Global Leadership For Social Justice

Global Leadership For Social Justice: Taking It From The Field To Practice proposes perspectives for conceptualizing the preparation of leaders for social justice and equity-oriented work in schools. Although faculty in the field of education have prepared thousands of school leaders, and the research continues to expand, limited research exists regarding how to prepare leaders for social justice work in schools, especially considering international contexts. This book builds on extant empirical and theoretical work in the area of educational leadership, and deepens understanding of what leading for social justice and equity-oriented work looks like within diverse schools.

The global economic meltdown has highlighted the interconnectedness of nations. This book seeks to provide an overview of topics, issues, and best practices related to defining social justice leadership given our increasingly global world. Refugees and immigrants from around the globe now inhabit schools and institutions of higher education across the nation and US students, teachers, and leaders are traversing international boarders both physically and virtually through international collaboration, technology, and exchange programs. Although there have been increased efforts and scholarship in support of diversity and multicultural awareness, these efforts have largely focused on the US. We acknowledge that many leadership theories are “domestic” in that they typically incorporate US perspectives or a single-culture description of effective leadership. This book provides a deeper understanding of diverse and multicultural perspectives as they relate to a world that is becoming increasingly interconnected economically, socially, and culturally. Particular attention is paid to providing specific strategies for social justice leaders working in PK-12 and/or higher education, and leadership preparation programs to promote effective leadership that reflects multicultural understanding of the diversity both within and outside the US. Within the context of leadership practice, internationalization offers new insights and ideas about leadership aims, processes, and competencies as a means for addressing equity concerns throughout PK-20 education.

Within education there have been some notable attempts to frame social justice in ways that can help to explain and understand the practices of those working in schools, especially school leaders. The research contained in this book seeks to enhance our understanding of school leaders’ actions as they work to promote socially just practices and/or outcomes in a range of different national contexts. The unique nature of this research is that studies took place in numerous schools across the globe in a variety of contexts yet utilized the same research protocols. This has allowed the researchers to draw conclusions at an international level about social justice decision making, the supports and barriers brought on school leaders by national policy and mandates, and the essential nature of context in the work of social justice leadership. The audience will include scholars on a global scale, given that cases in the book include authors and principals from around the world. The book can also serve as a text for leadership preparation courses as well as courses in social justice, research design, and qualitative research methodologies. Courses in human relations and communication can use the content as examples of the negotiations and challenges of teamwork in international settings. A primary audience for the book is system/school level leaders in contexts and communities throughout the world for understanding comparative leadership and social justice decision making. Current principals will find the cases useful as reflexive tools for their own work. Educational leaders, educational reformers, and policy makers will benefit from this book as they seek to understand the impact of their work and its influence on promoting equity in schools across the globe.

This book explores our understanding of school leaders’ actions as they work to enact a socially just school culture. Including unique case studies from around the globe, the editors and contributors examine whether this work is enhanced or diminished by the context in which the school is placed. While the onus of emphasising social justice is placed on the school leader, they must enact this within the micro/meso/macro context of the school setting. Rich in both the unique stories of these schools and their successes and challenges in the enactment of social justice, these global case studies act as a lens for social justice leadership in a variety of regions and at international levels. The global scale combined with detailed analysis of this book will appeal to scholars of education and social justice as well as school leaders and policy makers.

Bringing together leading scholars and practitioners from the worlds of leadership, followership, transitional justice, and international law, this research provides a blueprint of how people-led, bottom-up, grassroots efforts can foster reconciliation and a more peaceful world.

The chapters in Urban Educational Leadership for Social Justice: International Perspectives constitute a collection of works that explore dynamics related to equity in multiple contexts. Authors examined these issues in Turkey, Egypt the United States, Thailand and at a global level by comparing and contrasting school leadership practice across borders. Considered as a whole, these papers explore various topics that will be at the forefront of educational research for years to come. Increasingly, educational leadership understand that there are important lessons to be learned internationally and globally. This book includes important research conceived from these perspectives. Our hope is that individually and collectively, they might contribute to our understanding of international and global issues in educational leadership and that they will extend, challenge and deepen extant lines of inquiry and begin others.

The need to ensure principle-driven, legally sound, and ethically acceptable behavior in the global context is not an easy task for leaders. They face the requirement of meeting the needs and expectations of a diverse set of stakeholders. They are increasingly called upon to protect, preserve, and restore the resources of the environment. They are expected to improve human well-being and social equity and recognize and effectively address economic and social issues concerning equality, social justice, and human rights protection. How should leaders in global organizations go about meeting the multiple demands of a complex global stakeholder environment? This book explores the dilemmas, paradoxes, and opportunities that leaders in global organizations of all types confront daily and addresses how managers can and should think about and approach these complex issues in responsible and productive ways. This book will be of interest to students and scholars across business, management and the social sciences more broadly.

Crossing the Bridge of the Digital Divide: A Walk with Global Leaders explores the combined effect of the rapid growth of information as an increasingly fragmented information base, a large component of which is available only to people with money and/or acceptable institutional affiliations. In the recent past, the outcome of these challenges has been characterized as the "digital divide" between the information “haves” and “have nots” along racial and socio economic lines that seem to widen as time passes. To address the issues of digital equity and digital inequality in an effort to bridge the digital divide, educational scholars, researchers and practitioners are in positions to ensure equitable opportunities are made available for people of all ages, races, ability, sexual orientation, and ethnicity in support of social justice for bridging the digital divide. The digital divide addresses issues concerning equal opportunity, equity and access that have an effect on the development of marginalized and otherwise disenfranchised populations within and across systems nationally and internationally. The contributing authors- representing Unites States, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and the UK - posit that education institutions can serve as the bridge to close the digital divide for students who do not have access to information technology in their homes. At a time when more computers are made available in schools than ever before, the digital divide continues to widen and fewer people in the lowest SES groups are given the opportunity to join the world of computer technology and the internet. As a result, the influence of leadership activity on institutional racism, gender discrimination, inequality of opportunity, inequity of educational processes, digital exclusion, and justice have gained currency and attention. The contributing national and international authors examine the digital divide in terms of social justice leadership, equity and access. It is within this context that the authors offer discussions from a lens of their choice, i.e. conceptual, review of literature, epistemological, etc. By adopting an educational approach to bridging the digital divide, researchers and practitioners can connect and extend long established lines of conceptual and empirical inquiry aimed at improving organizational practices and thereby gain insights that might be otherwise overlooked, or assumed. This holds great promise for generating, refining, and testing theories of leadership for equity and access, and helps strengthen already vibrant lines of inquiry on social justice.