Black Male School Leaders: Protectors and Defenders of Children, Community, and Village

• In Event: Blackness in Schools: Surviving and Thriving in Hostile Environments

Abstract

This study explored the ways in which the race-gendered identities and lived experiences of Black male K-12 public and independent school leaders inform their leadership in support of students, community, and wider village. The qualitative research study used survey, phenomenological, and visual elicitation methods to examine the lived experiences and perspectives of 14 Black male school leaders in the United States. Study findings described the essence of the ways in which Black male school leaders serve as protectors and defenders—being in service to and safeguarding the village, evident through an action-orientated commitment to a dismantling of structural and systemic racism, entrenched segregation, anti-Blackness, and other inequities that discriminate and disproportionately marginalize significant numbers of students, community, and village.

Author

• Phillip A Smith, Teachers College, Columbia University