30 Black Male School Leaders in England: Who Are They? What Is Known About Them?

• In Event: International Perspectives of Black Male Teachers

Abstract

Teacher workforce surveys in the UK indicate that teachers from ethnic minority groups are under-represented in the workforce. Just 6.7% of the teaching force is from an ethnic minority group compared to 12.8% of the population as a whole. And the number of headteachers who are from a black minority ethnic (BME) group is even lower – just 2.4% (Department for Education, 2013). Moreover, the proportion of black (i.e. those of African or African Caribbean heritage) males in leadership positions is miniscule. Such is their paucity that in 2011 it was reported that ‘Black male head teachers in England’s state schools number just 30’ (Shepherd, 2011). Of this number, twenty were leading state-funded nursery or primary schools and ten in secondary schools. There were no black male school leaders of Special Schools. No data is available for Academy or Free Schools (Department of Education, 2013).Within the UK, the relative ‘success’ of black male school leaders is juxtaposed against systemic and perennial under-performance of black males in the school system and whilst there are accounts of the intersectional experiences of black males in schools (Phoenix, 2008; Archer,2008), no analyses currently exists for those who lead schools.

This paper draws on research which explores the career trajectories and leadership experiences of ten black male school leaders. It examines their leadership journeys through the nexus of race, gender and class and examines the agentic strategies they deploy in their leadership roles. The experience of leadership in a predominantly white and feminised education space is explored through the dual lenses of Critical Race Theory and intersectionality (Wingfield, 2013; Anthias, 2013) in order to shed light on an under-researched area of inquiry and to provide a nuanced analysis of the professional lives of black male school leaders.

Qualitative semi-structured interviews along with documentary analysis are used to capture the complex and multiple ways in which black male leaders experience and interpret educational leadership. This is particularly important in the context of recent social, structural and educational change in the form of greater autonomy in schools and the drive towards a school-led educational landscape. Whereas documentary analysis is used to reveal the current colour-blind, gender-neutral discursive articulation of school leadership and provides a backdrop to qualitative interviews which illuminate the ways in which black male school leaders (re)construct and (re)define their professional lives, counterstorytelling, a tenet of Critical Race Theory, is utilised to interrupt ‘monovocal’, majoritarian accounts of ethnic minority school leadership experiences and aspirations. Whilst subtle, hidden and structural systems of power combine to produce ‘intersectional invisibility’ (Ahmed, 2012; Howard, 2014).

This study brings a fresh and yet under-researched perspective to the UK literature, adding to broader discussions of black male teachers and teacher leaders in the UK and elsewhere.

Authors

• Paul Miller, Brunel University

• Paul Washington Miller, Institute of Education - London