Black Urban School Principal Practitioner-Wisdom: A Subversive Leadership Framework

• In Event: Leadership Insights From BIPOC Principals

Abstract

Schools are not neutral. They fuel cultural reproduction. Educational leaders play significant roles in the adoption, implementation, sustainability, and effectiveness of school-based design and interventions. Black school leaders inform the subversive actions needed to meet the needs and brilliance of students and families and close existing educational outcome gaps. This study explores how their life experiences shape the subversive leadership framework of Black urban high school principals in the United States. A subversive leadership framework requires conspiring and implementing strategic actions to circumvent systems and practices that disadvantage marginalized students and communities, actions that protect and prepare children for their own subversive actions, and commitment to the health of the entire school ecosystem. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews.

Author

• Latisha Chisholm, College Track