Entry Points for Equity: A Developmental Continuum of Justice-Centering Educational Leadership and Stretches for Growth

• In Event: New Directions in Leadership Preparation and Development

Abstract

This paper describes a research-based, developmental continuum of social justice leadership that outlines educators’ cumulative strengths and growing edges of practice—as described by a diverse sample of fifty leaders from across the United States. Drawing from in-depth qualitative interviews and formal developmental assessments, our research highlights how participants’ developmental ways of knowing (i.e., internal meaning making systems) influence their leadership on behalf of equity and justice. Here, we focus specifically on a layered developmental continuum of practice and how developmental stretches can help build leaders’ capacity. Our research illuminates underexplored and intertwined connections of social justice leadership development and adult developmental theory, and emphasizes implications for leadership preparation and on-the-ground professional learning.

Authors

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

• Jessica Blum-DeStefano, Bank Street College of Education
  Presenting Author

• Deborah Brooks-Lawrence, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author