Rooted in Ethnic Studies: Designing Professional Development for Educational Leaders

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: The Critical Role of Ethnic Studies in Educational Leadership

Abstract

Objectives & Research Questions:
This paper explores what it means to be a leader for and from within Ethnic Studies at a moment when California policy, via AB 101, is institutionalizing the subject statewide. As Ethnic Studies becomes a high school graduation requirement, school and district leaders are increasingly responsible for its implementation—often without deep grounding in the discipline’s history, pedagogy, and purpose. This raises two central research questions:
What does it mean to lead for Ethnic Studies?
What does it mean to lead from within Ethnic Studies?
The paper investigates how leadership can be transformed through the values of Ethnic Studies—critical consciousness, self-determination, and community accountability—and how professional learning can support this shift.

Theory:
The study draws from three key frameworks: Ethnic Studies pedagogy (Tintiangco-Cubales et al., 2015), Critical Leadership Praxis (CLP) (Daus-Magbual & Tintiangco-Cubales, 2016), and Community Responsive Leadership (Tintiangco-Cubales & Duncan-Andrade, 2021). Freire’s (1970/2014) concept of critical consciousness and his later work on transformative leadership (Weiner, 2003) further ground the inquiry. Taken together, these frameworks inform the development of the Ethnic Studies Leadership Praxis (ESLP)—a model that centers reflexivity, solidarity, and systemic critique. Autoethnography (Camangian, 2010) and culturally sustaining leadership practices (Ladson-Billings, 2014; Yosso, 2005) are also core to this theoretical foundation.

Methods/Sources:
This research emerges from a Leadership Participatory Action Research (LPAR) process within a four-weekend Ethnic Studies Leadership Development (ESLD) series. Eight K–12 leaders from various racial/ethnic backgrounds and institutional levels participated. The series was rooted in humanizing pedagogies (Fernández, 2019), autoethnographic reflection (Camangian, 2010), and community cultural wealth frameworks (Yosso, 2005). Participants engaged in guided reflection, collaborative planning, and political education facilitated by Ethnic Studies scholars and community organizers. Data sources included participant writing, interviews, session artifacts, and implementation plans, all analyzed to identify how leaders internalized and enacted the principles of ESLP.

Findings:
Participants experienced a transformative shift in their understanding of leadership. Critical autoethnography prompted deeper awareness of their positionalities and racialized experiences (Camangian, 2010; Tagamolila-Noriega, 2024). The sessions modeled community-embedded, culturally rooted leadership practices (Daus-Magbual et al., 2019; Tintiangco-Cubales et al., 2015), which participants described as “healing” and “liberating.” Their action plans reflected a move away from compliance and toward community-rooted, relational, and restorative leadership. Participants emphasized the need for sustained spaces of reflection and praxis—what Wenger et al. (2002) call “communities of practice”—to support continued growth.

Significance:
This paper offers Ethnic Studies Leadership Praxis (ESLP) as a framework for developing educational leaders committed to justice, transformation, and community accountability. As Beckham and Concordia (2019) argue, Ethnic Studies is not just about understanding the world—it is about changing it. ESLP shifts the conversation from technical implementation to relational, principled leadership rooted in cultural, historical, and community knowledge. In a time of rapid policy expansion, this study highlights the urgent need for leadership approaches that are aligned with the liberatory goals of Ethnic Studies and grounded in shared struggle, reflection, and action (Freire, 2021; Daus-Magbual et al., 2023).

Authors

• Tracie Noriega, Association of California School Administrators

• Arlene Daus-Magbaul, San Francisco State University

• Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, San Francisco State University