowledges that deeply held deficit perspectives about race and class are the underlying causes of the tension, but has failed to do so publicly. This case highlights critical junctures involving trust, race, ethnicity, and class, and examines how this particular leader promotes equity and social justice.

Keywords

leadership for social justice trust race class micro-politics

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alemán

Jr. (2009). Leveraging conflict for social justice: How “leadable” moments can transform school culture. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 12(4), 1-16.

Brown

K. M.

(2004). Leadership for social justice and equity: Weaving a transformative framework and pedagogy. Educational Administration Quarterly, 40, 77-108.

Dantley

M. E.

Tillman

L. C.

(2010). Social justice and moral transformative leadership. In Marshall

Oliva

(Eds.), Leadership for social justice: Making revolutions in education (2nd ed., pp. 19-34). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Delpit

(2006). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York, NY: The New Press.

Handford

Leithwood

(2013). Why teachers trust school leaders. Journal of Educational Administration, 51, 194-212.

Jean-Marie

Mansfield

K. C.

(2013). Race and racial discrimination in schools: School leaders’ courageous conversations. In Brooks

J. S.

Arnold

N. W.

(Eds.), Anti-racist school leadership: Toward equity in education for America’s students (pp. 19-36). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.

Larson

C. L.

Ovando

C. J.

(2001). The color of bureaucracy: The politics of equity in multicultural school communities. Florence, KY: Taylor & Francis.

Leithwood

K. A.

Riehl

(2003). What we know about successful school leadership. Philadelphia, PA: Laboratory for Student Success, Temple University.

López

G. R.

(2003). The (racially neutral) politics of education: A critical race theory perspective. Educational Administration Quarterly, 39, 68-94.

10.

Shields

C. M.

(2010). Transformative leadership: Working for equity in diverse contexts. Educational Administration Quarterly, 46, 558-589. doi:10.1177/0013161X10375609

11.

Singleton

G. E.

(2013). More courageous conversations about race. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

12.

Theoharis

(2009). The school leaders our children deserve: Seven keys to equity, social justice, and school reform. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB