School Leadership and Racism: An Ecological Perspective

Abstract

This article reports results from a single-school case study that explored the ways racism influences (and is influenced by) racism. The study examined the ways racism is manifest at different levels of the system: individual, dyadic, subcultural, institutional, and societal. In doing so, the authors sought to understand how racism influences leadership practice within and across each of these levels, meaning as a whole they were considered as an ecological model. Findings suggested pretext, context and posttext are important, and that individual educators’ leadership is influenced by ever-changing racial dynamics in their school.