Global Leadership for Social Justice

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.

Global Leadership for Social Justice

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.

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.

Expanded and revised, this reader on key issues in social justice and school leadership is written by leading authorities in leadership and social justice. The accessible and practical text is filled with current information from the field, real-life scenarios and controversies, and student activities -- all while challenging leaders, educators and researchers to be effective advocates for social justice. Demonstrating how the current realities in educational leadership training and in school practices can be refined or reconstructed to better meet students' needs, the book provides an array of ways of understanding the effects of exclusionary practices as well as useful exercises and materials for those who will lead students and staffs to create equitable practices. Recognizing that readers learn through multiple intelligences, Leadership for Social Justice intersperses poetry, quotes, editorial cartoons, evocative writing, and hands-on tools with research, theory, and recommendations for practice. The book is divided into 3 distinct parts: Re-defining Leadership for Social Justice, Preparing Social Justice Leaders, and Next Steps. The revised edition of Leadership for Social Justice is extensively updated and includes two new chapters: one focusing on special education students and one focusing on children in poverty. The new second edition also includes information on possible next steps for school leaders currently in training.