Lauri Johnson

''My Eyes have been Opened'': White Teachers and Racial Awareness

A life history approach was used to examine the narratives of 6 White teachers of racially diverse classrooms who had been nominated as being “aware of race and racism” by a diverse panel of experts. The teachers’ responses to race were examined by semistructured interviews, a drawing of their racial identity, and a classroom visit that examined classroom artifacts and teacher-student interactions. Narrative analysis revealed that teachers’ perceptions of racial awareness were influenced by (a) perceived identity as “outsiders,” due to class background or sexual orientation, that enabled them to disidentify with the White mainstream; (b) living and working with individuals of other races in relationships that approximated “equal status” and exposed them to “insider” perspectives on race and racism; and (c) personal religious/philosophical beliefs that emphasized equality and social justice concerns. Implications for restructuring teacher education programs include revising candidate selection criteria, increasing the racial diversity of students and faculty, experiencing “immersion” in communities of color, and using autobiographical narrative as a pedagogical tool.

Successful Leadership in Challenging US Schools: Enabling Principles, Enabling Schools.

Purpose – This study aims to examine seven challenging schools in the US and the practices their principals employed in leading these schools to a measure of success in terms of student performance.Design/methodology/approach – Uses a case study methodology, a two‐stage framework is used to analyze the data. First, uses Leithwood and Riehls three core leadership practices to determine whether these leaders were demonstrating the necessary practices for success, then develops and describes three principles that enabled these leaders to translate their core practices into school success: accountability, caring and learning.Findings – The principals formed a diverse group, varying in gender, race, experience and education. But they shared some common characteristics, most notably, all seven demonstrated facility with the core leadership practices of direction setting, developing people and redesigning the organization. They were leaders who managed to set and maintain a sense of purpose and direction for th...

Successful Leadership in Three High-Poverty Urban Elementary Schools.

This study examined the beliefs and practices of three principals during whose tenure their high-poverty urban elementary schools experienced improved student achievement. A two-stage, multiple case-study methodology was employed. First, New York State Education Department (NYSED) school report card data were analyzed to identify case-study sites. Three high-need elementary schools whose student achievement scores improved after the arrival of the current principal were selected for study. Next, a multiperspective interview protocol was utilized to triangulate the perceptions of the administrators, teachers, members of support staffs, parents, and students at each of the three sites to understand how their respective principal contributed to the schools success. Findings revealed that all three principals responded to the challenges of their high-poverty communities by establishing safe, nurturing environments for children and adults; setting high expectations for student performance, and holding everyone—students, faculty, staff, parents, and themselves—accountable for meeting those expectations. Although different in personal style, all three set clear directions for the school and then influenced members of the school community to begin moving in that direction, in great measure by modeling the behaviors and practices they desired. The article concludes with recommendations about the preparation and practices of school leaders who serve or aspire to serve in high-need communities.

“Making Her Community a Better Place to Live”: Culturally Responsive Urban School Leadership in Historical Context

This article examines the notion of “culturally responsive leadership” through a historical case study of the life of Gertrude Elise MacDougald Ayer, the first African American woman principal in New York City. I begin by situating Ayer’s leadership practice in light of the social and political context of Harlem in the 1930s and early 1940s. Then I compare her leadership approach to findings from historiographies of African American educators before 1960, as well as current case studies of African American women leaders. In the end I conceptualize the “culturally responsive” urban school leader as public intellectual, curriculum innovator, and social activist and argue that leadership for social justice must be analyzed in light of the historical, political, and social contexts in which it is practiced.

Multicultural Education in the United States and Canada: The Importance of National Policies

Education is a state responsibility in the United States and a provincial responsibility in Canada; nonetheless, the federal governments in both countries have had a significant influence on multicultural education policy. In the U.S. this has been accomplished primarily through civil rights policies and federal education policies. In Canada, the work has been done through multiculturalism and other related policies, in the areas of citizenship, identity, and social justice. Both Canada and the U.S. also have a history of local and regional policy development in multicultural education. Our work to date (e.g., Johnson and Joshee, 2000) has convinced us that the story of multicultural education in both the United States and Canada is an on-going narrative of contestation that is best understood by situating current local policies in the historical, political, social, and organizational webs of which they are a part. Following from Edwin Amenta and his colleagues (2001), we believe that “[l]ines of research combining portable argumentation and cross-national and historical perspectives are likely to be the most productive ones in the future, as scholars develop new conceptualizations and images of social policy and devise new questions about it” (p. 2). In this paper we will describe the policy webs in the U.S. and Canada, examine their development by using contextualized examples of New York City and Toronto, and consider the value of using a web approach as a way of understanding policy processes

Cross-national Comparisons in the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP): The USA, Norway and China

This article provides a cross‐national perspective on successful school principalship in three countries derived from an analysis of case studies in the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP). The ISSPP aims to investigate the characteristics, processes and effects of successful school leadership across eight countries (i.e. Australia, Canada, England, the United States, China, Denmark, Sweden and Norway). Examples from the USA, Norway and China (Shanghai) were selected to illustrate cross‐national differences related to the societal purposes of education, the structure and funding of different national educational systems and the influence of particular governmental educational policies (i.e. accountability‐oriented policies) on the leadership practices of individual school principals. Variations in selection criteria and research procedures were also noted. Recommendations for further research using a cultural framework include analysing multiethnic schools to identify culturally specific leadership practices as well as developing further ISSPP case studies in non‐Western contexts.

“Making Democracy Real”: Teacher Union and Community Activism to Promote Diversity in the New York City Public Schools, 1935-1950

This article examines how an interracial coalition of radical teachers from the Teachers Union of New York City and community activists from the Citywide Citizens Committee on Harlem promoted Black history and intercultural curriculum materials and worked side-by-side with parents for school reform in the New York City schools during the 1930s and early 1940s. Their efforts to develop more culturally responsive schools in Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant were derailed by the late 1940s in the wake of the red-baiting of progressive scholars and teacher union activists during the cold war era.

Sustaining Success in an American School: A Case for Governance Change.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to revisit a successful school to see how the principal had sustained success over time.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a case study research design similar to the 2005 report.Findings – The old findings revealed a principal who had used direction setting, developing people and redesigning the organization, as well as the enabling principles of accountability, caring and learning to turn around a failing, high poverty urban school. The new findings revealed that, while the same core practices and enabling principles were still in place, a significant change in governance structure had been required to sustain the schools success. Specifically, the school converted from a traditional public school to a charter school in order to protect investments made in teacher professional development. The resulting initiatives, introduced to stem teacher turnover, led to the emergence of greater teacher leadership and professional self‐renewal processes that sustain...

Culturally Responsive Practices

This chapter aims to explore how successful leadership for diversity is defined, negotiated, and addressed in selected policy documents and culturally diverse schools in Norway , the USA, and Cyprus . The reanalysis of leadership practice is based on data from the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP) case studies. We will discuss how leadership for diversity is enacted in the ISSPP schools and explore how principals negotiate the balance between honouring student cultures and emphasizing student learning and achievement. These practices are analysed through the theoretical frameworks of culturally responsive leadership (Ladson-Billings 1995a, b; Johnson 2006, 2007) and leadership for democratic education (Moller 2006; Vedoy and Moller 2007). We argue that establishing a dichotomy between an emphasis on social justice and academics is inappropriate, but a narrow conception of student achievement may privilege certain social and cultural groups and marginalize others. Therefore, self-reflexivity is demanded, and in particular in terms of foregrounding notions of power. Finding a balance between honouring student home cultures and emphasizing student learning outcomes does not easily lend itself to quick fixes.

Developing the next Generation of Black and Global Majority Leaders for London Schools.

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to discuss the views of black and ethnic minority school leaders about the Investing in Diversity program, a black‐led program developed in 2004 to address the underrepresentation of black leaders in the London schools. Major themes are identified from interviews with black and South Asian women graduates of the program and recommendations made for leadership development strategies to help aspiring and current black and global majority headteachers “bring who they are” to their leadership.Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative case study data about the Investing in Diversity program include document analysis of curriculum modules and participant observation of the weekend residential, survey satisfaction data from several cohorts, and face‐to‐face interviews with a purposive sample of seven headteachers from African Caribbean, African, and South Asian backgrounds who completed the Investing in Diversity program six‐seven years ago. These semi‐structured individual int...