Education for Liberation: A Theory to Practice Model for School Change Centering Historically Marginalized Students

• In Event: Education for Liberation: Centering Marginalized Students in a Theory-to-Practice Model of School Change

Abstract

Objective
This paper delineates Education for Liberation (E4L) as a trainer-of-trainer school change leadership (SCL) model guided by a commitment to racial equity and justice. With unifying concepts, the model for systemic change is anchored in transformative, relational, courageous, and culturally sustaining education.

Theoretical framework
The history of education and formalized schooling in the US is a narrative of exclusion and racism (Williamson et al., 2006) that contemporary practices and policies have yet to shed.
Education for Liberation (E4L) relies on collaboration to center historically marginalized student populations in schooling and transform oppressive conditions and institutional arrangements (Freire, 1994; Paris & Alim, 2017; Gay, 2000; Salazar, 2013). Teachers and students come to liberation as they develop critical consciousness, deepen cultural knowledge across social groups, and engage in praxis or cycles of reflection and action. E4L is unified by four concepts, calling for teacher and student education to be simultaneously transformative, relational, courageous, and culturally sustaining, resulting in humanizing learning environments, participatory democracy, and freedom from oppression.


The School Change Leadership Model
The Education for Liberation (E4L) model promotes collaborative capacity building to center marginalized students and transform of school environments. The three phases of professional learning ensure equity is manifested in everyday practices and experiences. In phase one, a school change leadership team of seven people representing various stakeholders becomes part of a trainer-of-trainer program to lead a change process. They completed six three-hour hybrid online modules across seven months, where they regularly learned individually to reflect and take action together to develop a shared vision of equity and pedagogy. In phase two, the leadership team and classroom teachers participated in a 30-hour summer seminar on teaching practices that promoted student engagement. Finally, in phase three, the school change leadership (SCL) team planned and delivered two monthly professional learning community (PLC) sessions focused on equity and pedagogy to support teachers’ ongoing learning and implementation of new practices. Our approach goes beyond performative actions (i.e., equity statements) to sustainable systemic school change with measurable outcomes.

Results and Warrants for Point of View
The mixed method evaluation of the school change leadership model (Papers #2 and #3) provides empirical evidence that leaders felt empowered, teachers valued the ongoing in-house PLC sessions, teacher pedagogy significantly changed, and teachers reported that their students were more engaged in learning because of the new practices implemented. The findings have implications for school-based leadership models, teacher learning, and systems change.

Scholarly Significance
Research shows that the status quo of schooling generates perpetual inequalities (Faltis & Valdés, 2016; Author 1 et al., 2021), seriously diminishing academic and future life opportunities for historically marginalized students. Such conditions require a systemic change to achieve racial equity and justice that improves the human condition of underserved students. Educators themselves are at the heart of the challenge. E4L aims to radically disrupt the status quo, measurably improve instruction, and provide evidence of improved student learning.

Authors

• Tambra O. Jackson, Indiana University - Indianapolis

• Angel Cassandra Nathan, Indiana University - Indianapolis