Emily R. Crawford

Psychological Heuristics and Faculty of Color: Racial Battle Fatigue and Tenure/Promotion

Abstract:Faculty who have been historically excluded from participating in academia present a unique quandary for those who have traditionally held power at the university. This article explores the promotion and tenure (P&T) process of Black faculty using a psychological construct to examine how racial micro-aggressions manifest and articulate themselves through individual and organizational phenomena such as Racial Battle Fatigue (RBF). We applied a psychological approach to narrative inquiry to examine how two faculty of color experienced the P&T process. Participant narratives highlighted how much of the P&T process, and even engagement in academia in general, is articulated by likability or congeniality—two constructs absent from P&T policies.

Metaphors of leadership and spatialized practice

In our nation’s schools, there is an ‘othered’ nature of space—the fact that spaces are not discourse-neutral and serve to entrap individuals in certain representations, roles, contracts, hierarchies and other hegemonic processes. This paper focuses on research on the use of photo-elicitation, critical geography and metaphor as tools of representation, analysis and reflection of problems of practice and spatialized practices in schools. Participants were students in a graduate educational leadership courses. Preliminary analysis has given insights into how students in leadership preparation programmes begin to develop their identities as future educational leaders and how they interpret problems of schooling. Providing students with the opportunity to critically examine how spaces in and around schools convey messages about taken-for-granted leadership practices and expectations for the role empowers them. Pre-service leaders can develop their own identities and become leaders engaged in creating more socially just schools that serve the needs of all students.

The Ethic of Community and Incorporating Undocumented Immigrant Concerns Into Ethical School Leadership

Purpose: If Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) takes place in a community near school property, maintaining a school environment conducive to learning can be difficult. This article examines (a) how a school leader and personnel perceived the impact that ICE activity in their community had on students and families and (b) whether school personnel incorporated community concerns in their response, and if they exhibited an “ethic of community.” Research Methods/Approach: Data come from an embedded case study of 14 educators in a school that experienced ICE activity close to school grounds in 2008. Findings: The principal and other school personnel tried to minimize the impact that uncertainty over ICE’s presence in the neighborhood could have on the school environment, and took steps to limit the short-term and long-term effects on the community. Personnel demonstrated that prioritizing relationships, dialogue, and collaboration with undocumented community members was central to their decision-making process. Implications for Research and Practice: School leaders and practitioners may not know their legal and/or ethical responsibilities toward undocumented students—or anticipate contexts related to the legal status of students’ family members. This article highlights the need for schools and school districts to create policies and resources to protect undocumented students’ educational rights and ensure that personnel receive training on those policies. Research can expand understanding of how personnel respond to the sensitive personal and legal contexts involving undocumented families.

A Dream Attained or Deferred? Examination of Production and Placement of Latino Administrators

More work is needed to engage the talents and empower Latino students to reach their full academic potential. We suggest that one potential cause for Latino student underperformance is the underrepresentation of Latino school leaders. Research suggests that school leaders who understand the cultural background and lived experiences of students tend to be more effective in improving student outcomes. This study explores the production and placement of Latino school leaders in Texas over two decades, and whether Latino educators who have obtained principal certification are as likely as their White peers to obtain a school leadership position.

From preservice leaders to advocacy leaders: exploring intersections in standards for advocacy in educational leadership and school counselling

In this empirically based paper, we discuss educational leadership preparation as it relates to social justice, the concept of advocacy and the standards that guide leadership and counselling, respectively. To reveal how preservice leaders conceptualize advocacy as understood in professional standards, we draw on our research with 11 preservice students about the current US Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium standards and its relationship to what educational leaders should be able to know and do. Based on the insights students shared, we looked to the school counselling field to see how explicitly advocacy and social justice are defined for preservice counselors in standards and competencies for practice. We suggest that leadership programmes can look to school counselling and other disciplines to further inform them in preparing leaders for advocacy. We discuss why including more definitive advocacy and social justice language in leadership standards carries implications for future educational reforms. With more explicit and intentional definitions and examples of advocacy and social justice in education leadership standards, the better the likelihood that once students step into a school leadership role, they are prepared and willing to use their skills and knowledge in action.

When Boundaries Around the “Secret” are Tested: A School Community Response to the Policing of Undocumented Immigrants

This case study focuses on a 2008 incident where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vans appeared near a K-5 elementary school. It was the first time school personnel experienced the impact of federal immigration agents policing illegality in their school community, and the event set off a chain of decision-making choices as to how personnel would respond. This article specifically explores how educators’ roles within a school shaped their access to information and subsequent sensemaking about ICE, asking two questions: (a) How does one’s position within a school shape a person’s sensemaking if a situation necessitates in-the-moment policy making? and (b) How might prior knowledge and professional position affect the information one accesses, shares, and uses in the policy-making process? Evidence comes from interviews with 14 personnel who reflected on the event, and shows that Aurora staff quickly established a policy and protocol within a few days to keep the school environment a safe space. The findings demonstrate that the school principal was a key “sensemaker” for other personnel. Ultimately, the school created its first school policy and protocol to ensure the school was a safe space for undocumented students, fusing a familiar school policy with new policy.

Proximity and Policy: Negotiating Safe Spaces between Immigration Policy and School Practice.

Policy around the legal status and social rights of the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants is unresolved, making it imperative that PK-12 schools and educators prepare for challenges to undocumented students’ educational access. In 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) appeared near an elementary school, which required school personnel to use the space in and around their school to demarcate boundaries to limit the impact of ICE activity on the school community. Critical moral geography is the guiding theoretical construct the authors use to examine the intersection of immigration policy and education in the context of immigration enforcement near a public school. Critical moral theory suggests that “places” are sites where people contest their values and concepts of what is morally correct, engaging in struggles over power. Thinking about space broadly allows for an exploration of how different policies converge and affect the spaces where educators are trying to engage in moral work. The authors conclude that educators can be instrumental in creating safe spaces for undocumented students.

Counselors as Leaders Who Advocate for Undocumented Students’ Education:

Research has yet to fully explore counselor advocacy for undocumented students and the leadership they use in their advocacy. This study asks the following questions: (1) What motivates counselors to pursue educational access for undocumented K-12 students? and (2) How do school counselors advocate for undocumented K-12 students? We integrate boundary spanning and border crossing leadership theories as a conceptual frame to offerholistic approach for leaders’ socially just and inclusive practices concerning undocumented students on the borderlands. This embedded case study uses data from eight K-12 counselors . School counseling-related organizations explicitly detail advocacy competencies and the knowledge base, abilities and skills, and attitudinal dispositions professionals must develop. Knowledge of counselors’ leadership advocacy efforts can help prepare preservice leaders and other educators to effectively support undocumented students.

He Could Be Undocumented: Striving to Be Sensitive to Student Documentation Status in a Rural Community:

This case study takes place in a Midwestern, politically conservative rural community shortly after a highly contested presidential election. Like other communities, Paisano has experienced demographic change in a relatively short time. Meat processing plants and construction jobs proliferate, attracting migrant workers. One day, secondary school Principal Kate Robertson notices a sign that reads, “Illegal aliens are TERRORISTS. Deport them!” Rumors that immigration enforcement authorities are in the community have started circulating. A parent soon removes her son from school, and he does not return. Principal Robertson seeks information about the family but hesitates to draw attention to their potential lack of legal status.

I Think Immigrants “Kind of Fall Into Two Camps”: Boundary Work by U.S.-Born Community Members in St. Louis, Missouri:

To understand how educational policies are created and supported for immigrants and their children, we must explore how community members make sense of broader immigrant/immigration discourses. Guided by theories of “boundary work,” grounded analyses of 27 interviews with U.S.-born residents in metropolitan St. Louis (a community with diverse and increasing immigration) revealed conflicting and ambivalent discourses. Respondents’ opinions shifted as they conceptualized affiliations and borders—real and symbolic—between themselves and foreign-born individuals. The discussion will address how the “hardening” or “blurring” of such boundaries can affect the development and support of educational policies for immigrants and refugees.