Which Hill Would You Die on?: Examining the Use of War-Normalizing Metaphors in Social Justice Leaders’ Discourse and Practice

Abstract

Metaphors are deeply embedded in educational discourse, yet few studies examine how educators use these linguistic devices to conceptualize, articulate, and make sense of their professional practice. This article examines the metaphors that 38 Canadian and American school leaders used to describe how they accomplished their social justice work in complex political environments. Our analysis revealed that while participants used a variety of metaphors to describe how they subverted inequitable practices to achieve their social justice goals, for the most part, their discourse coalesced around war-normalizing metaphors. We explore the nature of these metaphors, how they contradict and cohere with popular educational discourses and ideologies, and their implications for practice. We further discuss how policy makers, practitioners, and professional development programs can employ metaphors as discursive tools to assess and reconceptualize practice and advance social justice leadership.

Troubling Unintended Harm of Heroic Discourses in Social Justice Leadership

“…However, we address concerns that the unintended relationship between conventional heroic approaches and social justice leadership may undermine the realization of achieving social justice goals. While we acknowledge heroic approaches are a form of resistance to the status quo, the reliance on individual leader-dependent approaches can undermine sustainability of changes (Theoharis, 2008), expect social justice leaders to bear high level of pressures on their wellness (Armstrong et al, 2020), and reproduce Eurocentric epistemology in leadership (Alston, 2005;MacDonald, 2019;Lopez, 2020), without taking into account complexities and multiple layers residing in the success of social justice work.…”

“…This line of inquiry has problematized several perspectives in conceptualizing educational leadership. Studies have revealed that commonly used metaphors in leadership heavily rely on gender-binaries and muscularity (Ashcraft and Muhr, 2018;MacDonald, 2019;Randell and Yerbury, 2020), middle-class and Anglo-centric norms (Wilkinson, 2008;MacDonald, 2019), as well as military-centered vocabularies (Ashcraft and Muhr, 2018;Armstrong et al, 2020). For example, pointing out the fact that military metaphors are commonly used for schools and educators, Armstrong et al (2020) explored the way school principals achieved social justice goals and strategies using war-normalizing metaphors.…”

“…Studies have revealed that commonly used metaphors in leadership heavily rely on gender-binaries and muscularity (Ashcraft and Muhr, 2018;MacDonald, 2019;Randell and Yerbury, 2020), middle-class and Anglo-centric norms (Wilkinson, 2008;MacDonald, 2019), as well as military-centered vocabularies (Ashcraft and Muhr, 2018;Armstrong et al, 2020). For example, pointing out the fact that military metaphors are commonly used for schools and educators, Armstrong et al (2020) explored the way school principals achieved social justice goals and strategies using war-normalizing metaphors. Findings from such critical inquiry revealed that school leaders tend to rely on aggressive and superhero-driven metaphors as a reflection of their strong will to challenge the status quo and realize social justice goals (Theoharis, 2008;Liu and Baker, 2016;Heffernan, 2019;Armstrong et al, 2020).…”

“…While recent studies have challenged such an individual-driven Eurocentric approach (Alston, 2005;Khalifa et al, 2019;Liu, 2020) and suggested leadership as an ongoing interactive process with multiple actors (Woods, 2004;Spillane, 2005;Harris, 2013;Ishimaru and Galloway, 2014;Kim, 2020;Torres et al, 2020), the literature and daily practices of school leaders often illuminate person-centered heroic traits that could dramatically fix problems and bring necessary changes (Ehrensal, 2015;Fleming et al, 2018;Schweiger et al, 2020). In urban schools with high needs in the United States (U.S.), images of social justice leaders, who dismantle the unjust systems and transform the status quo for equitable practices, have tended to be in favor of superhero-like individual principals in achieving social justice outcomes by school leaders and also researchers to some extent, glorifying leaders' martyrdom in making radical changes (Theoharis, 2007, Theoharis, 2008Armstrong et al, 2020; see films like Lean on Me, Stand and Deliver, Hard Lessons). However, such a view also contradicts democratic and shared approaches, one of the key theoretical constructs of social justice (Shields, 2004;Theoharis, 2007;Theoharis, 2008;DeMatthews et al, 2016;Wang, 2018;Shields and Hesbol, 2020).…”

“…1 We apply metaphorical analysis as it reveals an individual's cognitive processes and implicit assumptions behind the symbolic language and daily practices of leadership (Lakoff and Johnson, 2003;Witherspoon and Crawford, 2014;Guilherme and Souza de Freitas, 2018). Further, metaphors reflect dominant ideologies and typologies used in the field (Wilkinson, 2008;MacDonald, 2019;Armstrong et al, 2020). With this in mind, we find that examining the use of heroic metaphors in the practice of social justice leadership is helpful to interrogate the ways in which heroic discourses intertwine with social justice leadership.…”