School leadership in the 21st century must transcend isolated approaches to equity and preparation programming to effectually ensure that principals can perform a synthesis of pedagogical approaches to serve effectively in diverse communities. Higher levels of pedagogical synthesis should afford its participants the preparation necessary for leadership in a more expansive racial and cultural landscape. In this study, the researcher utilized critical theories to conduct a qualitative institutional ethnography study, while leveraging an emancipatory research design. These methodologies were utilized to glean knowledge from PK-12 principals regarding their perceptions of their administrative preparation programming studies and experiences in readying them to lead for equity and justice in a rapidly changing world. Emancipatory research requires the co-production of knowledge and theories, just as much as interventions or solutions, while institutional ethnography suggests that there are institutionally organized ways of thinking and acting that articulate normalized patterns of decision-making, communicating, and working. The researcher examined the lived experiences of school leaders in higher education programming and the transfer of those experiences to everyday work in the principalship. For the purposes of this study, it was important to investigate principal perceptions of their own agency to interrupt the normalcy of inequity and injustice in PK-12 culture because of that programming. All members of the principal learning community engaged in this study reported they gained a better understanding of themselves as activators and not subordinates in their leadership in the interruption of practices of institutional racism within primary and secondary education. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]