Critical Teacher Leadership: How Teachers Advocate for Transgender Students

• In Event: 63.048 - Teacher Leadership for What? Critical Advocacy for a More Just World

Abstract

Teacher leader scholarship has focused primarily on teachers’ efforts to lead instructional improvement. Increasingly, educators recognize that improving educational opportunities for marginalized students must include making educational spaces democratic, inclusive, and culturally relevant. Slowly, teacher leadership scholars have begun to turn their research toward matters of equity and social justice. This paper uses Bradley-Levine’s (2018) theory of “critical teacher leadership” to examine how elementary school teachers advocate for transgender students within and outside of the classroom, paying attention to the ways in which these teacher leaders influence their colleagues and shift the education culture to be more gender inclusive. Findings from this study help us understand how teachers can leverage their leadership capacity to create inclusive educational environments for transgender students.

Author

• Melinda M. Mangin, Rutgers University