Decolonizing School Leadership to Remedy and Repair Racial Harm for Black School Leaders

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 9:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Antiracist Education, Policies, and Decolonization (Table 6)

Abstract

This paper reports on an ongoing research project funded by the Spencer Foundation with researchers in three public universities across Canada (Western Canada, the Prairies, and East-Central Canada). The project takes a decolonizing, transnational gaze into the work and wellbeing of Black school leaders (school principals and vice/assistant principals) in five Canadian provinces and two Caribbean countries, namely British Columbia, Ontario, and the Prairie Provinces Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, and Grenada and Jamaica. We draw on document analysis of mainstream leadership frameworks and policies and one-on-one and small-group conversations with school leaders across these sites. The paper presents preliminary findings from our sites, illuminating how colonial structures and ideologies perpetuate racial inequities for Black school leaders in these contexts.

Authors

• Donna Hazel Swapp, University of Regina

• Katina E. Pollock, Western University

• Annette Walker, Western University

• Fei Wang, University of British Columbia