Exploring Principals' Understanding of Cultural Competence: A Case Study of an Urban School District

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

Abstract

Culturally competent educators are called to give each student, “regardless of differentiated circumstances, ‘permanent value’” (Moule, 2012; p. 7). With the understanding that the field of educational leadership must offer appropriate and specific recommendations on how to develop culturally competent school leaders, we must first seek to understand leaders’ conceptual understandings of cultural competence. With social cognitive theory (SCT) as our theoretical framework, the purpose of this study, as one component of a larger longitudinal research project, is to examine school leaders’ affective, behavioral, and cognitive understandings of cultural competence by answering the following questions:

1. What are principals’ understandings of cultural competence?
2. What factors in principals’ personal/professional experience inform their understanding and leadership practices of cultural competence?

Authors

• Bradley W. Carpenter, The University of Houston

• Detra DeVerne Johnson, University of Houston

• Daniel D. Spikes, Iowa State University

• Amanda Marie Bowers, University of Louisville

• Lisa Marie Hooper, The University of Alabama

• Gaëtane Jean-Marie, University of Northern Iowa