Doing Justice: The Role of Distributed Leadership in Transforming Urban Schooling

• In Event: 34.021 - Distributed Leadership Outcomes: Climate, Empowerment, and Transformation

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore initial opportunities and challenges associated with the implementation of distributed leadership as one of multiple changes in a unique University/school partnership’s comprehensive reform initiative. Data are drawn from a long-term ethnography and mixed methods social design experiment of this initiative, including survey and school data. Results of our analyses found that power produced generative frictions that animated change in understandings of leadership. Implementation of distributed leadership occurred in everyday interactions as these frictions were negotiated. This research contributes to ongoing research on distributed leadership by carefully documenting and interpreting how leadership practice is constructed in the everyday life of a school.

Authors

• Joanne C. Larson, University of Rochester

• Karen J. DeAngelis, University of Rochester

• Shaun C Nelms, Rochester City School District