Promoting a Community-Based Approach to Educational Leadership in a Principal Preparation Program

• In Event: Toward a Community-Based Approach to Leadership: Amplifying the Voices of Racially Marginalized Students and Families

Abstract

Objectives
The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine how a principal preparation program promotes a community-based approach for aspiring school leaders. An emergent body of research recognizes the importance of community-centered leadership (DeMatthews, 2018; Green, 2017): this requires future school leaders acknowledging the ways historical and contemporary policies inform educational inequities and envisioning marginalized students and families as integral collaborators for educational equity (Bertrand, 2018). However, the research literature offers little guidance on how principal preparation programs can promote the perspectives and actions of community-based educational leadership. This study focuses on two social foundations courses in a master’s level educational leadership program for aspiring school leaders, located in a Hispanic-serving university in the southwestern part of the United States. In this research, I, as the instructor for both courses, seek to explore the following question: What are key instructional levers that promote a community-based approach to leadership for aspiring school leaders?

Theoretical Perspective
The theoretical perspectives framing this research draw on Mezirow’s transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 1997). Because of the age and professional positions of the participants, I draw on adult learning theory, specifically Mezirow’s (1991, 1997) transformative learning theory (TLT) to analyze how leadership students make sense of their learning throughout this research project. As Mezirow notes, “Adults have acquired a coherent body of experience—associations, concepts, values, feelings, conditioned responses,” or frames of reference (1997, pg. 5). To engage in transformative learning, Mezirow argues for the active disruption of these frames of reference in two ways: (a) instances to engage in critical reflection on assumptions grounding these frames and (b) opportunities to unpack, interrogate, and disentangle these stated assumptions. TLT provides a lens to understand if and how aspiring school leaders develop the skill sets to lead alongside marginalized populations.

Methods & Results
Using a case study methodology, this qualitative research project seeks to document holistically how a cohort of aspirant principals in the first year of their master’s degree experience two courses: diversity in education and school-community relations (Merriam, 1985). I employed a range of data collection methods: participant observations of classes, weekly reflections, semi-structured interviews, and final assessments. Data analysis entailed initially open-coding of all data to surface inductively emergent codes. The second round of coding required creating codes based on Mezirow’s (1997) transformative learning theory, such as critical reflection, assumptions, and frames of reference. Preliminary findings highlight the key levers that promoted a community-based approach to preparing school leaders: (a) interrogating the role of race and racism in schools and society; (b) reconceptualizing students and parents as educational leaders; and (c) providing tools, such as participatory action research, to promote democratizing practices in schools.

Significance
Aligned with the aims of this year’s AERA conference theme, this research project seeks to highlight how a principal preparation program promotes a community-based approach to educational leadership, positioning marginalized students and families as collaborators and partners in the fight for educational equity.

Author

• Van T Lac, The University of Texas - San Antonio