Counter/Public Contentions: Policy Deliberation, Educational Leadership, and the Black Educational Imagination

• In Event: Leadership, Policy, and Politics

Abstract

In liberal-democratic political discourse, the public sphere is lauded as a space in which citizens have the opportunity to contribute to the formation of policy priorities, community values and collective opinion. However, due to material and political-ideological constraints, not all communities have equal access to these discursive spaces, presenting a challenge for educational leaders and policymakers committed to democratic decision-making processes. In this paper, I use empirical data from an historical ethnography on Black leadership in school desegregation politics and theories of public and counterpublic spheres to explore the significance of counterpublic spaces, in which subaltern groups construct their own imaginations of education and push back against the ‘public/ ‘private’ divide that renders their policy concerns inappropriate for public deliberation.

Author

• Michael J. Dumas, New York University