Search results

Focus group discussions were utilized to explore factors that facilitated the academic success of Kenyan high school students in spite of their adversities. These identified factors were instrumental in creating personal development modules that Kenyan school counselors implemented as a pilot intervention for enhancing academic resilience. While more research is needed on the most effective delivery styles for the modules, the intervention resulted in improved skills that support academic resilience. There is a need to continue to explore resiliency with respect to academic performance in Kenya. Educators, students, parents and policy makers will benefit from uncovering models of resiliency based on the contextual realities that the youth face on a daily basis.

In this chapter, we argue that injustices experienced by children in Kenyan schools can be traced back to educational policies and corruption in government. However, few studies have focused on the links between policies, injustices, and the work of principals. Data collected on the work of school principals indicated that individual commitments and developing capacity for leadership in schools through the practice of dispositional values resulted in success.

Today's educational leaders are faced with a myriad of challenges. They must navigate through and meet the demands of a complex and ever-changing educational landscape, amidst the constant scrutiny placed on them by multiple interest groups internal and external to the school context. Further, while the concern for creating more equitable and just schools is given lip service in policy circles, the extent to which social justice and equity are placed in the forefront of existing educational leadership preparation programs remains problematic as those who prepare school leaders continue to grapple with what social justice means, as well as ways to embed such practices throughout their programs of study.

Carl Kalani Beyer is the dean of the College and the Founding Dean of the School of Education at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, California. Prior to his arrival in May 2011, he was the dean of the School of Education at National University with the rank of professor and full time faculty and chair of the Teacher Education Department at Concordia University (Chicago). He came to higher education after a 34-year career in public education. Multicultural education, Native American education, manual labor and manual training curriculum, education for Hawaiians, and higher education issues are his research interests. Since he became a professor in 2002, his scholarship consists of publishing 18 articles, a chapter in a book, a forward to a book, and 4 book reviews, and presenting over 50 papers at peer-reviewed conferences. He is currently awaiting publication of two additional articles, a chapter in a book, and the manuscript of his reworked dissertation. Dr. Beyer is a high school graduate of Kamehameha School for Boys. He received a BA in mathematics from Beloit College and earned a MA in US history from Northern Illinois University, MA in education and MS in management and organizational behavior from Benedictine University, and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago in curriculum design.

This book provides a deeper understanding of what it means to promote social justice and equity work in schools and communities around the world. Throughout this book, narratives describe how authors continue to reshape the agenda for educational reform. They remind us of the significance meaningful relationships play in promoting and sustaining reform efforts that address the injustices vulnerable populations face in school communities. Their voices represent the need for engaging with obstacles and barriers and a resistant world through a web of relationships, an intersubjective reality (see Ayers, 1996). As authors engaged in thinking about addressing injustices, they describe how their thoughts transformed into actions moving beyond, breaking through institutional structures, attempting to rebuild and make sense of their own situations (see Dewey, 1938).