Supporting Leaders' Practices for Equity and Transformation: A Developmental Continuum of Social Justice Educational Leadership

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Social (In)Justice in Education: Antiracist and Equity-Oriented Approaches

Abstract

This paper describes a research-based, developmental continuum of social justice leadership that outlines educators’ cumulative strengths and growing edges of practice—as described by a diverse sample of fifty leaders from across the United States. Drawing from in-depth qualitative interviews and formal developmental assessments, our study explored how participants’ developmental ways of knowing (i.e., internal meaning making systems) influenced their leadership on behalf of equity and justice. Here, we focus specifically on developmental supports and challenges that can help build leaders’ capacity along the continuum. As such, our research illuminates underexplored dimensions of social justice leadership development—and adult developmental theory—and offers implications for leadership preparation and in-service professional learning.

Authors

• Eleanor E. Drago-Severson, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Jessica Blum-DeStefano, Bank Street College of Education

• Deborah Brooks-Lawrence