Doing it for Culturally Responsive School Leadership: Utilizing Reflexivity from Preparation to Practice

2021 ◽  
pp. 194277512110022
Author(s):  
Soribel Genao

To collectively engage future administrators in reforming culturally responsive practices that have been traditionally understood from socially just approaches, principal preparation programs must embed curricula that is utilized beyond the classroom. In this article, I reflect on the rap group Migos’ popularized phrase “do it for the culture” and contend that doing it for culturally responsive leadership will carry out actions that benefit the shared culture of teaching and learning that represents all teachers and students equitably. A consistent idea that permeates within the field is that a course(s) will prescribe the adequate tools on what to do instead of how to be cultural responsible. Utilizing the role of reflexivity, this case study offered six themes that stemmed from session discussions. The themes that arose were: (1) Interpretations of Cultural Responsiveness, (2) Culturally responsive is what you are not what you do, (3) Self-identity is recognized, (4) Learned the community diversity, (5) Celebrate all, and (6) Practice by disruption. The personal reflections illuminate the significance of relationships between the faculty researcher, future administrators, communities, the effortless disposition of the insider-researcher, and the intricacy of developing the narrative research that promotes culturally responsiveness.

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 242
Author(s):  
Debra Mayes Pane

<p>This study explored a contemporary counternarrative of Drama Club, a transformative culture of teaching and learning for disenfranchised Black youth who had been systematically funneled out of classrooms and into the school-to-prison pipeline.  Auto/biographical and auto/ethnographical data were collected and assembled as a metaphor of the teachers’ and students’ experiences in Drama Club and their understanding of the teaching and learning process and of themselves within it.  The collective story of Drama Club was analyzed through the lens of culturally responsive pedagogy theory and critical race theory in education.  Implications for future research and teacher education that set out to impact disenfranchised students are included.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason A. Grissom ◽  
Hajime Mitani ◽  
David S. Woo

Purpose: Concerns about variation in the quality of preservice preparation provided by many university-based principal preparation programs (PPPs) has led to calls to use outcomes of program graduates to hold PPPs accountable. Little research, however, has assessed the degree to which different outcomes for PPP graduates in fact vary systematically by program. Research Methods: Using administrative data from Tennessee, we link approximately a decade’s worth of PPP graduates to their schools, licensure examination scores, and multiple measures of job performance in their first 3 years as principals, including supervisors’ practice ratings on the state evaluation system, teacher and assistant principal ratings of school leadership on a statewide survey, and measures of student achievement growth. We use which PPP a principal completed to predict these outcomes using a regression approach with different sets of covariates. Findings: Although we are able to associate PPPs with high and low principal performance, we find that programs’ rankings vary by outcome measure, and we are unable to identify PPPs that perform consistently well or poorly across outcomes. Moreover, we find that Tennessee PPPs vary substantially in the characteristics of the schools into which their principals are hired and that taking these characteristics into account is important in ordering PPPs based on outcomes. In addition, even over a fairly long time frame, some programs produce too few graduates who later become school leaders to allow for reliable estimates. Implications: Although the use of graduates’ outcomes to differentiate PPPs holds promise, the methodological challenges to drawing valid and reliable conclusions about PPPs from graduates’ job outcomes are substantial. Policymakers and researchers may arrive at very different assessments of which PPPs are successful depending on which outcomes are chosen and what modeling approaches are employed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nakeshia N. Williams ◽  
Brian K. Williams ◽  
Stephanie Jones-Fosu ◽  
Tyrette Carter

As the P-12 student landscape continues to grow in cultural and linguistic diversity, teacher preparation programs have yet to adequately prepare teacher candidates’ teaching and learning skills in meeting the academic and socio-emotional needs of diverse student demographics. This article examines teacher candidates’ cultural competence and cultural responsiveness to enhance candidates’ educator preparation and stimulate candidates’ personal growth development as developing culturally and linguistically responsive new teachers. While many teacher preparation programs require one multicultural or diversity education course, the authors examine a Minority Serving Institution’s integration of a cultural immersion experience for teacher candidates as one way of supporting their development as culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogues. This paper aims at supporting school districts’ need of culturally competent new teachers who have the content knowledge and pedagogy to teach and support culturally and linguistically diverse children. Recognizing this need, this qualitative analysis highlights the importance of and a need for cultural and linguistic competence among teacher candidates. Findings from this study provides a means by which universities can implement cross-cultural coursework and field-based experiences to prepare culturally responsive teacher candidates.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-77
Author(s):  
Ksenija Napan ◽  
Helene Connor ◽  
Lynda Toki

This article explores a synergy of inquiry-based learning and a cultural pedagogy within a Māori environment, the marae (communal meeting place) while using Academic Co-Creative Inquiry (ACCI), an innovative approach to teaching and learning which enables teachers and students to cocreate the content and the process of the course through personalized inquiries. Three areas form the focus of this article: an exploration of cultural pedagogy within a marae space, an ACCI process, and the culturally responsive Māori pedagogy of ako (teaching and learning). These three areas created a context for transformative learning. Authors reflect on how three academic women, two Māori and one Pākehā (person of European descent) each explored how the physical space of Ngākau Māhaki (name of the carved meeting house, meaning respectful heart) at Te Noho Kotahitanga Marae (name of the marae complex) contributed to transformative teaching and learning processes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 356-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie B. Milman

This qualitative case study examined school leaders’ roles, perceptions, and challenges leading a one-to-one (1:1) laptop initiative in a coeducational, independent middle, and high school in the United States. The findings revealed how the school leaders led the school’s 1:1 laptop initiative through collaborative, yet differentiated roles and responsibilities. Together, they established the school’s vision, planned and implemented the initiative, supported teachers and students, reflected on their practice, and made changes as needed. Generally, the school leaders regarded the 1:1 laptop initiative as having a positive impact on teaching and learning by increasing student collaboration and access to information, as well as fostering teachers’ reconceptualization of their practice. However, the impact on student achievement was inconclusive; they explained it was too early to gauge its impact. Challenges the school leaders experienced involved limited bandwidth, printing problems and students’ off-task behaviors. They addressed them as they would any nontechnology challenge through problem-solving, shared decision-making, and fidelity to the school’s mission and goals.


1995 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 272-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maenette K. P. Benham ◽  
Edward Shepard

A variety of innovative pedagogues focused on improving school leadership preparation programs are currently under way throughout the United States. Coupled with these fresh approaches to teaching and learning that center on exploring the professional knowledge of the practitioner, more institutions are actively recruiting school leaders who represent a range of ethnic backgrounds. The intent of the following paper is to examine the usefulness of one innovative instructional approach, an experientially-based leadership retreat, for five African-American school leaders. The stories presented in this paper attempt to link the participants’ lives and professional experiences to the leadership retreat to answer the question “What did they learn about themselves through this experience?” The emergent themes have universal value and positive implications for current and future leadership preparation programs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 127-141
Author(s):  
Soribel Genao ◽  
Yaribel Mercedes

In this article, we outline some of the vital measurements of racism and anti-blackness as a macro system in education. We contend that principal preparation programs have not explicitly prioritized anti-racist school leadership, while often resisting the possibilities of solidarity or one mic of knowledge to increase anti-racist dispositions. Considering the lexicon of whiteness as an assemblage, a racial discourse should be “supported by material practices and institutions,” that prepare educational leaders to examine anti-blackness curriculum that have been embedded as a standard method. We also posit that theoretical understanding of racism as global whiteness from a post-oppositional lens and decoloniality that will challenge the way racism is currently referenced in educational leadership scholarship. Moreover, current global and decolonial research gives way for a new vision of solidarity by humanizing scholarly resistance that cultivates a vision of community that regards differences of knowledge across groups and investigates racist policies and practices in educational leadership programs.


Author(s):  
Andrés P. Santamaría ◽  
Melinda Webber ◽  
Lorri J. Santamaría

This chapter leads a critical discourse amongst research and educational leadership communities around the nature of cross-cultural interactions and the role diversity plays in changing the status quo with regard to access, equity and academic achievement. Through this strengths-based qualitative inquiry, the authors bridge Kaupapa Maori (Maori ideology) and critical race theory methodologies with Maori and non-Maori culturally responsive leadership frameworks. Prerequisite conditions for effective cross-collaboration are presented based on the experiences of an international, interdisciplinary research team in collaboration with practicing Maori and non-Maori leaders of primary and secondary schools in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). The aim of the partnership is to promote the voices and practices of effective school leaders, through cross-cultural collaboration and research, to continue building critical mass for the important role of informing effective, culturally responsive leadership practices across Aotearoa NZ.


Author(s):  
Andrés P. Santamaría ◽  
Melinda Webber ◽  
Lorri J. Santamaría

This chapter leads a critical discourse amongst research and educational leadership communities around the nature of cross-cultural interactions and the role diversity plays in changing the status quo with regard to access, equity and academic achievement. Through this strengths-based qualitative inquiry, the authors bridge Kaupapa Maori (Maori ideology) and critical race theory methodologies with Maori and non-Maori culturally responsive leadership frameworks. Prerequisite conditions for effective cross-collaboration are presented based on the experiences of an international, interdisciplinary research team in collaboration with practicing Maori and non-Maori leaders of primary and secondary schools in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). The aim of the partnership is to promote the voices and practices of effective school leaders, through cross-cultural collaboration and research, to continue building critical mass for the important role of informing effective, culturally responsive leadership practices across Aotearoa NZ.


2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 66-84
Author(s):  
Shannon R. Waite

This article examines liberatory pedagogical practices utilized in graduate level courses offered within an educational leadership preparation program (ELPP). The research explores how these tools support the development of culturally responsive school leadership and actively anti-racist leaders in a program purporting to develop social justice-oriented school leaders. The author analyzes data collected from student course evaluations (SCEs) and assignments in courses taught across two years. Findings indicate that students perceived the liberatory pedagogical practices employed within the course to be vital in pushing them towards disrupting the pathologies of racism and anti-Blackness cultivated during their primary through post-secondary schooling experiences. The findings also indicated that students responded positively to the use of liberatory pedagogical practices and frameworks that centered race and explicitly used race language.


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