Matters of Urgency for Social Justice Principals

• In Event: 25.048 - Social Justice Tensions in the Principalship and Other School Leadership Roles

Abstract

Might school leaders lack an urgency about systemic injustice? If we love our students, should we not see and hear more fire about the damage being done to them? This qualitative study explored the matters that social justice principals found most urgent in their work. The participants were graduates of leadership preparation programs explicitly focused on equity and excellence. Participants were especially angered by (1) the obfuscation of institutional oppression in discourses of meritocracy and ableism, and (2) the cooptation of social justice rhetoric by large-scale reform efforts. Leaders furthermore felt called to use their identity as a powerful point of affirmation for traditionally oppressed people and as a point of challenge for traditionally privileged people.

Authors

• Joshua Bornstein, Felician University

• George Theoharis, Syracuse University