Pandemic Leadership: Shifting Leadership Priorities for Equity Opportunities

• In Event: New Leadership Strains: School Leadership and the COVID Crisis

Abstract

Responding to the 2022 AERA Annual Meeting theme and the call for reimagining equitable education systems after the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper explored how school principals who are leading for equity have navigated through pandemic challenges, made sense of the new expectations for being effective pandemic leaders, and their plans for creating better post-pandemic schools. Using structured individual interviews and content analysis of materials collected through online Community of Practice professional learning meetings, the findings indicate how the school leaders’ leadership priorities shifted further toward leading for equity during the pandemic. They expressed the desire to use the pandemic experiences to make education better. Findings provided implications for educators and policymakers about post-pandemic school leadership

Authors

• Aki Murata, Freudenthal Institute

• Xueqin Lin, University of California - Berkeley

• Rebecca Cheung, University of California - Berkeley

• Quennie Dong, University of California - Berkeley