Leading the flock: Examining the characteristics of multicultural school leaders in their quest for equitable schooling

2021 ◽  
pp. 136548022199913
Author(s):  
Brian Vassallo
Keyword(s):  
Educational Leadership ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Multicultural Education ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Daily Routine ◽  
Management Scenarios ◽  
Culturally Responsive Leadership ◽  
Routine Tasks ◽  
Core Characteristics

The quest for educational leaders to enact social and equitable schooling requires ongoing critical transformations that cannot be alienated from contemporary educational discourses and practices. Enacting social justice and equitable schooling poses an unparalleled challenge on the shoulders of risk-taking visionaries, who meticulously attempt to transmit their believes and values into the daily routine tasks at school, rather than plotting futuristic management scenarios. The study seeks to explore the multifaceted role of primary school leaders in the daily struggle to diffuse the principles of Multicultural Education for more just and equitable schooling. For this purpose, qualitative data measures were employed to determine the extent of which participants in the study mirrored the review of literature and research questions. The Critical Incident Technique was particularly useful as it allowed the collection for a large number of incidents occurring over a number of years, from a small number of people in a relatively short time. Analyses proceeded by identifying culturally responsive leadership practices and the application of critical race theory. Results identified seven core characteristics, present in school leaders who professed strong adherence to the principles of Multicultural Education. This suggests the need for emerging models of educational leadership to effectively respond to the increased diversity in our schools and to further establish the connections between multicultural educational leadership and equity schooling.

Leading the multicultural school: Some insights from dedicated school leaders

2020 ◽  
pp. 089202062097304
Author(s):  
Brian Vassallo
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Educational Leadership ◽  
Multicultural Education ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Based ◽  
Exploratory Investigation ◽  
Race Prejudice ◽  
Multicultural School ◽  
Multicultural Schools

Perturbed by a racially motivated homicide in his homeland and a more recent murder (under investigation at the time of writing) in the United States, the author makes a strong case in favour of Social Justice Educational Leadership. The exploratory investigation examined the following questions: (1) What leadership processes are school leaders adopting to ensure equity and social justice in multicultural schools? (2) What strategies are school leaders providing their staff to continue supporting quality education for all students, irrespective of cultural background? The research sought to extend the debate between educational leadership processes and the ongoing quest towards social justice as embodied in schools in Malta. A qualitative approach emanating from literature review on critical multicultural education was used in the study. Three school leaders known for their stance on issues of race, prejudice, discrimination, oppression, and marginalisation offer their valuable insights on leadership practices inundated with successful processes leading towards more socially just schools. Findings advocate for a wider discussion on the possibilities for effectively addressing the challenges of leading and managing the multicultural school, based on justice and equity principles.

School Leaders’ Practice of the Ethics of Educational Leadership to Make Decisions

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-34
Author(s):  
Mohammed Assiri
Keyword(s):  
Educational Leadership ◽  
Mixed Methods Research ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Leadership Skills ◽  
Common Factors ◽  
Teaching Experience ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
School Year ◽  
Ethical Decisions

Abstract This study aimed to investigate the extent to which school leaders practice the ethics of educational leadership to make decisions. A mixed-methods research design was used in this study. The quantitative data of this study were obtained from the participation of 260 teachers, and the qualitative data of this study were collected from nine school leaders. The questionnaire and the semi-structured interview were used to collect the data. The study was conducted during the school year of 2017-2018. The study found that the overall extent to which school leaders practice the ethics of educational leadership to make decisions was classified as “always occurs". The findings showed that there were statistically significant differences between participants with different gender and school levels on the overall and all dimensions of the extent to which school leaders practice the ethics of educational leadership to make decisions, while there were not statistically significant differences between the groups of the participants with different teaching experience. The qualitative findings provided some common factors that influence school leaders’ practice to making ethical decisions. These factors were explained based on two concepts including management knowledge and leadership skills as well as the context of school's culture.

The Instructional Goals of the School Leadership Program: Future School Leaders’ and Educational Leadership Professors’ Perspectives1

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-91
Author(s):  
Jianping Shen ◽  
Chia-Lin Hsieh
Keyword(s):  
Educational Leadership ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
National Sample ◽  
Leadership Program ◽  
Instructional Goals ◽  
Future School

Through analyzing data from 147 professors of educational leadership and 457 future school leaders in a national sample, the study (a) inquired into the di mensionality of the instructional goals of the school leadership program and (b) com pared the importance of these instructional goals as perceived by the two groups. It was found that the respondents perceived there were multidimensions to the instruc tional goals of the school leadership program and that there was more similarity than difference between the two groups. Implications of the findings were discussed in terms of developing and improving the school leadership program.

scholarly journals Critical Multicultural Education Competencies Scale: A Scale Development Study

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Yasemin Acar-Ciftci
Keyword(s):  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Multicultural Education ◽  
Goodness Of Fit ◽  
Critical Multicultural Education ◽  
Confirmatory Factor ◽  
Education Theory ◽  
Deductive Method ◽  
Coefficient Of Concordance ◽  
Fit Index

<p>The purpose of this study is to develop a scale in order to identify the critical mutlicultural education competencies of teachers. For this reason, first of all, drawing on the knowledge in the literature, a new conceptual framework was created with deductive method based on critical theory, critical race theory and critical multicultural education theory, which includes dimensions of awareness, knowledge, attitude and skill. In accordance with this framework, experimental form consisting of 56 items was submitted to experts for consideration. In accordance with the responses of the experts, content validity rate of the items was identified and the items which were below. 80 level were excluded from the study. The pilot study form consisting of 45 items, was applied to teachers who work preschools, primary and secondary school and the data which was obtained from 421 teachers in total were analyzed. Through the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), a structure consisting of “Awareness”, “Attitude’’, “Knowledge” and “Skill” and 42 items was reached. The relationship between sub-dimensions of the scale was examined and it was observed that the factors were positively and significantly correlated with each other. In this case, it was concluded that scale supports the theory. After the analysis, it was confirmed that the sub-dimensions were the components of a structure called critical multicultural education competency and that together they form a higher structure. It was determined that the goodness of fit index of the model is quite high. Confirmatory Factor Analysis also confirmed the results of EFA. The internal coefficient of concordance was determined as .845 for the whole scale.</p>

scholarly journals Multicultural Educational Practices: School Women Leaders Perspectives And Contextual Realities For Promoting Intercultural Harmony In Schools

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-109
Author(s):  
Tayyaba Zarif ◽  
Aziz un Nisa
Keyword(s):  
Multicultural Education ◽  
Women Leaders ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
School Environment ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Classroom Practices ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
School Level ◽  
Teaching Learning

The increasing diversity of cultural, ethnic, racial and tribal composition of societies in general and schools in particular signify the importance of multicultural education at all levels of education. In this context the roots of such a concept can be strengthened at school level in any community. Here the role of school leadership is imperative towards promoting intercultural harmony in the school environment in general and the curriculum and classroom practices in particular. This research sheds light on the perspectives of school leadership and the actual scenarios at school level to integrate intercultural education into mainstream curriculum and teaching-learning practices at schools. For this reason altogether 30 School leaders were selected through purposive-random sampling from a sample of 30 private schools of Karachi selected with the help of convenient sampling. The most experienced School leaders were selected for this study. The perspective of School leadership regarding Multicultural Education and their practices in everyday schooling was collected through interviews by using an open ended questionnaire so the study is completely qualitative in nature. The theme analysis of qualitative data was done. The theme analysis depicts that the principals in-general seem to possess a positive understanding of multicultural education and that they preferred a very neutral approach for multicultural education.

scholarly journals Challenges and opportunities for culturally responsive leadership in schools: Evidence from Four European countries

2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110409
Author(s):  
Martin Brown ◽  
Herbert Altrichter ◽  
Igor Shiyan ◽  
María José Rodríguez Conde ◽  
Gerry McNamara ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Migration Background ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Significant Extent ◽  
Culturally Responsive Leadership ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Funded Project

Whether voluntary or enforced, increasing patterns of migration have significantly impacted schools by making them linguistically, culturally, religiously and ethnically more diverse than ever before. This increasing diversity requires school leaders to put in place mechanisms to ensure equity of participation for migration background students. Dimmock and Walker (2005) believe that school leaders need to play a vital role in promoting and sustaining an environment that embraces diversity and, by association, contributes to solving the macro problems of society. To accomplish this emerging role, there is a need for ‘new approaches to educational leadership in which leaders exhibit culturally responsive organisational practices, behaviours and competencies’ (Madhlangobe and Gordon, 2012: p. 177). This is all well and good in theory, but the current and historical context in which school leaders operate, together with the training and supports that are provided, influences, to a significant extent, how culturally responsive leadership can operate in practice. This study, which is part of a European Commission Erasmus+ funded project entitled Supporting Culturally Responsive Leadership and Evaluation in Schools (CReLES), examines these assumptions by mapping out the factors and actors that can hinder and facilitate the flourishing of such practices in four European countries, Austria, Ireland, Russia and Spain.

The Every Student Succeeds Act and Multicultural Education: A Critical Race Theory Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 120 (13) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Floyd D. Beachum
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Multicultural Education ◽  
Students Of Color ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Every Student Succeeds Act

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is now the educational law of the land. It replaced and revised what was known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). ESSA represents a movement from more federal oversight to more state and local control. Although this transitional time period is one of great potential and excitement, educators and policy makers might also want to remain cautious. This next educational era of ESSA is still plagued by the problems of the past era. Teachers and administrators are still struggling to turn around low-performing schools in many U.S. urban areas; many urban educational issues, like high-dropout rates, gang influence, and low student engagement, are still inextricably linked to the socioeconomic problems that exist in local communities. This analysis first seeks to explain the purpose of ESSA. It then outlines the current plight of many students of color in the United States. Next, critical race theory is used to contextualize and categorize persistent problems that face the implementation of ESSA for these students of color. Finally, the author proposes ways to address the stated problems for school leaders and policy makers.

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