Tina Trujillo (University of California, Berkeley, USA) and Sonya Douglass Horsford (Teachers College, Columbia University, USA)
What is the problem? How does the chapter support your thinking about the problem?
One focus of this chapter is on the historical roots of educational leadership and administration in the United States, namely, the origins of the Scientific Management movement and its application to educational settings. Principles of efficiency and effectiveness have persisted as major drivers of American educational leadership, as well as the research conducted on it. The high-stakes testing and accountability movement, situated within larger neoliberal trends, has intensified school leaders’ roles as managerial, market-oriented actors. We argue that critical research approaches have problematized the assumptions behind dominant models of educational leadership, as well as helped surface the theoretical and methodological limitations of studies that concentrate narrowly on effectiveness and efficiency. We also examine the evolution of critical scholarship and how it has unpacked the ways in which leaders’ practices reproduce or challenge dominant power structures and ideologies. We ask you to consider the assumptions about the purposes of education implicit in various leadership models as well as the multifaceted roles of schools in a socially just, democratic society, and the complex positions that their leaders occupy as stewards of the common good.
What are other ways to think about this? Where can I go next to follow these up?
Marketization of educational leadership
The contemporary role of educational leaders has shifted from that of public servant to corporate chief executive officer. These resources can support your further exploration of the factors impacting the transformation of this role:
Anderson, G., Mungal, A., Pini, M., Scott, J., & Thomson, P. (2013) Policy, equity, and diversity in the global context: Education Leadership after the welfare state. In L.C. Tillman and J.J. Scheurich (Eds.). Handbook of research on education leadership for equity and diversity (1st ed., pp. 43-61). Routledge.
Lipman, P. (2013). Economic crisis, accountability, and the state’s coercive assault on public education in the USA. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 557-573.
Trujillo, T. (2018). Think Small. McSweeney's.https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/think-small.
Critical policy analysis and educational leadership
Critical approaches to analyzing education policy have served as useful models for examining educational leadership and educational reform movements. Here are additional resources that examine the impact of education policy on perpetuating dominant power structures and ideologies and emphasize the importance of centering non-dominant perspectives, needs, and interests.
Horsford, S. D. (2019). School integration in the New Jim Crow: Opportunity or oxymoron? Educational Policy, 33(1), 257-275.
Horsford, S. D., Scott, J., & Anderson, G. (2019). The politics of education policy in an era of inequality: Possibilities for democratic schhives, Teach For America: Research on politics, leadership, race, and education reform, 24(12).
Trujillo, T., Møller, J., Jensen, R., Kissell, R. E., & Larsen, E. Images of educational leadership: How principals make sense of democracy and social justice in two distinct policy contexts. Educational Administration Quarterly, 0013161X20981148.
Leadership for equity and social justice
Horsford, S. D., Grosland, T., & Gunn, K. M. (2011). Pedagogy of the personal and professional: Toward a framework for culturally relevant leadership. Journal of School Leadership, 21(4), 582-606.
Kissell, R. E., & Trujillo, T. (2020). Leading Towards Equity Through Decades of Reform: Oral Histories of District Politics and Community-Driven Reform in Oakland. Urban Education, 0042085920954905.
Trujillo, T. (2013). The politics of district instructional policy formation: Compromising equity and rigor. Educational Policy, 27(3), 531-559.
Trujillo, T., & Cooper, R. (2014). Framing social justice leadership in a university-based preparation program: The University of California’s Principal Leadership Institute. Journal of Research on Leadership Education, 9(2), 142-167.
Trujillo, T., & Woulfin, S. (2013). Equity-minded instructional leadership: Turning up the volume for English Learners. In M. B. Katz & M. Rose (Eds.), Public education under siege (pp. 148-157). Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Deeper exploration of the historical and political roots of educational leadership
Examine further the history and influence of dominant power structures and ideologies on the technical and managerial approaches to educational leadership. Consider some of the other chapters in this book including:
Chapter 14. Educational and instructional leadership, by Scott Eacott and Richard Niesche
Chapter 18. Race and educational leadership, by Mark A. Gooden and Victoria Showunmi
Chapter 22. Corporatization and educational leadership, by Kenneth Saltman and Alexander J. Means
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