Negotiating the Contested Terrain of Equity-Focused Change Efforts in Schools: Critical Race Theory as a Leadership Tool for Creating More Equitable Schools

• In Event: Roundtable Session 45
  In Roundtable Session: Sites of Struggle and Possibility: Reflections, Lessons, and Tools From the Field

Abstract

We explore the utility of critical race theory (CRT) for helping school leaders anticipate and make sense of resistance to equity-focused change efforts and for suggesting ways that CRT can inform how these efforts can be more successfully implemented. We present the story and our analysis of a recent publicly contested equity-focused change effort in order to illustrate how (a) issues of property are the true locus of contestation within equity reforms, (b) majoritarian narratives are used to assert property rights, and (b) interest convergence has been the process through which equity-focused change has occurred. Finally, we use these CRT conceptualizations to propose a set of leadership strategies for guiding and improving the implementation of similar equity-focused change efforts.

Authors

• Terry M. Pollack, Mills College

• Sabrina Zirkel, Mills College