ABSTRACT

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 work. Findings demonstrate that various political contexts at local and national levels catalyzed and motivated participants’ community activism, but participants’ primary purpose for activism was to promote student equity within their school buildings. This reflects ecological models in which schools and communities are conceptualized as interconnected with a reciprocal relationship of impact. Our examination of motivations related to political contexts provides insights into how these contexts impact schools and school leaders. This piece also contributes to the growing body of literature around socially-just leadership, particularly to the limited subset of literature on leaders’ out-of-school justice work. Finally, among other implications and directions for future research, we conclude that community activism should form a crucial component of socially-just school leadership and taken up in the research as such.

摘要

这项研究考察了社会正义领导人针对三种地方和国家政治背景的社区行动主义。基于推进学校领导生态模型的文献，我们分析了七位城市学校领导如何将社区行动主义概念与学校成果联系起来，以及领导者如何开展行动主义工作。调查结果表明，地方和国家层面的各种政治背景催化和激励了参与者的社区活动，但参与者活动的主要目的是促进学校建筑内的学生公平。这反映了生态模型，其中学校和社区被概念化为相互影响的相互关系。我们对与政治背景相关的动机的研究提供了有关这些背景如何影响学校和学校领导的见解。这篇文章也为越来越多的关于社会公正领导力的文献做出了贡献，特别是关于领导者校外正义工作的有限文献。最后，除了对未来研究的其他影响和方向之外，我们得出的结论是，社区行动主义应该成为社会公正的学校领导的重要组成部分，并在研究中得到体现。