Black leadership, white leadership: race and race relations in an urban high school

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how race and race relations influence school leadership practice. Design/methodology/approach This ethnographic study was conducted in a high‐poverty, high‐minority, urban high school in the Southeastern USA. The authors utilized an anthropological conceptual framework called a moiety, through which the school's leadership culture was conceived as two distinct racial leadership subcultures, one black and one white. Findings Findings suggested that the members of each of these leadership subcultures conceived of and enacted leadership in a different manner. Members of each subculture interacted with one another in a manner consistent with anthropological inquiry focused on moiety cultures. Research limitations/implications Though under‐used in educational leadership research, the moiety approach seems to have potential for explaining certain (sub)cultural dynamics of leadership in organizations. In the context of this school, race and race relations had a tremendous influence on the ways school leaders interacted with non‐moiety members in terms of reciprocity, rivalry, antithesis, and complementarity. Originality/value These findings suggest that school leaders should understand how race and race relations within and between various school subcultures influence leadership practice.