Social justice leadership and inclusion: a genealogy

The purpose of this article is to engage in an historical analysis of research about two concepts: social justice leadership and leadership for inclusion. Recent experiences have caused me to wonder about our interpretations of justice, equity, and inclusion. Analysis of the relevant literature revealed a lack of consensus among scholars as to a clear, operational definition of both social justice leadership and inclusion. I use a Foucauldian genealogical method to examine texts and uncover the historical development of social justice leadership and leadership for inclusion in the United States. Uncovering past meanings and contexts should help illuminate current meanings and uses of these concepts. It is recommended that leaders engage in critical reflection to uncover the common sense language of equity-oriented leadership practices and that researchers take a more critical, historical, open stance of social justice leadership, and inclusion.     

Educational leadership and the Capabilities Approach: evidence from Ghana

School leaders play a central role in affecting the educational development of the young people for whom they have responsibility. This is especially the case where school leaders are operating in challenging low-income environments. This paper argues that a focus on Sen’s notions of individual agency and freedom are a necessary but not a sufficient factor in the conversion of capabilities into functionings for these school leaders. This is done through using the Capabilities Approach as a lens through which to carry out a retrospective analysis and evaluation of the activities of a group of primary school headteachers in Ghana involved in a UK Government-funded project focused on education quality. The paper argues that headteachers with the capability of initiating change in the education process in their schools are unlikely to act in this way unless they feel that they have permission to do so. It is also important that headteachers feel that they are working within a context and an environment where acting in ways which aim to improve pupil learning is seen as central to their role. This kind of supportive context for school leaders (and for other educational practitioners) cannot be divorced from a policy environment which sanctions such activities, and, hence, it is argued that such a context is crucial to policy developments which seek to establish and sustain the core capabilities which are at the heart of Nussbaum’s essentialist approach. The paper also brings to the foreground the tensions that exist between the notion of individuals being free to make choices about what they have reason to value, on the one hand, and the implications that these choices have for the freedoms of other individuals with whom they are connected to make such choices. Finally, it is argued in the paper that the action research approach used in the Leadership & Management Project in Ghana, allied to a positive policy context, provides both the sensitivity to context and a practice-oriented focus which can enable school leaders to bring about the conversion of their individual capabilities into functionings.     

Social justice leadership and The Art of War

ABSTRACT

The social justice leadership research recognizes the pivotal role that educational leaders play in mobilizing the discourse and achieving social justice in schools. However, current social justice leadership studies may be seen as limited in that the variety of important themes and issues identified in the discussions of social justice within educational leadership are generally addressed in an isolated manner, focusing on specific aspects. There seems to be a lack of an overarching framework which may be used to examine social justice leadership in a holistic and multidimensional manner by taking into account leadership, organizational conditions and environment. This article aims to examine social justice leadership through the lens of the ‘Five Fundamentals’ outlined in The Art of War by the Chinese General, Sun Tzu. In doing so, the article extends the theoretical boundary in social justice leadership by considering its moral purpose, human and environmental conditions, leadership practices, and technical constraints.     

A cross-cultural analysis of educational leadership for social justice in Israel and Turkey: meanings,actions and contexts

The research compares principals in Israel (Jewish and Arab) and Turkey and how they perceive and practice their role in promoting social justice (SJ) in their schools in order to bridge socioeconomic and pedagogic gaps. It poses three questions: (1) How do Turkish and Israeli SJ leaders make sense of SJ? (2) What do SJ leaders do in both countries similarly and differently? (3) What factors facilitate or hinder the work of SJ in both countries? The qualitative study employed in-depth semi-structured interviews to collect the narratives of 11 school principals in Turkey and Israel. A comparative, holistic analysis was employed to identify the principals’ perceptions and daily practice of SJ in their schools. The principals reported different sociocultural, national and personal trajectories that shaped their perceptions of SJ, and described strategies used to promote SJ in their daily scholastic policies, processes and practices that meet the school stakeholders’ backgrounds and needs.     

Neoliberal versus social justice reforms in education policy and practice: discourses,politics and disability rights in education

This article uses critical discourse analysis in order to discuss the equity and social justice implications of an envisaged education reform agenda in Cyprus, as articulated by two consultation reports commissioned by the World Bank. The reports highlight, inter alia, the imperative to improve teaching and enhance accountability regimes with regard to students’ learning. Selected extracts from these documents are analyzed in order to highlight the absence of a social justice discourse in the rhetoric of educational reforms, despite the alleged centrality of a social justice discourse in official policy. The reports fail to include issues of social justice and learner diversity in discussing the necessity to strengthen the existing teacher policy framework and to mobilize structural educational reforms. This omission is indicative of the neoliberal imperatives that drive the envisaged education policy reforms as well as the low priority attributed to issues of equity and learner diversity, with particular reference to students designated as having special educational needs and/or disabilities.     

Educational leadership and social activism: a call for action

The purpose of this article is to argue for a social activist stance in educational leadership that fundamentally addresses social change and human emancipation. This call for social activism is framed within neoliberal, neoconservative, and authoritarian populist discourses in the USA, which to social justice educators and leaders had devastating effects on education. Empirical data from an activist high school principal, activist university professor, and activist priest reflects their development of political clarity, political capacity, political collaboration, and an ethic of risk. It is suggested that the work of socially active educational leaders needs to be broadened to include such things as public policy advocacy, networking, organising, community development, and scholarship. Finally, the article concludes with a variety of ways educational leaders can demonstrate their social, moral, and political activism as they challenge the status quo, fight for social justice, and come to understand the politicised notion of leadership.     

Equity and social justice in teaching and teacher education

This essay presents a review on the theme of equity and social justice in teaching and teacher education based on articles published in TATE since its inception. It is a part of an initiative started by the current editors of TATE to “encourage us all to look backward to deepen our understandings of how earlier research has shaped our current research and the ways we can see the reverberations across the temporal span” (Clandinin & Hamilton, 2011, P. 2).     

School reforms,principal leadership,and teacher resistance: evidence from Korea

Many countries design and implement school change with a focus on the fundamental reconfiguration in the structures of schooling. In this article, we examined the relationship between principal leadership and teacher resistance to school reforms driven by external interveners. For an empirical analysis, we took advantage of extensive data derived from 967 teachers and 32 principals in Korean vocational high schools that are now experiencing school reforms launched by the government. Our results revealed the importance of human aspects of school changes and reforms, in particular, driven by the external intervener. We first showed that a principal's initiative leadership is significantly related to the reduction of teacher resistance to change, in particular on the emotional and behavioural dimensions. Not surprisingly, teachers showed a higher level of resistance when their schools participate in the government-driven reform. Finally, teacher resistance depended upon characteristics of teachers as well as principals. These findings provide some useful policy implications for facilitating successful school reform efforts. Foremost, school reformers are advised to rethink the school change model design in a way of fully capturing human aspects in the reform process.     

Cross-cultural dimensions of applied,critical, and transformational leadership: women principals advancing social justice and educational equity

This study, based on the qualitatively rendered experiences and perceptions of educational leaders from historically underserved backgrounds in the US, argues that identity impacts leadership practice. To make this point, researchers build upon an emergent theoretical framework for applied critical leadership from the theories and traditions of transformational leadership, personal leadership, critical pedagogy, and critical race theory. With regard to methodology, a two-subject case study was validated by adding three additional participants for points of verification to the findings and discussion. Interview, field notes, and relevant documents were analyzed using phenomenology and constant comparative methods. Major findings indicate participants’ practice reveal characteristics of cross-cultural applied, critical, and transformational leadership. These scholarly findings are significant because they can inform mainstream leadership practices contributing to educational equity, authentic multiculturalism, improved intercultural relations, innovation, increased academic achievement, and sustainable educational change.     

Voluntary organizations and the contribution to social justice in schools: learning from a case study

Partnerships are seen as vital to the functioning of many social institutions and the contribution that the private and voluntary not‐for‐profit sector organizations can make to the provision of statutory services is particularly valued. The Church of England Children’s Society Genesis project worked for nearly 5 years in one urban, secondary school with a remit to promote inclusion. Despite much recorded good work, Genesis was not continued after its contract ended. The school had a series of head teachers and was in special measures for part of the period, but key problems centred around the extent of the project’s contribution to the school’s core business and the absence of a positive management of the multi‐professional project by the school. The evaluation examines ways of proceeding which are of relevance to more complex projects. The paper also reviews the place of voluntary and non‐profit making organizations in meeting current challenges to collaborative, multi‐agency working and proposes a more robust, directive, and managerialist approach to make the most efficient and effective use of the resources and expertise of voluntary and statutory agencies (Inter‐agency Czar and Stalinist environment!). Genesis has gone on to work more successfully in six further schools having absorbed the messages of the evaluation of this first enterprise.     

School diversity and social justice: policy and politics

This paper focuses on the long established diversity in the English education system – independent schools, grammar schools and religious schools – and in so doing explores tensions between education policy, politics and social justice. It explores the differential access to these different types of school, their social composition and implications for social justice and for wider society. It is argued that if social justice is to be a goal of government, further policy changes are needed over and above those that have already been made. However, the political challenges, which have limited policy changes to date, would be significant.     

Educational and indigenous justice in Africa

This article examines the way in which some of the most discriminated against, disadvantaged and marginalised groups on the African continent, are re-defining education through strategies aimed at recognition of rights and social justice. It uses Fraser's analysis of social justice – distribution, recognition and participation – to examine the demands of the indigenous movement in Africa for rights to education. Over the past 10 years the concept of ‘indigenous’ has become embedded in African regional resolutions and reports while communities self-identifying as indigenous have been shaping new political and educational spaces for their participation and decision making about their development and their education. Taking the example of the East African pastoralists and the Maasai of Ngorongoro District in Tanzania, it looks at indigenous communities’ initiatives to define and achieve a qualitative education which is relevant and meaningful for their lives today. It concludes with a discussion of the potential for the indigenous movement in Africa to ‘reframe’ education for the benefit of not only indigenous communities but for all learners.     

The role of an epistemology of inclusivity on the pursuit of social justice: a case study

Social justice education emphasizes how schools can better serve traditionally marginalized students. This case study examines the pursuit of social justice education in an unlikely setting: a Catholic elementary school that both espouses inclusion of all children and effectively includes children with a wide range of disabilities. The article focuses on the way a school principal understands the concept of inclusivity and how this “epistemology of inclusivity” enacted by the leader impacts the pursuit of social justice in the school. The study illustrates that an epistemology of inclusivity can at once embolden and delimit the social justice practices.     

Educating leaders for social justice: the case of special educational needs co-ordinators

In the light of policy imperatives to initiate and maintain inclusive education reforms, the role of special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCOs) in England and Wales should be reconceptualised with a view to their leading school reforms commensurate with the principles of an inclusive discourse. The article concentrates on the social justice dimension of educational leadership to advance discussion of the changing role of SENCOs. It is suggested that, apart from the operational and strategic aspects of their redefined leadership role, SENCOs should be empowered to embrace a social justice discourse in tackling power inequities and systemic educational inequalities that undermine inclusive education reforms.     

Inclusion in education: A step towards social justice

This article discusses the theoretical relationships between inclusion in education and social justice. It draws on Martha Nussbaum's use of the capability approach is given as one of the few philosophical and political theories that places disability/impairment in the social justice debate. The article goes on to present findings from the initial stages of a three-year participatory action research project involving eight primary schools located in Dar es Salaam and Pwani (Coast) regions of Tanzania. The project aims to develop an Index of Inclusion in Tanzania. There are numerous barriers to inclusion at national, community and school levels. Both the literature review and the emerging findings of the project suggest some progress has been made towards inclusive, just and quality education in Tanzania but there is still a long way to go.     

Alternative education and social justice: considering issues of affective and contributive justice

This article considers the ways in which three alternative education sites in Australia support socially just education for their students and how injustice is addressed within these schools. The article begins with recognition of the importance of Nancy Fraser’s work to understandings of social justice. It then goes on to argue that her framework is insufficient for understanding the particularly complex set of injustices that are faced by many highly marginalised young people who have rejected or been rejected by mainstream education systems. We argue here for the need to consider the importance of ‘affective’ and ‘contributive’ aspects of justice in schools. Using interview data from the alternative schools, we highlight issues of affective justice raised by students in relation to their educational journeys, as well as foregrounding teachers’ affective work in schools. We also consider curricular choices and pedagogical practices in respect of matters of contributive justice. Our contention is that the affective and contributive fields are central to the achievement of social justice for the young people attending these sites. Whilst mainstream schools are not the focus of this article, we suggest that the lessons here have salience for all forms of schooling.     

Educational justice for all: the capability approach and inclusive education leadership

Leaders within education must weigh a number of fundamentals as they engage the needs of the stakeholders they represent within the political, social and economic context they operate within. Leaders must consider the unique needs and capabilities of individuals who might not possess similar abilities or talents to those of the majority. In this paper, we explore the capability approach as a frame to consider such contextual fundamentals in inclusive education leadership. In order to examine how educational leaders address the diverse needs of the groups they serve, we interviewed five central office educational administrators in the USA with the responsibility for leading programming for students with special needs. Using a human capabilities frame, we developed targeted questions to determine whether school leaders uphold the tenets of this theoretical foundation within their district's practices in an era of tight fiscal management and accountability. Findings indicate that those leaders whose districts had the highest level of inclusion for most students, including students with significant disabilities, most closely align with the capability approach. Recommendations for continued research and implications for both practice and policy are included.     

Using social semiotics to prepare mathematics teachers to teach for social justice

In this article, we propose that guiding teachers to examine the regulative/discursive norms of school mathematics with tools derived from social semiotics can serve two related goals: (1) to deconstruct the “math is math period!” disposition in prospective teachers by promoting their critical understanding of the symbolic domination work they often unknowingly perform and (2) to reconstruct a more socio-political disposition by equipping them with tools for decoding the dominant discursive practices of school mathematics. After reviewing research on the social semiotics of mathematics education, we discuss two sample teacher education tasks designed with the above goals in mind.     

Pre-primary education in Tanzania: Observations from urban and rural classrooms

This study examined the relationship between pre-primary educational policy and actual practice in Tanzania. Policy relevant to pre-primary education was analyzed and 15 pre-primary lessons from two urban and two rural schools were videotaped. Although the national educational policy specifies the same standards for pre-primary education regardless of location, there were considerable differences across schools. Compared to urban classes, rural ones had considerably less space, larger group sizes, less favorable teacher/pupil ratios, fewer instructional resources and less qualified teachers. Teacher professional qualifications appeared to influence the quality of classroom interaction more than the physical setting and resources.