Growing Leadership Imagination With Cognitive Tools: A Focus on Equity

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Examining Approaches to Leadership Development and Coaching

Abstract

Widespread calls to imagination indicate a shared belief that imagination is required to both conceptualize and navigate the uncharted terrain of a truly equitable education system. However, these informal references to imagination leave much unaddressed in relation to the theoretical and practical dimensions of imagination itself. There is little theoretical or practical knowledge of how imagination will get us to or get us through this unfamiliar terrain. This research applies the educational framework of Imaginative Education (Egan, 1997, 2005) and “cognitive tools” that engage and grow imagination, to equity-focused leadership practices. This work points to how cognitive tools may be intentionally and widely used to understand, challenge, and ultimately dismantle exclusionary social imaginaries that dominant education systems.

Author

• Gillian Judson, Simon Fraser University