Culturally responsive school leadership (CRSL) has become important to research on culturally responsive education, reform, and social justice education. This comprehensive review provides a framework for the expanding body of literature that seeks to make not only teaching, but rather the entire school environment, responsive to the schooling needs of minoritized students. Based on the literature, we frame the discussion around clarifying strands-critical self-awareness, CRSL and teacher preparation, CRSL and school environments, and CRSL and community advocacy. We then outline specific CRSL behaviors that center inclusion, equity, advocacy, and social justice in school. Pulling from literature on leadership, social justice, culturally relevant schooling, and students/communities of color, we describe five specific expressions of CRSL found in unique communities. Finally, we reflect on the continued promise and implications of CRSL.
This article examines the impact that a principal's communityleadership has on school-community relations and student outcomes. Comparisons are drawn between leadership behaviors that emphasize school-centered approaches and community-centered approaches. Research Methodology: Ethnographic research methodology was conducted over a 2-year period, during which the researcher conducted participant observations, interviews, and descriptive and interpretive memoing. Findings: The principal's role as community leader-including high principal visibility in the community and advocacy for community causes-led to trust and rapport between school and community. Consequently, parents who were previously hostile changed their relationship with school, and supported his or her handling of their children. This led to improved academic outcomes for students. Implications: This study has implications for how principals view their role, presence in, and relationship with the community. It also offers reflection on how and where the center of schoolcommunity relationships should be (i.e., school vs. community).
Background: The colonial origins of schooling and the implications these origins have on leadership is missing from educational leadership literature. Indeed little has been published on decolonizing and indigenous ways of leading schools. Purpose: In this article, we synthesize the literature on indigenous, decolonizing education leadership values and practices across national and international spaces that have been informed to various degrees by colonial models of schooling. Methodology: Through a review of the research and keywords including colonialism, educational leadership, indigenous communities, and decolonization, we identify two overarching themes. Findings: First, we found that the literature revealed a critique of the way in which Westernized Eurocentric schooling serves as a tool of imperialism, colonization, and control in the education of Indigenous peoples. Second, we discovered that the literature provided unique, but overlapping worldviews that situate the values and approaches enacted by Indigenous leaders throughout the globe. Within this second theme, we identify five strands of an Indigenous, Decolonizing School Leadership (IDSL) framework that can contribute to the development and reflection of school leadership scholars and practitioners. Specifically, we found that the five consistent and identifiable strands across IDSL include prioritizing Indigenous ancestral knowledge, enacting self-reflection and self-determination, connecting with and empowering the community, altruism, and spirituality as expressed through servant leadership, and inclusive communication practices. Conclusion: Based on the identified worldviews and values, we conclude by offering insights on the structure and policy of post-colonial schooling, as well as implications for the theory, research and practice needed to reclaim the co-opted contributions of Indigenous leaders in ways that decenter Western colonial approaches to leadership.
This case study describes tensions that became apparent between community members and school administrators after a proposal to close a historically African American public high school in a large urban Southwestern city. When members of the city's longstanding African American community responded with outrage, the school district's senior administration backed away from their proposal to close the school, despite making what it felt was a "neutral" and technical-rational decision. However, the local community interpreted this move as the historical continuation of racist behaviors and policies that had been experienced by the community over a period of several decades. Critical race theory (CRT) allows for an analysis regarding the nature of these beliefs about race and indicates the need for school Article 148 Urban Education 49(2) administrators to engage the realities of the community members they serve, rather than merely enacting technical-rational administrative behaviors that serve to continue regimes of marginalization and oppression.
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