Urban Voices, Racial Justice, and Community Leadership
This book is a collection of essays about urban community college leaders’ experiences during the COVID-19 era and racial injustice protests of 2020. The result is a wide range of content from political commentary to leadership advice—all through the unique perspectives of African Americans leading some of the country’s biggest educational institutions with the greatest potential for redressing a system of “interlocking injustices” that has evolved and persisted for more than 400 years. While our institutions and constituencies were disproportionately impacted by these events, we believe that urban community colleges are also at the forefront of transformative solutions for the underlying social-equity issues that are most pronounced in the nation’s biggest cities.
Humanity Over Comfort
Increase your racial equity capacity for transformational change The years 2020 - 2021 will be remembered for COVID-19 and racial injustice. COVID illuminated long-standing structural inequities. Increased media focus on police brutality helped fuel a protest movement that underscored the urgency of the moment. In schools, non-profits, and various business sectors, conversations about race and institutional racism are becoming increasingly common. However, most of these conversations are performative and do little to disrupt the status quo. The authors of Humanity Over Comfort aim to move beyond the transactional response of using only conversations to respond to structural inequalities. Alternatively, the authors advance tools that promote transformational change that eliminates the access and opportunity gaps for Black and Brown individuals. Written to cultivate awareness that increases racial equity capacity, this book will help readers Understand historical context and the influence of racism in shaping reality Engage in reflections that connect learning to personal experience Understand the Conscious Anti-Racist Engendering Framework (CARE), which draws from adult learning theory to build community in organizations Leverage one’s span of control to implement practices that incrementally work to dismantle systems of oppressions Direct their increased capacity towards dismantling racially predictable policies and practices Transactional responses to racism perpetuate marginalizing narratives and outcomes and do little to support the humanity of a community, including White members. This book will guide readers towards transformational change to build a system that supports the restoration of our collective humanity.
Envisioning a Critical Race Praxis in K-12 Education Through Counter-Storytelling
While critical race theory is a framework employed by activists and scholars within and outside the confines of education, there are limited resources for leadership practitioners that provide insight into critical race theory and the possibilities of implementing a critical race praxis approach to leadership. With a continued top-down approach to educational policy and practice, it is imperative that educational leaders understand how critical race theory and praxis can assist them in utilizing their agency and roles as leaders to identify and challenge institutional and systemic racism and other forms/manifestations of oppression (Stovall, 2004). In the tradition of critical race theory, we are charged with the task of operationalizing theory into practice in the struggle for, and commitment to, social justice. Though educational leaders and leadership programs have been all but absent in this process, given their influence and power, educational leaders need to be engaged in this endeavor. The objective of this edited volume is to draw upon critical race counter-stories and praxis for the purpose of providing leaders in training and practicing K-12 leaders with tangible narratives that demonstrate how racism and its intersectionality with other forms of oppression manifest within K-12 schooling. An additional aim of this book is to provide leaders with a working knowledge of the central tenets of critical race theory and the tools that are required in recognizing how they might be complicit in the reproduction of institutional and systemic racism and other forms of oppression. More precisely, this edited volume intends to draw upon and center the lived experiences and voices of contributors that have experienced racism in K-12 schooling. Through the use of critical race methodology and counter-storytelling (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), contributors will share and interrogate their experiences while offering current and future educational leaders insight in recognizing how racism functions within institutions and how they can address it. The intended goal of this edited volume is to translate critical race theory into practice while emphasizing the need for educational leaders to develop a critical race praxis and anti-racist approach to leadership.
Anti-Racist Educational Leadership and Policy
Anti-Racist Educational Leadership and Policy helps educational leaders better comprehend the racial implications and challenges of the current educational policy landscape. Each chapter unpacks a policy issue such as school choice, school closures, standardized testing, discipline, and school funding, and analyzes it through the racialized and market-driven lenses of the current leadership context. Full of real examples, this book equips aspiring school leaders with the skills to question how a policy addresses or fails to address racism, action-oriented strategies to develop anti-racist solutions, and the tools to encourage their school community to promote racial equity. This important book demystifies a complex policy context and prepares current and future teacher leaders, principals, and superintendents to lead their schools towards more equitable practice. 2021 Winner of the AESA Critics’ Choice Book Award.
Centering Youth, Family, and Community in School Leadership
This timely book advances a new vision for educational justice centered on the leadership activities, organizing efforts, and counternarratives of youth, parents, families, and communities of color and other groups who are seeking to transform local schools and communities across the United States. Bringing together scholars, activists, and leaders, this contributed volume presents cases and first-person narratives for readers to analyze in order to interrogate inequities facing communities and schools. By creating spaces for youth, family, and community leadership within schools and opening decision-making to include their input, leaders can support transformative, justice-oriented school change. This book is a critical teaching tool asking educators and administrators to reflect, learn, and re-imagine their practice and collaborate with other leaders in their communities.
