Picking a hill to die on: discreet activism, leadership and social justice in education
| Date | 07 August 2017 |
| Pages | 569-588 |
| Published date | 07 August 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-07-2016-0075 |
| Author | James Ryan,Stephanie Tuters |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
Picking a hill to die on: discreet
activism, leadership and social
justice in education
James Ryan
Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education,
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, and
Stephanie Tuters
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to describe a study that explores the discreet activist strategies of
educational leaders who promote social justice.
Design/methodology/approach –Part of a larger project, this study employed qualitative methods.
In particular, researchers interviewed 26 leaders –principals, vice principals, department heads, and central
office officials who presided over both homogeneous and diverse schools, departments, and districts in and
around a large Canadian city. Data were analyzed during and after data collection, and themes were
identified, explored, and described.
Findings –Giventhe resistance they facedin their effortsto promote social justice,leaders foundthat they had
to be strategic in their efforts. In particular, they had to position themselves in ways that reduced their visibility
and increased their credibility. When they took action, they tended to adopt subtle rather than obvious strategies.
Originality/value –The harsh realityfor activist educational leaderswho promote social justice is that they
will likelyhave to be strategic in the way they go about theirwork. Given the nature of their relationshipswith
the organizationsin which they workand the power differentialswithin which they operate,educational leaders
may have to adoptlow key or discreet strategies if they are to successfullypromote their socialjustice agendas.
Keywords Leadership, Educational administration, Activism, Social justice
Paper type Research paper
Over the past threedecades, researchers have made progressin exploring leadershipefforts to
combat inequalities in schools (Anderson, 2009; Bates, 1980; Foster, 2003; Furman, 2012;
Hoffman, 2009; Ryan, 2006; Shields, 2003; Theoharis, 2007). Among other things, scholars
have described the things that activist school leaders do, or should do, to make their schools
more socially just places. Using monikers such as social justice, inclusive, democratic,
spiritual, and critical leadership, these scholars have mined themeaning of leadership, tested
the limits of their theories, and conducted empirical studies that describe what leaders do to
promote social justice, equity, and inclusion in their organizations. This line of inquiry has
proved useful over the years, providing activist leaders with understandings of their craft,
tools to critique unjust practices, and suggestions for advancing their social justice agendas.
Despite the insights scholars have provided for social justice-minded school leaders,
these practitioners still have their work cut out for them. Perhaps the most daunting
challenges rest with the very organizations in which they work. These institutions can be
deeply unjust, routinely engendering race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability
inequities (see e.g. Bennett, 2001; Darling-Hammond, 2010; Orfield, 1995; Sweet et al., 2010;
Tremblay et al., 2001). More than this though, activist leaders cannot always do the things
they know will advance their social justice agendas. This is because they face significant
obstacles in their quests. Most significantly, social justice leaders routinely encounter active
resistance from unsympathetic colleagues when they seek to introduce, endorse or advance
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 55 No. 5, 2017
pp. 569-588
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-07-2016-0075
Received 6 July 2016
Revised 17 December 2016
17 January 2017
Accepted 11 February 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
569
Social justice
in education
social justice in their organizations (Marshall and Anderson, 2009b; Theoharis, 2007;
Tuters and Armstrong, 2016).
Contemporary education organizations challenge social justice leaders in other ways.
School leaders’relationships with their organizations and recent neoliberal policies, for
example, complicate their efforts to promote social justice. School leaders are very much part
of the institutionsin which they work (Ryan, 2003), and so it maynot always be easy for them
to participate in activist activities that challenge entrenched organizational policies and
practices. Participating in social justice work may jeopardize leaders’career trajectories,
imperil theirhealth, and even threaten their employmentstatus (Ryan, 2010; Theoharis,2007).
Neoliberal policies may also have an impact on the way in which school leaders promote
social justice. It is becoming increasingly difficult for educational leaders to deviate from
recent prescriptively detailed neoliberal policies, such as those that stipulate guidelines for
standardized testing (Pollock et al., 2015). Those who ignore, provide alternatives, or deliver
supplementary accommodations to these and other inequitable policies will be noticed, and
as a result, they risk punitive responses from those who monitor administrative practice.
The above organizational realities impact the way in which social justice leaders pursue
their agendas. Indeed, emerging evidence indicates that these leaders need to be selective about
the kinds of strategies that they adopt to promote their initiatives in progressively controlling
and resistant education institutions. The slim amount of information on leaders and social
justice activism illustrates that leaders tend to avoid traditional visible, attention-attracting,
in-your-face types ofactivism, and adopt insteadmore modest tactics (Marshall and Anderson,
2009a; Ryan, 2016). This research also indicates that many actions that leaders take to promote
social justice are more than just low-key; they are covert. Activist leaders take pains to hide
their actions from those who they believe might not approve of them. At the very least, they
may seek to be discreet, or at least not noticed by colleagues who can obstruct their efforts.
These studies indicate that current educational organizational policies and practices compel
school leaders to pursue their social justice agendas in these covert or discreet ways.
Current research on social justice leadership has very little to say about unobtrusive
approaches to promoting social justice. While the social justice leadership literature has
provided much useful knowledge (e.g. Anderson, 2009; Bates, 1980; Foster, 2003; Furman,
2012; Hoffman, 2009; Ryan, 2006, 2012; Shields, 2003; Theoharis, 2007), it does not, for the
most part, acknowledge its covert aspect. The only studies that do report on unobtrusive
practices are those that explore social justice leadership through an activism lens
(Marshall and Anderson, 2009a; Ryan, 2016). These activism studies are rare, however, and
only provide scant detail on these practices. This dearth of knowledge on discreet forms of
leadership is unfortunate. Given contemporary organizational realities that may leave
school leaders with little choice but to employ these discreet strategies, it is crucial that we
know more about them. The paper described here attempts to begin to fill this gap.
It explores the discreet activism of social justice-minded leaders in education.
In contrast to the more visible and direct forms that most people associate with activism, we
see discreet activism as quiet, often-invisible and sometimes covert actions designed to improve
the lives of the marginalized. Similar to the activism endorsed by Marshall and Anderson (2009a),
discreet activism seeks to promote equity, social justice, and inclusion in schools and communities
by challenging institutional norms. The article is organized in the follow manner. First, we briefly
review activism and social justice in education and go on to outline the perspective of activism
that we adopt for this study –discreet activism. Next, we outline the methods employed in this
study. This is followed by a description of the study findings and a discussion.
Social justice in education
Many educators are engaged in social justice activities because they want to set right the
injustices that they see in the organizations in which they work and the communities in
570
JEA
55,5
To continue reading
Request your trial