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When assistant principals experience positive mentoring and professional development, they can obtain valuable knowledge and leadership skills from these learning opportunities. To better understand the formal and informal mechanisms assistant principals use to expand their knowledge and skills, the purpose of this paper is to examine important advice mentors provided for them and the professional learning activities that prepare them for their school leadership roles.

Semi-structured interviews with 69 elementary, middle, and high school assistant principals were conducted. Questions focused on the advice mentors have provided and significant learning experiences that have aided in their growth as school leaders.

Results reveal that assistant principals greatly appreciate insights from mentors about how to enhance decision-making skills, improve people and communication skills, reflect on their personal qualities and capabilities, and clarify their values and beliefs. Their preferred means for professional growth is to work with former and current administrators they trust and respect.

This study goes beyond examining the structural and procedural aspects of mentoring by describing highly valued advice provided by mentors affecting assistant principals’ professional development and growth. For mentoring to be effective, this study suggests that mentors should provide opportunities for assistant principals to develop their decision-making, people, and communication skills as well to clarify their personal capabilities, values, and beliefs.

This paper aims to discuss how public school administrators with a social justice perspective have an obligation to permeate society beyond their schools and how they might address the perilous politics associated with advocating social change. Using George Counts' landmark 1932 speech, Dare the School Build a New Social Order? as the conceptual lenses, it examines the relevancy of Counts' words for contemporary school leaders and professors of educational administration.

While this article is historical in tone, the paper proposes pursuing a critical hermeneutic rather than a strictly historical approach.

The paper finds that there are similarities between the present‐day call for social justice and the earlier Social Reconstructionist movement that Counts' manifesto sparked. Both movements have invited educators, and particularly the professoriate, to think more expansively when it comes to US public education, society at large, and the influence of educators in shaping a more democratic and just country. But Counts goes much further than most adherents of the current‐day social justice movement. He stressed that educators must see themselves as political actors, who can shape their political environments through their teaching, as well as by participating in other venues.

For contemporary educational leaders, they may be working in far less hospitable settings than their twentieth‐century predecessors. Administrators are under fierce accountability and fiscal pressures, while coping with a larger political environment that is polarized and fearful. And the internal environment of school administration favors a “managerial” approach. Consequently, embracing a social justice ethic invites a degree of risk‐taking.

This paper examines the relevancy of Counts' words for contemporary school leaders and professors of educational administration and highlights implications for school leaders.

The purpose of this review is to add to the discussion of assistant principals (APs), a position that has been under‐represented in the professional literature.

An extensive search was undertaken on assistant principals, vice principals, and deputy head teachers from various sources, including journals, conference papers, doctoral dissertations, ERIC documents, articles from professional publications and organizations, and relevant books and chapters. Each document was thoroughly analyzed and common themes were identified.

The assistant principalship is a unique entity because the position lacks a precise job description yet entails numerous tasks to ensure the success of a school. Although the assistant principal is a critical leader in schools, the position is underutilized and under‐researched. This review analyzes the roles, responsibilities, training, socialization, and typologies of the assistant principal.

As a result of this research, it is suggested that the role of the assistant principal needs to be reconfigured. Additional research is needed in the areas of training, professional development, and transition to the principalship.

This article presents a unique comparison of the roles of APs throughout the past 30 years both in the USA and abroad. In addition, after examining the lack of university training and professional development for the assistant principalship, suggestions are made as to how APs can be better prepared for this critical leadership position.

The purpose of this article is to explore some of the current tensions within educational administration in the USA and conclude with a few cautions for educators who engage in social justice projects.

Using a selective case, this historical essay examines the issues of social justice and equity as they have related to educational administration in the USA.

The article finds that while educational administrative practice has been characterized as maintaining the social and political status quo, there are historic examples of leaders promoting social justice. One exemplar is J. Rupert Picott, who provides an example of how one educational leader navigated through a hostile environment to achieve equity.

In a society where accountability is narrowly defined and economic concerns continue to perpetuate a managerial model for educational administrators, those who embrace a social justice perspective will do so at their own peril. However, those who wish to act for the educational welfare and life outcomes of all children will likely adopt and adapt a social justice perspective suited to their own priorities and needs. In so doing they may incur professional and personal tolls.

This article provides an example of a leader for social justice who worked and lived under the racial apartheid of the Jim Crow US South.

Aims to examine a model for overcoming traditional, culturally rooted resistance to change in educational administration programs. Universities that are unable to change operate as dysfunctional organizations and display symptoms that reflect addictive behavior. Healthy organizations facilitate change and adapt to evolving contexts. Conceptualizes change as having its genesis in a learning organizational model. The learning organization model aligns the three existing cultures inherent in universities and educational administration programs. By aligning the operator, engineer, and executive cultures within the university, microstructures such as educational administration programs are able to embrace the chaotic temperament inherent in the university and evolve into a generative environment that moves from linear construction toward a fuzzy adaptation to changing contexts.

The purpose of this article is to consider the impact of incorporating a set of readings focused on issues of gender, diversity, leadership, and feminist thought into the curriculum of a statewide educational leadership doctoral program.

Based data from open‐ended surveys, semi‐structured interviews, and reflection statements, the article presents a qualitative analysis of how students react to, learn from, and resist social justice‐oriented curricula and teaching strategies, particularly those related to gender issues.

The analysis of the data collected in this research suggests that, after a year of exposure to readings and written assignments about gender and other diversity issues, few students had undergone significant transformations in their learning regarding gender issues. Moreover, it was found that many students demonstrated resistance to reading, reflecting on and discussing gender issues.

Programs and professors that endeavor to prepare leaders who are transformative, require transformative teaching practices that assist in the development of such leaders. When content includes issues of diversity, our findings indicate that it is particularly important that faculty increase their knowledge of student responses to difficult content and transformative teaching strategies.

This paper aims to provide a framework for the development and implementation of educational administration programs that encourage practitioners and educational administration faculty to push application and preparation beyond reproducing tendencies of the status quo as well as to open education to the potential of embracing silenced or marginalized learners.

Two programs developed and implemented by the Department of Educational Management and Development (EMD) at New Mexico State University are described and discussed. The programs are reviewed to show the gradual but significant transformation to a social justice content beginning with the more traditionally‐aligned program in educational administration, the Community College Leadership Doctoral Program (CCLDP), and concluding with a detailed description of the Educational Leadership Doctoral Program (ELDP), a leadership program that unites traditional educational administration curriculum with social justice inquiries of power and privilege.

The detailed information attempts to teach practitioners and educational administrators how to gain entry into institutional power structures so communication, collaboration, and reform can occur.

The paper provides the tools to survive in existing systems and the awareness to see inequalities. The capability of creating change in educational environments expecting a business‐as‐usual‐paradigm is also discussed.

The purpose of this article is to report on a six‐year self‐study of a doctoral training program intended to promote social justice leadership via an “ethic of care” framework.

The primary data set utilized was an open‐ended survey completed by doctoral students after finishing core course requirements. Data analysis included a thematic analysis of 110 respondents which examined variation in students' understanding and application of issues associated with equity, justice, and diversity, as well as the ethic of care. As a collaborative self‐study the data analysis involved procedures of open, independent, and collaborative coding, as well as peer debriefing.

Suggests that the doctoral program has been effective at creating a caring environment and changing students' understanding of diversity and equity issues. Two programmatic weaknesses were uncovered; a lack of curricular integration and student perceptions of social justice and diversity as discrete concepts. Students reported that diversity discussions and readings were centered in one class, suggesting that this lack of integration may marginalize these issues. These weaknesses are explored using the concepts of “caring” and “colorblind” curriculums.

Reports on a self‐study of one unique program; the findings may not be generalizable to other programs. Additionally, it suggests that leadership preparation programs should attend to how the issue of colorblindness may permeate curricula, structure the classroom environment, and shape interactions with students.

This paper is among the first to evaluate the potential for colorblindness in the “ethic of care” as related to supporting social justice leadership in a doctoral preparation program.

The purpose of this article is to propose one possible framework for conceptualizing the preparation of leaders for social justice. To this end, three central questions guided this conceptualization: “What are the common themes in the literature and research on preparing leaders for social justice?”; “How can this framework serve as a guide for developing a course, set of courses, or an entire program toward preparing leaders to lead socially just schools?”; and “How can this literature and conceptualization inform future scholarship in administrator preparation?”.

This work included a review of 72 pieces of literature. To address the research questions, the growing body of leadership for social justice literature was reviewed. Each of these articles was analyzed and explicit recommendations for preparing school leaders noted. These recommendations were then catagorized into the proposed framework.

Three domains: critical consciousness; knowledge; and practical skills focused on social justice are positioned on the horizontal dimension of the framework. To achieve these ends, requires curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment oriented toward social justice – the vertical dimension of the framework.

It is suggested using this framework to guide the review and development of administration preparation programs whose aim is to prepare socially just leaders. Additionally, this article calls for increased attention to assessing preparation programs and how they prepare leaders for social justice.