Race Ethnicity and Education · 2013 · 82 citations · 65 references
EducationEducational LeadershipLeadershipDistributed LeadershipEducation ReformInstructional LeadershipRaceRace In EducationCritical Legal TheoryData-driven LeadershipRace In Leadership
Critical Race Theory has become a central framework for understanding American education, and educational leadership scholars increasingly recognize its explanatory power, especially through the work of Derrick Bell. This article uses Bell’s collective works to analyze contemporary trends in educational leadership, examining how social justice discourses affect African American and Latino urban youth and how current social structures respond. The authors apply Bell’s theories of interest convergence and racial remedies to assess the rise of social justice leadership and the shift toward data‑driven practices. They conclude by recommending that educational leadership researchers and professors integrate race as a core component of their work.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) has become a centered conceptual framework to understand American education and reform (Ladson-Billings and Tate 1995; Solorzano and Yosso; 2001; Decuir and Dixon 2004). Indeed, educational leadership scholars have not been far behind in recognizing the explicative and powerful role of CRT studies in their work (Lopez 2003; Parker and Villalpando 2007). As we acknowledge the role of CRT, we cannot do so without reflecting on the life and works of the quintessential Critical Legal Studies (CLS) scholar Derrick Bell (1930–2011). In this article, we use Bell’s collective works to analyze current trends and research in educational leadership. We bring his works into conversation not only with conceptions of instructional and distributed leadership, but with the palpability that CRT has on the current state of educational reform. More specifically, we use Bell’s theories of interest convergence and conversations around ‘racial remedies’ to understand two recent trends in educational leadership: discourses of social justice leadership and the move toward data-driven leadership behaviors. We ask questions like: what has been the impact of research discourses social justice on the education of African American and Latino urban youth? And, how has the current social structures benefited from such discourses? We conclude with recommendations for educational leadership researchers and professors, and encourage them to consider race as an integral part of their works.
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