What Have We Learned about Social Justice Leadership in Struggling and Impoverished Schools and Communities?

This concluding chapter by the co-editors, Philip Woods and Bruce Barnett, examines the emerging trends and patterns about social justice leadership and leadership in high-need schools revealed by the ISLDN consortium members. Using two conceptual frameworks, their analysis captures the structural factors, personal beliefs and values, and change management strategies characterizing school leaders’ efforts to influence students’ academic and social emotional learning outcomes by confronting issues of inequity, racism, and lack of opportunity their students experience. Similar to what has been reported in many other studies of school leadership, effective social justice leaders are adept at understand how the political, social, cultural, and institutional contexts hinder and help their activism to improve the life chances of these underprivileged students. The chapter also synthesizes how future ISLDN students can broaden the impact, visibility, and scope of our understanding of social justice leadership in different cultural contexts. They conclude by highlighting the realities of conducting collaborative international research projects, noting the challenges ISLDN members experienced as well as the factors that helped them overcome these obstacles.