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The purpose of this paper is to deepen the understanding of how minoritized families and communities contribute to equity-focused school change, not as individual consumers or beneficiaries, but as educational and community leaders working collectively to transform their schools.

This qualitative case study examines one poverty-impacted racially diverse high school in the US West and the changes that occurred over a seven-year period.

Minoritized families, community leaders and formal leaders leveraged conventional schooling structures – such as turnaround reforms, the International Baccalaureate program and the PTA – to disrupt the default institutional scripts of schools and drive equity-focused change for all students, particularly African-Americans from the neighborhood.

Though one school, this case contributes insights about how families and communities can collaborate with systems actors to catalyze educational justice in gentrifying communities.

This study suggests strategies that families and communities used to reclaim school narratives, “infiltrate” conventional structures and reorient them toward equitable collaboration and educational justice.

This study contributes to a body of critical scholarship on “turnaround” reform efforts in urban secondary schools and suggests ways to reshape decision making, leadership, parent engagement and student intervention to build collective agency.

This research raises provocative questions about the extent to which families and communities can use conventional structures and policies to pursue educational justice in the US public education. Learning from such efforts highlights strategies and practices that might begin to help us construct more decolonizing theories of change.

This paper proposes a new conception of school systems arising out of the collision of three forces: (1) a longstanding press to rationalize the technical work of schools in the service of educational excellence; (2) a growing democratic press to equitably engage community members in the process of defining educational excellence; which together are (3) heightening legacy uncertainties that pervade educational organizations. It then draws on paradox theory to explore how leaders might navigate the growing uncertainties that are central to the work of organizing for excellence and equity.

Integrating scholarship related to organizational institutionalism, paradox theory, learning sciences, social justice leadership and educational system building, this paper examines the changing organization of schools, the growing uncertainty facing educators and the implications for leaders and preparation programs.

This paper introduces two perspectives on how to navigate the growing uncertainty facing educators and educational leaders: one that centers on mitigating uncertainty, the other that prioritizes leveraging uncertainty. Both perspectives have affordances and limitations when considering the twin goals of educational excellence and equitable involvement in decision-making, and leaders should thus view uncertainty as a paradox—an interdependent, persistent, contradiction—that can never be fully resolved, but can be managed. A paradox perspective makes visible the complex work of effectively moving between mitigating and leveraging uncertainty, especially in a field where the latter garners more support and legitimacy.

This paper synthesizes recent educational and organizational scholarship to develop a new conception of educational organizations and a corresponding approach to educational leadership capable of navigating the growing complexity and uncertainty that pervades school systems.

Research on principal supervisors (PSs) is an emerging field, and principal supervision for racial equity has not yet been studied or theorized. Conducted in partnership with practicing district leaders, the purpose of this paper is to examine current PS leadership in three districts at various points of engagement in equitable leadership practices and set forth a framework for conceptualizing systems equitable leadership practice.

This collaborative study emerged from an EdD course project in which groups of practitioner–scholars identified and collected qualitative interview, survey and artifact data about problems of practice in their districts. University researchers supported data collection and conducted analyses across settings, building on Ishimaru and Galloway’s (2014) equitable leadership practices framework.

Equitable PS leadership practices were variable. No district engaged with “proficiency” across all drivers of equitable leadership practice, but the district that engaged in equitable PS practices most deeply framed the work of schooling as a race-explicit endeavor, suggesting that framing is a fundamental driver.

This paper builds on PS and equity-focused leadership research by adding a systems-level equity focus.

Findings suggest that districts should focus on equity framing as the foundation for principal support and development.

This researcher/practitioner–scholar collaboration shows how practitioner–scholars provide focus and expertise to the field unavailable to traditional researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a comprehensive review on the implementation and the effect of Japan's Stress Check Program, a national program to monitor and control workplace psychosocial factors that was initiated in December 2015.

We comprehensively reviewed articles published in Japanese and English, assessed the performance of the Stress Check Program and summarized future challenges. We also discussed the implications for practice.

The available literature presented a scientific basis for the efficiency and validity of predictions using the Brief Job Stress Questionnaire, which is the instrument recommended to screen workers with high stress in the program. No study has verified the effect of the program on workers' mental health by using group analysis of stress check results. There is room for improvement in tools that contribute to identifying workers with high stress and in measures for improving the work environment. The Stress Check Program contrasts with risk management of psychosocial factors at work, widely adopted in European countries as a strategy for improving workers' mental health by focussing on the psychosocial work environment.

Although the effectiveness of the Japanese program needs further evaluation, future developments of the program would provide insight for national policies on psychosocial risks/psychosocial stress at work.

This paper is the first systematic review on the implementation and effects of Japan's Stress Check Program.