Page 19 - Educational Leadership in a Changing World

Current Challenges of Educational Leadership

and equity is not merely a technical or organizational adjustment but
rather a transformation rooted in a distinct philosophical perspective
(Fulcher, 1989, cited in unesco, 2017), that also involves moral and
political reasoning.
To expand on this vision of an educational leadership that fosters
inclusive education through a critical lens that is justice and equity-
oriented, we will engage with research on culturally responsive peda-
gogy, and its contributions to the inclusion paradigm.

Culturally Responsive School Leadership (crsl)
Culturally relevant and responsive pedagogies emerged at the end of
the twentieth century (Gay, 1994; Ladson-Billings, 1995) and aim to
reform all elements of the educational system to respond to the spe-
cific educational needs of minoritized students, especially those who
are marginalized in most school settings (Gay, 2010).
In the synthesis of the existing literature made by Khalifa et al.
(2016), 4 major strands of behaviour of crsl emerged:

1. Critical self-awarenessorcritical consciousness: leadersmustknow
who they are as people, understand the context in which they lead
and closely explore their own assumptions and biases related to
race, class, ethnicity, gender and culture, and how these affect the
school environment, actively challenging hegemonic, white- and
western-centred leadership practices.
2. Culturally responsive curricula and teacher preparation: provide
resources and curricula that reflect cultural responsiveness, men-
tor and model culturally responsive teaching, and offer profes-
sional development opportunities. This would also include encour-
aging courageous conversations where educators speak up against
or critically examine their assumptions about marginalized groups
and counselling out teachers who acknowledge that this work is
not for them.
3. Culturally responsive and inclusive school environments: create a
culturally affirming school climate by, for example, using student’s
voices or challenging policies and behaviours that do not meet an
equity and social justice stance, which might sometimes look like
‘creative noncompliance’² (Meier & Gasoi, 2017).

² Creative noncompliance is defined by Meier and Gasoi (2017) as avoiding adherence

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