LeaderPAR: A Participatory Action Research Framework for School and Community Leadership

• In Event: Can We Research Leadership for Social Justice in Rigorous and Meaningful Ways?

Abstract

This presentation describes a PAR approach to school leadership (LeaderPAR) that goes beyond professional capacity-building and organizational learning, aiming to bring greater balance between school and community-based approaches to school capacity building and social change. The authors see LeaderPAR as a potential response to the current upswing in paternalistic “no excuses” approaches to schooling in many inner-city charter schools that view communities as problematic and students as deficient. This paper will provide an overview of participatory action research and the three central foci of PAR and how they might impact notions of leadership and school reform.

Author

• Erika Bernabei Middleton, PolicyLink