The education of students with disability has changed dramatically over the past 50 years. Universal declarations and conventions have underpinned many of these changes at both an international level and within Australia. In the early 1970s, the philosophy of John Rawls provided a theory of justice to preserve social justice and individual liberty…

Educational leaders must embrace activism as central to their efforts to combat racism and other unjust policies in schools. Social justice activism is an intentional action with the goal of bringing about positive social change. It requires leaders to accept their responsibility to actively resist exclusion, prejudice and injustice in our…

School leaders are required to prepare students for a globally competitive society, and act ethically to facilitate a shared vision of school practices that serve all students equitably. Social justice leadership provided in school and teacher leadership preparation programs is a way to meet the standards for school executives and teachers. The…

This article is intended to spark dialogue and debate related to the preparation of inclusive social justice education leaders in a time of colorblindness. Drawing attention to the reductionist construction of the professional standards for educational leaders when it comes to preparing educational leaders who are ready to address and eliminate…

This study explores how principals of dual language (DL) programs draw on two dominant societal discourses around language education--linguistic instrumentalism/neoliberalism and equity/social justice--to make sense of their programs. Through in-depth interviews with 19 principals of Spanish-English elementary school DL programs in Arizona and…

Globally, schools continue to face ongoing reductions in budgetary allocations, increase in student numbers, performativity pressures and high stakes accountability. Like it or not, schools/ school leaders are operating in rapidly changing national educational policy contexts that are demanding more from less and a much greater contribution to…

This article is concerned with exploring the ways in which head teachers' leadership for social justice is understood and enacted within the context of inclusion. Head teachers' leadership praxis is influenced by individual understandings of social justice, as well as dominant institutional realities and policy priorities that indicate the extent…

People are storytelling organisms who, individually and collectively, lead storied lives. Their ways of knowing and responding to the world are essential to understanding the ways in which they think and learn. Children, teachers, and school leaders understand the world through multi-layered lived experiences; and therefore, how we make sense of…

The role of faith-based schools is increasingly debated within a context of school reform, rights and plurality in multi-ethnic societies. The Catholic schooling system in the Irish Republic (always referred to as Ireland in the text) represents an interesting case internationally because of the extent to which Catholic education is structurally…

This article is set in the context of multicultural 21st-century Australia, whose diversity is marked by religious plurality as well as varied ethnic groupings. The article reports on a study of professional learning in three Australian faith-based schools (Christian, Jewish and Muslim) that investigated the role such schools might play in the…

This contribution considers educational leadership practice to promote and sustain diversity. Comparative case studies are presented featuring educational leaders in the United States and New Zealand who counter injustice in their practice. The leaders' leadership practices responsive to the diversity presented in their schools offer…

The paper draws on data and theorising from the Knowledge Production in Educational Leadership (KPEL) Project where we have investigated New Labour's education policy and investment in headteachers as school leaders in England. New Labour took up office in May 1997 with a modernisation agenda and the leadership of schools is central to this…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is twofold: to delineate a theory of transformative leadership, distinct from other theories (transformational or transactional leadership); and to assess the utility of the theory for guiding the practice of educational leaders who want to effect both educational and broader social change. Approach and…

This study used CRT to engage educators in critical discourse regarding the persistence of racism in urban schooling. A combined method of action research and critical case study was employed to raise a group of educators' race consciousness through antiracist training. Findings revealed conflicting views of racism as an individual pathology vs. a…

The purpose of this article is to argue for a social activist stance in educational leadership that fundamentally addresses social change and human emancipation. This call for social activism is framed within neoliberal, neoconservative, and authoritarian populist discourses in the USA, which to social justice educators and leaders had devastating…