Sometimes We Straddle the Fence: Exploration of an Urban Researcher in School Leadership

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 1:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Engaging Leadership and Change in Educational Systems and Practices (Table 2)

Abstract

Grounded in hooks’s (2001) theory of love, and Love’s (2023) newest work, Punished for Dreaming, I examine my experience of “straddling the fence” as a school leader and critical researcher in an urban school. Using autoethnographic methods I explore the duality of my role as a Black (urban) school leader in a turnaround school and a critical researcher conducting Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) in that same school. I examine the conflicting expectations, thoughts, and emotions that have been contentious throughout the research study which explores Black joy with middle school students, to resist the neoliberal orchestrated construction of failing schools. Hook’s (2001) theory of love reminds me of my personal purpose as an educator of Black children.

Author

• Kionna Williams, Wayne State University