Democratic and inclusive school leadership

• In Event: Critical Leadership Perspectives May Enable New, More Equitable Educational Futures

Abstract

Part A Challenging Attacks on Education
Over the past decade many nations – including the USA - have tilted towards authoritarianism and away from democracy. A central prong in the undermining of democracy has been the attack on public education (Stanley, 2024). Educational authoritarianization in nations such as Russia, Turkiye and Hungary serve as an alarming blueprint for this agenda (Salajan & Jules, 2024). In the USA the primary strategy (thus far) has been legislative, through state-based curriculum censorship, gag orders and misinformation that constitute an assault on foundational democratic concepts such as academic freedom, social justice, diversity, equity and inclusion.
Emerging from the lived experiences of educators in what might well be the epicenter of curriculum censorship in the USA- the state of Florida - this author braids three strands of critical consciousness and action in a conceptualization and operationalization of counter-hegemonic praxis against these attacks.
a) Framing the WHY of leadership for social justice by understanding the authoritarian rationales and tactics experienced by contemporary critical educators;
b) Remembering and recommitting to the WHAT of counter-hegemonic praxis related to democratic education and research, and their philosophical and moral underpinnings; and
c) Engaging the HOW of counter-hegemonic praxis at the micro/individual and macro/ institutional levels in aspiring to education and research that should be.

Presenter D. Maintaining Democratic Societies
We believe that public schools in many countries are essential to maintaining the democratic societies in which they are located. Public school education has played a crucial role in ensuring that the democratic and moral values espoused by countries such as the United States and Sweden are transmitted to successive generations.
We summarize the efforts to weaken, and arguably, dismantle the public school system in both Sweden and the U.S. (specifically Texas) over the past 30 years. The 1980s marked the beginning of a crisis of confidence with respect to public schools in the United States and Sweden which accelerated demands for alternatives such as vouchers and publicly-funded charter schools in the years that followed. Most significantly, school board governing structures were also being quietly and systematically targeted for the opportunities they provided for those who sought to implement these changes. The public’s lack of understanding regarding the significant influence that school board members can exert on schools, accompanied by the historically low voter turnout in school board elections, has made this an effective pathway for those seeking to seize control of the public school curriculum, educational policies and practices, rendering them much less democratic and equitable.
Guided by the premise that democracy requires a thriving free public education system, and informed by the research on principal identity (Crow et al., 2017; Cruz-Gonzalez et al., 2019) our research explores the perspectives of current and retired school administrators regarding the threats to democracy that are associated with efforts to weaken or eliminate their schools, and the ways they are responding to these threats. [246-original count]

Authors

• Dilys Schoorman, Florida Atlantic University

• Betty M. Merchant, University of Texas - San Antonio

• Olof CA Johansson, Umeå universitet