Radical Maternidad: Latina School Leaders’ Testimonios of Agency, Care, and Resilience in Times of Crisis

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 3:45 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Women Redefining Educational Leadership

Abstract

This chapter examines how Latina school leaders in the United States and Latin America navigated the COVID-19 pandemic through a justice-oriented leadership model called radical maternidad. Grounded in a decolonial feminist framework and based on episodic narrative interviews with eleven women, the study centers participant testimonios to illuminate how leadership rooted in care, resilience, identity, and collective well-being disrupts dominant paradigms in educational leadership. Four cross-cutting themes emerge: stepping up when systems fail; leading with familismo and community advocacy; drawing strength from lived identity and cultural memory; and resisting harmful policies through care-centered action. Radical maternidad offers a transformative, relational approach that reimagines leadership as shared social responsibility and expands frameworks like transformational leadership toward deeper justice and healing.

Author

• Jennifer Ventimiglia, Northeastern Illinois University