Taking a Selfie: Examining Identity in Educational Leadership Preparation Programs

• In Event: 14.044 - Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: 14.044-3 - Critical Perspectives in Leadership Development

Abstract

This paper responds to the call for utilizing interdisciplinary research toward the goal of achieving the promise of equal educational opportunity by using the linguistics theory of social semiotics to improve school leadership for social justice. This study seeks to problematize the preparation of social justice leaders by analyzing a curriculum-based intervention in which doctoral students used selfies to communicate their leadership identities. Participants engaged in discourses surrounding identities and tensions between what was intended and what was perceived. Images and audience perceptions were analyzed through a social semiotics frame. This theoretical analysis provides discourses surrounding the experimentation with new forms of curriculum-based interventions in social justice preparation contexts.

Authors

• Tanya Alyson Long, Texas State University

• Katherine Lewis, Dominican University of California

• Susan M Croteau, Texas State University - San Marcos

• Michael Patrick O'Malley, Texas State University