Reclaiming Liminality: Korean American Adoptee and School Leadership

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 7:45 am - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender Roundtable: Asian American Experiences, Resistance, and Justice

Abstract

This ethnographic case study examines the leadership of a Korean American woman school administrator who was adopted transracially and raised in white communities. Using Asian Feminist Critical Race Theory (AsianFemCrit) and Park Nelson’s “Invisible Asians” thesis, the study reveals how intersecting identities inform her leadership as resistance, relational care, and moral praxis. Five themes illuminate her leadership as strategic disruption, feminist mentoring, racialized visibility, everyday resistance, and justice-centered practice. This study contributes to the re-visioning of educational leadership by amplifying adoptee voices and challenging dominant models. In doing so, it aligns with the conference theme of “unforgetting histories and imagining futures,” offering new narratives and frameworks that reclaim complexity and promote healing-centered, restorative leadership in schools.

Author

• Jia Liang, Kansas State University