Leading With Their Lives: Pioneer Black and South Asian Head Teachers in the United Kingdom—1968–1996

• In Event: Educators and Leadership for Social Justice

Abstract

This paper focuses on the biographies of three pioneer Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) headteachers, Clifton Robinson, Gertrude Paul, and Naz Bokhari, and their role as a community builders and advocates for students of color in an often hostile British educational establishment. A variety of archival sources as well as oral history accounts were analyzed. The study situates the educational philosophies and leadership practices of early Black and South Asian school leaders in relation to historical race equality efforts in the cities in which they led (Leicester, Leeds, and London) and the UK more broadly.

Author

• Lauri Johnson, Boston College