Student Affairs Leadership Educators’ Negotiations of Racialized Legitimacy

Abstract

Critical and justice-oriented approaches to leadership are incomplete without attention to racism and racialization. This study employed basic qualitative inquiry to examine racialized legitimation within student affairs leadership education through lenses of whiteness as property and legitimacy. Findings detail how leadership educators sought to gain and/or maintain legitimacy and the ways racialization is embedded in these processes through professional experiences, leadership knowledge, and identity. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Social identities and leadership identity development

“…A number of critical leadership educators asserted the need to examine the content of leadership education as well as the process of engaging all learners to deconstruct systems of power, privilege, and oppression that exist in curricular and cocurricular leadership experiences (Beatty & Manning‐Ouellette, 2018; Beatty et al., 2020; Beatty & Tillapaugh, 2017; Irwin, 2021; Mahoney, 2016; Pendakur & Furr, 2016; Tapia‐Fuselier & Irwin, 2019).…”

“…Mahoney beautifully described the influence on student learning through stating, With these changes, our students were able to make meaning of their own social identity, independently and in relation to others, which in turn allowed us as a program to demonstrate how inequality operates systematically and how we all play a role in perpetuating those systems -thus challenging notions of color blindness. (Mahoney, 2016, p. 55) A number of critical leadership educators asserted the need to examine the content of leadership education as well as the process of engaging all learners to deconstruct systems of power, privilege, and oppression that exist in curricular and cocurricular leadership experiences (Beatty & Manning-Ouellette, 2018;Beatty et al, 2020;Beatty & Tillapaugh, 2017;Irwin, 2021;Mahoney, 2016;Pendakur & Furr, 2016;Tapia-Fuselier & Irwin, 2019).…”

Deepening leadership identity development

“…Critical leadership scholars are calling on educators to unearth and dismantle white supremacy in leadership learning and development (Beatty & Ford, 2023; Irwin, 2021; Irwin & Posselt, 2022; Mahoney, 2016; Wiborg, 2022). This process begins with leadership educators engaging in reflexive processes related to our own privileged and oppressed identities.…”

“…Instead of moving toward that vision, it can feel like leadership education has become even more fragmented. Irwin (2021) astutely described this condition noting “Leadership education sits at a place of tension and contestation.” (p. 146). Indeed, theories and models that were once applied in a "one size fits all" manner no longer (and likely never did) serve an increasingly varied and complex student leadership learner.…”

Critical and transformative approaches in leadership evaluation and research

“…In fact, we know that most of the leadership theories taught pay little to no attention to race, gender, and other social identities and ignore the impact this has on who accesses leadership development (Kezar et al., 2006 ). Further, higher education is the location of many leadership education programs where whiteness and leadership have become synonymous (Wilder, 2014 ) and People of Color are devalued in leadership (Irwin, 2021 ). As a result of this, the leadership theories, and paradigms we teach are often rooted in dominant norms that emphasize and privilege a narrow view of leading, one that is white and male (Guramatunhu Cooper, et al., 2019 ).…”