This volume focuses on the important relationship between racial and ethnic identity and requirements for Latino/a educational leaders today. As the racial and ethnic diversity of communities continues to rise, there is an increasing need for the diversification of school leaders who can improve student success, retention, engagement, and successful academic achievement. This entails a deeper understanding about the role/definitions of leadership among communities of color, leadership succession, the importance of gender/ethnic differences, as well as methods for recruitment, retention and development of school administrators and other school leaders of color in education. Latina/o school leaders, their personal histories, leadership challenges related to gender and race, contributions, roles, responsibilities, and career aspirations, both personal and organizational, are undocumented in the school leadership research. A study of Latina/o leaders that examines leadership experiences, the relationship between leadership and identity, and career aspiration offers important dimensions for the field of educational leadership. For these reasons, examining Latina/os and school leadership is both timely and relevant to our K-12 schools, educational leadership programs, and changing demographics. The secondary purpose of this publication is to enrich the preparation of school administrators of color, as to the skills and knowledge necessary to serve the needs of students in contemporary times.

This book explores how to be fully cross-cultural and intercultural with research and theory building in educational leadership. It adopts an integrated approach to the examination of common issues across and between cultures and contexts. Each chapter examines an issue or a set of issues that builds on evidence from a minimum of three countries across at least two continents. The data collection methods are consistent for all countries and therefore allow meaningful conclusions to be drawn across the field. All six continents are represented in the book, including both developing and developed countries, to ensure an open dialogue and an innovative approach to lay the foundations for future research.

To commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the International School Leadership Development Network (ISLDN), this book is a compilation of the work conducted by network scholars. This volume is the first comprehensive overview of the studies conducted by ISLDN members engaged in examining how social justice leaders and leaders of high-needs schools address the social conditions, learning experiences, and performance of their students. Other international school leadership research consortia have emerged in the 21st century; however, the ISLDN is the second longest operating project, after the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP). Since its creation in 2010, ISLDN scholars have delivered papers at a variety of international conferences and shared findings in research publications, including books and special issues of journals. Until now, ISLDN research findings have been disseminated separately for the project’s two strands: (a) social justice leadership and (b) leadership in underperforming high-needs schools. Therefore, the purpose of the book is to document the history and evolution of the ISLDN and to provide descriptions and reflections of the project’s research findings, methodologies, and collaborative processes across the two strands. This volume captures studies of school leaders from 19 countries representing six continents - Africa, Asia, Australia and Oceania, Europe, North America, and South America. The authors examine important external and internal contextual factors influencing schools in different cultural settings and provide insights about the values and practices of social justice leaders working in high-needs school settings. Numerous practical strategies are provided for school leaders working in schools with similar conditions. The concluding chapter by the co-editors synthesizes the structural factors, personal beliefs and values, and contextualized change management strategies that shape school leaders’ actions aimed at ensuring the best learning outcomes for their students. Besides capturing the range of findings emerging from various ISLDN studies conducted over the past decade, several chapters critically examine the project’s current contributions to the field. Authors suggest broadening the dissemination of our findings to increase the visibility of the project, expanding the research methods beyond qualitative interviews, incorporating studies from non-Anglophone countries, and augmenting the scope of our analyses and research focus. These researchers’ journeys also reveal the obstacles to and benefits of engaging in these types of international collaborative research ventures.

This book is the second edition of the highly successful Handbook of Urban Educational Leadership. This book examines the uniqueness of the urban school and those in leadership roles that affect urban students and schools. It examines community, district, school, and teacher leadership influencing urban schools. This edition examines conceptualizations of urban ecologies as well as other critical geographies and how these shape understandings in educational contexts. Contributions for this edition focused on areas that examined social, technological, international and other processes with intersections of issues of race, class, and gender, power, politics, and capital and how they influence urban educational leadership. We also included place and space-based theories and discourses that influence urban realities, which include (but were not limited to): networks, assemblages, safe/brave space, placemaking, flow, thirdspace, homeplace, and urbanormativity.

The exploration of the intersection of leadership practices from the school principal and other educators, the school culture, and the school success across different high-need contexts and cultures make this volume unique. Chapters in this volume present original investigations or reanalysis of empirical research enhancing our understanding of the interrelationship between leadership, culture and success through descriptions of practice that can contribute to lessons in leadership for school improvement. When considering a culture of success, leadership that focuses on impacting schools in high-need areas bring about lessons on how to create sustainable environments for student learning in challenging contexts. High-need schools include not only socioeconomic challenges influencing the performance of students. It includes multiple external and internal factors impacting leaders, teachers, students, and their families, affecting the management of structures, processes, and most importantly, learning. In the quest to improve high-need schools, and understand strategies for principals dedicated to a variety of contexts, this volume brings lessons with application for researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners who want to join in the quest to improve the quality of education among worldwide communities.

A Companion Guide to Handbook of Urban Educational Leadership: Theory to Practice provides the reader with activities linked to the theoretical chapters, which no handbook has included to date. The overarching goal is the development of scholarly leaders who can lead change and improve the practice. The Companion Guide creates an important bridge to connecting the theoretical concepts with practical applications. The Companion Guide activities will help illuminate salient theoretical concepts related to urban education and leadership. This deliberate intertwining of theoretical bases with practical implications, allows the reader to gain understanding into the praxis of urban educational leadership. By bringing together philosophical and educational insights, we bridge theoretical gaps in the scholarship of the urban educational leadership in society, and offer tools for critically analyzing the undergirding concepts.

"Eight testimonios of Latina/o/x school and district leaders reveal how community cultural wealth, which is derived from critical race theory, informed professional motivations, leadership experiences, and advocacy actions. The concept of "engraving" asks readers to consider how these leadership characteristics can be endured"--