Setting the Stage: Pedagogical Practices to Foster Antiracist Leaders

• In Event: Developing Justice Leaders: High-Impact Strategies in Leadership Preparation

Abstract

Purpose. This study describes how the intentional planning and use of pedagogical tasks and practices promote learning in university-district leadership preparation program partnerships. Pedagogical tasks that promote university-district leaders to negotiate critical self-reflection in leadership preparation promote concurrent growth of aspiring leaders, district leaders, and university partners. In this paper, we illustrate how the practice of developing and modeling racial autobiographies (Radd et al., 2021) to launch university-district leadership preparation programs worked to: 1) build district-university partner relational trust; 2) set the stage for antiracist leadership development and practice; and 3) foster critical consciousness and sociopolitical awareness.

Perspectives. Leadership preparation programs are increasingly challenged to prepare antiracist educational leaders equipped to lead. With an increasing emphasis on the dismantling of oppressive educational systems, leadership research describes the knowledge and skills leaders need in order to confront systemic inequality and lead the transformation of systems in schools (Biag et al., 2021). Recent research focused on leadership preparation programs touts the need to develop pipelines in partnership with school districts to develop culturally responsive leaders (Gooden et al., 2023). Two important elements in antiracist, culturally responsive leadership development are critical consciousness and sociopolitical awareness. Critical consciousness fosters critical self-reflection, a necessary step in the process of identifying and recognizing how educational systems uphold and perpetuate systemic inequality (Theoharis & Haddix, 2011). The development of sociopolitical awareness in leaders, meanwhile, is critical in order to build stronger connections with students, families, and communities, and develop as antiracist, culturally responsive leaders. These two elements of leadership development point to leaders' ability to engage in internal reflection activities that support the development of leadership identity, and reflection activities that challenge individuals to grapple with their own embodied awareness of the external factors that impact the students, families, and communities they serve.

Methods. We draw on participatory design research methods (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016), privileging the “processes of partnering” (p. 175) in collaboratively designing racial autobiographies as process, task, and activity. Data sources include district leaders’ and university partners’ racial autobiographies (n = 4), candidates’ racial autobiographies (n = 40) from fall 2021 (Creswell, 2013; Yin, 2014), and candidates’ final program presentation recordings (n = 40) from spring 2023. We conducted artifact-based content analyses to identify how racial autobiographies, as pedagogical practice and task, fostered candidates’ critical consciousness and sociopolitical awareness development towards becoming antiracist, culturally responsive leaders.

Results and Significance. Preliminary findings suggest multilevel impact after racial autobiography implementation. Findings suggest launching leadership preparation with racial autobiographies resulted in building relational trust between district-university partners, between district-university partners and candidates, and among cohort candidates. Vulnerability was designed into the program from the beginning, demonstrating the importance of critical self-reflection, empathy, and commitment to antiracism. Racial autobiographies increased awareness of the impact of White supremacy, Colorism, and Anti-Blackness across racial lines, opening up discussions about how to confront tacit and not-so-tacit manifestations in practice. Finally, district leaders and candidates reported repeating racial autobiographies with their P12 students as well as with school and district-office based communities of practice.

Authors

• Maritza Lozano, California State University - Fullerton

• Mary Grace, Anaheim Elementary School District - Anaheim, CA