A Case Study of Culturally Responsive Leadership in Southwestern Texas

• In Event: Critical Educational Change: Culturally Responsive Leadership and Research Trends in the Borderland Context and Beyond

Abstract

This paper looks at the culturally responsive practices of school leaders in a rural southwestern Texas district to promote an inclusive school community for their historically disenfranchised students. Various areas examined in this study were the effectiveness of professional development of existing teachers, the hiring of diverse staff, and the staff’s views of the existing culture.
Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Critical race theory was used to examine how culturally responsive school leaders are able to navigate through issues with racism on their campuses. Sense making provided a connection to actions that were socially accepted.
Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
A single qualitative case study design was chosen for this research. Purposeful sampling is a judgmental process where researchers rely on their own judgement when choosing members of a population for their research study (Ravitch & Carl, 2016). Purposeful sampling was used to select the participants with a background teaching a tested subject, longevity of leadership experience, and other criteria. Participant observations, interviews, and informal interviews were conducted with the school leaders in a rural southwestern Texas school district to include how they interacted with teachers, students, and other staff members.
Data sources, evidence, objects, or Materials
Since there is a need to examine various relationships with culturally responsive teaching, data was geared towards looking at a variety of sources. The researcher observed the roles of teachers, the perspectives of students, and the struggles of administrators to execute inclusiveness within the campus community. Ten interviews were conducted with the principals about their own views on culturally responsive leadership and how this affected their leadership, their daily decisions impacted their students and how they embraced the many capitals and strengths of their diverse student population.
Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/points of view
Preliminary findings for this study demonstrate that the school leaders embraced aspects of culturally responsive leadership even when they did not realize they were practicing it. There were some struggles with teachers because there was a lack of understanding of student culture and language. Emergent bilinguals were often seen as challenges as opposed to assets. The researcher in this study, a school leader, plans to unpack some of the findings more deeply during the coming year and create a plan for herself and other school leaders to support the teachers that bought into the pervasive deficit thinking and practices so well known in our nations’ schools.
Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
The needs of students should always be the top priority so they can experience the most out of their learning. School leaders that recognize the many strengths that students bring to their schools and negate and challenge deficit views of their students, particularly those most marginalized, model inclusiveness and the premises of culturally responsive leadership. They promote socially just teaching practices, which impact the student outcomes of all populations (Deal & Peterson, 2009). When culturally responsive leadership is used, barriers are anticipated with marginalized groups.

Author

• Nichole Williams Dixon, New Mexico State University
  Presenting Author