Toward Relational and Accountable Leadership in Indigenous Family-School-Community Engagement

• In Event: Family, School, Community Partnerships’ Leadership and Reform

Abstract

Drawing from Indigenous cultural protocols that have previously been applied almost exclusively to research, this study uses relationality and relational accountability as both a conceptual and methodological framework to explore the leadership practices of school and district leaders in a small town that has been home to a Wampanoag Tribe since time immemorial. Specifically, this paper explores whether or not leaders are exercising relationality and relational accountability in their engagement or partnership practices with Wampanoag and other Indigenous families and community members. Leadership towards relational and accountable relationships creates educational possibilities where Indigenous families and communities are supported in their efforts to revitalize and sustain what legacies of colonization and colonial schools have disrupted.

Author

• Shanee A. Washington, University of Washington