Principals' perspectives of social justice in public schools
International Journal of Educational Management
ISSN: 0951-354X
Article publication date: 17 August 2010
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on social justice issues identified by American principals. A research question that guided this qualitative study was: do educational leaders relate to the concept of leadership for social justice?
Design/methodology/approach
The standardized protocol for focus group discussions was based on Krueger and Casey's work on how to conduct effective focus group interviews. Each focus group carefully followed the protocol, which was designed to give voice to the informants and not to be led by the moderator in preconceived directions. This procedure provided a framework to maintain consistency in eliciting and collecting information but not leading participants to discuss social justice issues just to please the researchers.
Findings
This paper both confirmed that principals are concerned with social justice and identified that some principals do not explicitly discuss issues that relate to social justice. Principals who raised social justice issues felt that leaders should be courageous enough to make decisions that are best for children, even though they may not be popular.
Research limitations/implications
Qualitative research such as this adds to the breadth and depth of human understanding, but findings cannot be generalized to any larger population.
Originality/value
The term social justice has become pervasive in US academic discussions, yet there has been little dialogue with practitioners and even less data examined concerning if the term has any relevance to practitioners. This paper explores the voices of practitioners in relation to a pervasive term in US academic discourse.
Keywords
Citation
Place, A.W., Ballenger, J., Wasonga, T.A., Piveral, J. and Edmonds, C. (2010), "Principals' perspectives of social justice in public schools", International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 24 No. 6, pp. 531-543. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513541011067692
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited