A Developmental Lens on Social Justice Leadership: A Qualitative Examination

• In Event: Developing Leaders' Capacity and Consciousness for Social Justice

Abstract

This paper draws from the first phase of a larger qualitative study with educational leaders (n=32), as well as nearly three decades of research and teaching, to explore how constructive-developmental theory offers new insights about enacting and supporting social justice leadership in our schools and districts. Specifically, it argues that developing deeper understanding of leaders’ developmental diversity can help expand and support social justice leadership throughout the system. Findings suggest that educational leaders’ qualitatively different developmental orientations (i.e., ways of knowing) influence their thinking about and practice of school leadership for social justice. The paper describes the overarching orientations of—and effective developmental supports for—educational leaders who make meaning with each of the four ways of knowing in adulthood.

Authors

• Eleanor E. Drago-Severson, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Jessica Blum-DeStefano, Teachers College, Columbia University