Sensemaking Equity: Exploring Variation in District Leaders' Conceptualizations of Equity-Centered Leadership

• In Event: Conceptualizations of Social Justice Leadership in Research and Practice

Abstract

In this paper, we explore variation in how two large urban school districts approach equity-centered leadership. Variation in how district officials understand and identify equity-centered schools has broad implications for how equity work is pursued, who gets positive recognition, and who receives additional support. Guided by Rochelle Gutiérrez’s equity framework (2012) and sensemaking theory, we show that the two districts varied in the criteria they used to identify schools as positive examples of equity-centered contexts. We also show that in general, district leaders' reasoning for school nominations in both contexts primarily reflected a commitment to equity as achievement over commitments to equity as access, power, or identity. We discuss the implications of these preliminary findings for leading district improvement.

Authors

• Neven Matthew Holland, University of California - Los Angeles

• Mary Louise Leger, University of California - Los Angeles

• Louis M. Gomez, University of California - Los Angeles