This paper examines principals' perceptions of school autonomy and leadership as part of a 3-year research project looking at the implications of school autonomy on social justice across four states of Australia (Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland). Drawing on interviews with principals and representatives from principal…

Schools have urgent social justice needs that have become evident with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, discussions of racism, and increasing mental health needs of school students. School counselors can work with school principals to use the concepts of social capital and micropolitical theory to facilitate collaborative partnerships…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to examine six Wisconsin public elementary school principals' perceptions of their implementation of policies and practices aligned with the Learning to Teach for Social Justice -- Beliefs scale and the WI DPI's "Model to Inform Culturally Responsive Practices." Principals chosen…

Washington Hunt is an urban community school attempting to balance the implementation of equity initiatives that meet the needs of minoritized students and families while preventing the adoption of deficit perspectives among school staff. The purpose of this case is to describe how "deficit-creep"--the subtle infusion of deficit-based…

This paper explores ideas about the role of the school principal embedded in New York State education policy. Many public schools across the state fail to deliver equitable opportunities and outcomes for an increasingly diverse student population and improving school leadership offers the potential for substantial returns. Drawing on concepts of…

Background/purpose: In the literature, favoritism is often discussed as a form of corruption and an unethical practice. Studies related to favoritism in educational organizations have found that favoritism negatively impacts educational institutions. This study aims to investigate how teachers defined and perceived favoritism at school as well as…

This article is a response to the clarion call for leadership preparation programs to ground their work in social justice pedagogies and policies in light of the current sociopolitical context of multiple pandemics. It includes four distinct sections. We begin with an analysis of the state of leadership preparation in California. Next, we…

Purpose: School leaders become arbiters of educational opportunity by shaping how policies are implemented within their buildings. Yet the role that school leaders play in enacting policies designed to expand equity for historically marginalized groups of students such as English learners (ELs) has received little attention in the research…

Previous research has contributed to the literature on what constitutes school leaders' and teachers' democratic practices in both high- and low-stakes accountability contexts, but less is known about how they interpret, legitimize, and translate the democratic purpose of education in a low-stakes, 'soft-regulation' system. The current study used…

In the light of recent media reports of racism in South African schools, this paper examines the role of school principalship standards in addressing race in South African educational leadership. The paper draws on tenets of critical race theory to examine how issues of race are addressed in the Policy for School Principalship Standard in South…

Exploring how school leaders address underrepresented student voices, meaning those of marginalized experiences along the continuum of social identity including though not limited to race, class, gender, immigration, and LGBTQ issues in schools is more essential than ever following the novel coronavirus of 2019 (COVID-19). Principals' social…

This paper explores and charts the reasons why some primary school headteachers in "disadvantaged" London schools remain in post at a time of rising rates of attrition of school leaders and headteachers. Instead of exploring the reasons why headteachers are quitting their posts in urban schools, this study examines the retention issue…

Despite growing interest in social justice leadership and awareness of the need to include this focus in leadership preparation and development, little is understood of practices used to support such commitment. In this article, Bacchi's (2012a) Foucaldian approach is drawn from, to provide a specific means of critically analysing what problem(s)…

Background: School leader decision making can be complicated by the enrollment of affluent, and often white families in educational spaces that have served low-income, Black, and Brown families post-Brown. Principals' behaviors influence whose power is coalesced and wielded to make school-wide curricular, budgetary, and personnel decisions.…

This research examines social justice leaders' community activism in response to three local and national political contexts. Grounded in literature that advances ecological models of school leadership, we analyzed how seven urban school leaders conceptualized community activism as linked to school outcomes, and how leaders conducted activism…