How do principals practise leadership for social justice in diverse school settings? A Hong Kong case study
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-08-2016-0087 |
| Date | 05 February 2018 |
| Published date | 05 February 2018 |
| Pages | 50-68 |
| Author | Elson Szeto,Annie Yan Ni Cheng |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
How do principals practise
leadership for social justice
in diverse school settings?
A Hong Kong case study
Elson Szeto and Annie Yan Ni Cheng
Department of Education Policy and Leadership,
The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Abstract
Purpose –Empirical research on leadership for social justice is in progress in many parts of the world.
The purpose of this paper is to explore principals’school-leadership journeys in response to social-justice
issues caused by specific contextual changes at times of uncertainty. It seeks to answer the following key
questions: What social-justice issues do principals identify as arising from their schools’transformation due
to contextual changes? How do principals practise leadership for social justice in response to these contextual
changes at different levels?
Design/methodology/approach –This paper is based on qualitative data from a cross-case study of two
principals’school-leadership journeys. The authors pay particular attention to the understanding of
leadership for social justice grounded in principals’efforts to foster equality in learning development for a
diverse student population.
Findings –Timely adverse conditions may be required to foster leadership for social justice in schools.
The principals reacted to contextual changes at several levels, planning and implementing innovative and
flexible interventions to ensure equality in students’learning development. These findings contribute to
international accounts of educational leadership.
Research limitations/implications –This study of leadership for social justice in schools is contextually
specific. Therefore, more empirical comparisons of school leadership are required in future studies,
as principals’practices vary between education settings.
Originality/value –This paper offers insights into the evolution of leadership for social justice in schools in
response to contextual changes. Principals’leadership strategies can be reoriented and their actions reshaped
to overcome threats to social justice in schools. Accordingly, although leadership for social justice in school
communities is culturally and pedagogically inclusive, it is also socially distinctive.
Keywords Diversity, Leadership, Ethnicminority, Chinese principals, Migrant students, Social-justice issues
Paper type Case study
Principals today face new contextual changes with more complex effects on school
communities. Student populations have become more diverse, comprising not only local
students but also students from migrant families, with different languages, abilities,
ethnicities, cultures and religious beliefs (e.g. Devine, 2013; Richardson and Sauers, 2014).
New threats to social justice have emerged as a result of this growing diversity, and
historical issues of inequality continue to impede student learning, participation and
development (Chiu and Walker, 2007). In response to the increasing diversity of the student
population, principals in different education settings implement different leadership
practices to address social-justice issues. These practices are contextually specific
(Hallinger, 2016).
Whether principals in high-needs schools are more likely to develop leadership for social
justice has yet to be determined at an international level. International research
collaboration is imperative to obtain meaningful empirical insights into school principals’
leadership for social justice in a range of education settings. For example, the International
School Leadership Development Network (www.isldn.weebly.com) has conceived and
initiated a longitudinal project on social-justice leadership and high-needs schools.
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 56 No. 1, 2018
pp. 50-68
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-08-2016-0087
Received 19 August 2016
Revised 28 June 2017
Accepted 1 July 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
50
JEA
56,1
The empirical research reported in this paper constitutes part of this project on leadership
practices; it is based on a cross-case study in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of
China and a vibrant Chinese society in Asia.
Leadership for social justice in schools in Chinese society
Education in Hong Kong, as in many other societies, has faced many changes as a result of
reforms implemented on a massive scale in the last 15 years (Cheng and Walker, 2008;
Fullan, 2009). The education system has been restructured, a new curriculum has been
developed and the standardised public examination has been revised. These changes have
been addressed in studies of educational leadership and management in the context of
Hong Kong’s education reforms (Fok, 2004; Yeung, 2012). A systematic review of the studies
(Szeto et al., 2015) has been conducted with the findings, which have generally focussed on
instructional (e.g. Chan, 2014), transformational (e.g. Yu et al., 2002), strategic (e.g. Pang
and Pisapia, 2012), distributed/shared (e.g. Walker and Ko, 2011), curriculum-based
(e.g. Law et al., 2010) and authentic (e.g. Begley and Wong, 2001) leadership. Principals’
leadership for social justice has received far less research attention than that reported in
studies conductedin other societies (e.g. Berkovich, 2014;Gross, 2008; Lugg and Shoho, 2006;
Shields, 2010). Yet in times of change, principals seek to implement leadership practices that
respond effectively to pragmaticissues such as threats to social justice.Despite the emergence
of new threats to socialjustice as students’backgrounds andeducational needs become more
diverse, we still know little about the leadership for social justice enacted by principals in
individual education settings. Taking Hong Kong’s education system as a case study, with
paid attentionto contextual changes at multiple levels,the following two questions are asked:
RQ1. What social-justice issues do principals identify as arising from the schools’
transformation due to contextual changes?
RQ2. How do principals practise leadership for social justice in response to contextual
changes at different levels?
Literature review
The concept of leadership for social justice in schools has received attention from scholars
worldwide (e.g. Barnett and Stevenson, 2014; Capper et al., 2006). However, the findings of
these studies are increasingly subject to debate as schools become more and more diverse
(Bates, 2006; Riehl, 2000). Some studies have explored leaders’preparation for enacting
social justice for equitable change to produce a new social order in schools and in broader
societal contexts (e.g. Berkovich, 2014; Jean-Marie et al., 2009; Lugg and Shoho, 2006;
McMahon, 2007). Others have conceptualised leadership practices for social justice as
directed towards equality and wider participation in various school settings (Capper et al.,
2006; Chiu and Walker, 2007; Marshall, 2004; Shields, 2010). However, principals may
interpret and enact leadership for social justice differently in different education settings.
Understanding leadership for social justice
The concept of leadership for social justice is too complex and difficult to achieve a broad
theoretical consensus on its meaning. Instead, we examine the concept in broad social
contexts and then in contextual changes of a specific educational setting, enabling key
themes to be identified. Berkovich (2014, p. 283) adopted “a socio-ecological conceptual
framework of social justice leadership by incorporating theoretical and empirical works on
activism and social change”. Activism is at the centre of leadership for social justice,
as it challenges the status quo beyond school boundaries. Investigating the promotion of
social justice in education, Furman and Shields (2005) identified a close connection between
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Leadership for
social justice
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