Abstract
The twenty-first century is well underway, people are on the move across the globe, and societies are becoming more diverse. This diversity is reflected in schools and classrooms all across the globe. Canada remains one of the most diverse Western countries in the world receiving 2.5 million newcomers between 2003 and 2012; and where large metropolitan areas such as Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are projected to have a visible minority population above 50 % by 2031 (Statistics Canada, 2015). These shifting demographics in Western countries, and the increasing diversity in the student population, have created new urgencies for school leaders. In Ontario Canada, the Ontario Equity and Inclusive Strategy calls on educators to see diversity as an asset, move beyond tolerance and celebration to inclusivity and respect, to making Ontario’s education system the most equitable in the world. This chapter describes the critical work of school leaders in Ontario schools. Within a framework of culturally responsive and transcultural leadership, this chapter brings to the fore voices of school leaders who are practitioners in very diverse schools. It examines ways that they enact culturally responsive leadership, the possibilities that this approach offers and the inherent tensions. Diversity is a reality that cannot be ignored by educators. There is much for educators to learn from school leaders and their experiences in diverse contexts about the tensions and possibilities of school leadership in changing times and contexts.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Banks, J. A. (1998). The lives and values of researchers: Implications for educating citizens in a multicultural society. Educational Researcher, 27(7), 4–17.
Bates, R. (2001). Can we manage global education? Paper presented to the annual conference of the Canadian society for the study of educational administration.
Beachum, F. (2011). Culturally relevant leadership for complex 21st century school contexts. In F. English (Ed.), The sage handbook of educational leadership (4th ed., pp. 27–55). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Bogotch, I. E. (2005, November). Social justice as an educational construct: Problems and possibilities. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the University Council of Educational Administration, Nashville, TN.
Bogotch, I., & Shields, C. (2014). Introduction: Do promises of social justice trump paradigms of educational leadership? In International of educational leadership and social (In)justice (pp. 1–14). New York, NY: Springer.
Brooks, J., Normore, A., & Jean-Marie, G., (Eds.), (2014). Educational leadership and conflict in international contexts. Planning and Changing, 44(3/4).
Burbules, N. C., & Berk, R. (1999). Critical thinking and critical pedagogy: Relations, differences, and limits. In T. S. Popkewitz & L. Fendler (Eds.), Critical theories in education (pp. 45–66). New York: Routledge.
Cahill, C. (2013). Transcultural community building. In J. Hou (Ed.), Transcultural cities: Border crossings and placemakers (pp. 191–207). New York: Routledge.
Carspecken, P. F. (1996). Critical ethnography in educational research: A theoretical and practical guide. New York, NY: Routledge.
Chavez, C. (2008). Conceptualizing from the inside: Advantages, complications, and demands on insider positionality. The Qualitative Report, 13(3), 474–494. Retrieved from http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR13-3/chavez.pdf
Cochran-Smith, M., Davis, D., & Fries, M. K. (2004). Multicultural teacher education: Research, practice and policy. In J. A. Banks (Ed.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (pp. 931–978). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Dantley, M. E. (2005). African American spirituality and Cornel West’s notion of phrophetic pragmatism: Restructuring educational leadership in American urban schools. Educational Administration Quarterly, 41(4), 651–674.
Dantley, M. E., & Tillman, L. C. (2010). Social justice and moral transformative leadership. In C. Marshall & M. Olivia (Eds.), Leadership for social justice (2nd ed., pp. 19–34). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2006). Constructing 21st-century teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 57(3), 300–314.
Darling-Hammond, L., French, J., & Garcia-Lopez, P. (2002). Learning to teach for social justice. New York: Teachers College Press.
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The sage handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Drabble, L., Sen, S., & Oppenheimer, S. (2012). Integrating a transcultural perspective into the social work curriculum: A descriptive and exploratory study. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 32, 204–221. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wtsw20
Forde, C. (2014). Issues of social justice and fairness in the development of aspiring head teachers: I had not really thought about my values before. In I. Bogotch & C. Shields (Eds.), International Handbook of educational leadership and social (In)justice (pp. 1125–1144). New York: Springer.
Furman, G. (2012). Social justice leadership as praxis: Developing capacities through preparation programs. Educational Administration Quarterly, 48(2), 191–229.
Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53, 106.
Gay, G. (2010). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice (2nd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press.
Goddard, J. T. (2003). Leadership in the post modern era. In N. Bennell & L. Anderson (Eds.), Rethinking education leadership: Challenging the conventions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Goetz, T., Jaritz, G., & Oser, F. (Eds.). (2011). Pains and gains of international mobility in teacher education. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Greene, M.J. (2014). On the inside looking in: Methodological insights and challenges in conducting qualitative insider research. The Qualitative Report, 19(15), 1–13. Retrieved from http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR19/greene15.pdf
Haan, M. (2012). Immigrant learning. In K. S. Gallagher, R. K. Goodyear, D. J. Brewer, & R. Rueda (Eds.), Urban education: A model for leadership and policy (pp. 328–341). London, UK: Routeledge.
Hou, J. (2013). Transcultural cities: Border crossings and placemakers. New York: Routledege.
Howard, G. R. (2006). We can’t teach what we don’t know. New York: Teachers College Press.
Jean-Marie, G., Normore, A. H., & Brooks, J. S. (2009). Leadership for social justice: Preparing 21st century school leaders for a new social order. Journal of Research on Leadership Education, 4(1), 1–31.
Johnson, L. (2013). Culturally responsive leadership. In J. Banks (Ed.), Encyclopedia of diversity in education (pp. 546–549). London: Sage.
Kanu, Y. (2009). Curriculum as cultural practice: Postcolonial imaginations. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Kress, T., & Lake, R. (2013). We saved the best for you: Letters of hope, imagination and wisdom to 21st century educators. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2014). Culturally relevant pedagogy 2.0: A.k.a. the remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84, 74–84.
Lopez, A. E. (2011). Culturally relevant pedagogy and critical literacy in diverse English classrooms: Case study of a secondary English teacher’s activism and agency. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 10, 75–93.
Lopez, A. E. (2013). Collaborative mentorship: A mentoring approach to support and sustain teachers for equity and diversity. Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 21, 1–19. doi:10.1080/13611267.2013.827836.
Lopez, A. E. (2014). Reconceptualising teacher leadership through curriculum inquiry in pursuit of social justice: Case study from the Canadian context. In I. Bogotch & C. Shields (Eds.), International Handbook of educational leadership and social (In)justice (pp. 465–484). New York: Springer.
Lopez, A. E. (2015). Navigating cultural borders in diverse contexts: building capacity through culturally responsive leadership and critical praxis. Multicultural Education Review Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2005615X.2015.1072080
Naples, N. A. (2003). Feminism and method: Ethnography, discourse analysis, and activist research. New York: Routledge. University of Laval, Quebec City, May 23–26, 2001
Nieto, S. (2002). Language, culture and teaching. Critical perspectives for a new century. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Nieto, S. (2009). From surviving to thriving. Educational Leadership, 66(5), 8–13.
Riehl, C. (2000). The principal’s role in creating inclusive schools for diverse learners: A review of normative, empirical, and critical literature on the practice of educational administration. Review of Educational Research, 70(1), 55–81.
Ryan, J. (2006). Inclusive leadership. Indianapolis, IN: Jossey-Bass.
Ryan, J. (2014). Promoting inclusive leadership in diverse schools. In I. Bogotch & C. Shields (Eds.), International handbook of educational leadership and social (In)justice (pp. 465–484). New York/Dordrecht, The Netherlands/Heidelberg, Germany: Springer.
Shields, C. (2010). Transformative leadership: Working for equity in diverse contexts. Educational Administration Quarterly, 46(4), 558–589.
Simons, G. F., Vazquez, C., & Harris, P. R. (1993). Transcultural leadership: Empowering the diverse workforce. Holiston, TX: Gulf Publishing.
Statistics Canada. (2011). Immigration and ethnocultural diversity in Canada. Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm#a4
Torre, M. E. (2009). Participatory action research and critical race theory: Fueling spaces for “nos-otras” to research. Urban Review, 41(1), 106–120.
United States Department of Commerce. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p25-1143.pdf
White, R., & Cooper, K. (2012). Critical leadership and social justice: Research, policy and educational practice. US-China Education Review A, 5, 517–532. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED534295.pdf
White, R., & Cooper, K. (2014). Towards an understanding of social justice in our schools: Globalization, inclusive leadership and the transformation of schooling. In I. Bogotch & C. Shields (Eds.), International Handbook of educational leadership and social (In)justice (pp. 1063–1080). New York: Springer.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lopez, A.E. (2017). Voices from the Field: What Can We Learn from Leaders of Diverse Schools in Ontario Canada, Tensions and Possibilities?. In: Choo, S., Sawch, D., Villanueva, A., Vinz, R. (eds) Educating for the 21st Century. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1673-8_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1673-8_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-1671-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-1673-8
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)