Edith A. Rusch and Sonya Douglass Horsford
The purpose of this paper is to seek to conceptualize a theory of self‐contribution as a framework for understanding and demonstrating the dispositions and skills academics and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to seek to conceptualize a theory of self‐contribution as a framework for understanding and demonstrating the dispositions and skills academics and educational leaders need to break the silence and engage in constructive talk about race across color lines.
Design/methodology/approach
Brian Fay's framework for critical theory provided the guideposts for the construct of self‐contribution. To address false consciousness, the authors turned to Mezirow's unlearning. The work of Tatum, and Parker and Shapiro clarified the social crisis and the educative components used the voice of color thesis (Delgado and Stefancic), Pillow's race‐based epistemologies, Horsford's research using counternarratives, and Argyris' work on defensive behaviors,. Finally, to address transformative actions the authors turned to Follett's principles of unifying, and Laible's loving epistemology.
Findings
The use of race‐based theories to center the discourse about race in mixed race settings has the potential to move the debate forward – beyond colorblindness and toward color consciousness – to place civic relationships based on the integration of desires, an openness to mutual influence and a commitment to unifying rather than equal opportunity to gain power over others (Follett).
Originality/value
At this moment in time, the potential of educational leadership students to lead socially just and equitable communities depends on educational leadership faculty's ability to participate in a way of knowing through self‐contribution.
Details
Keywords
Sonya Douglass Horsford and Diana D'Amico
The purpose of this paper is to argue that historical research methods offer an innovative and powerful way to examine, frame, explain, and disrupt the study of contemporary…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to argue that historical research methods offer an innovative and powerful way to examine, frame, explain, and disrupt the study of contemporary issues in educational leadership. More specifically, the authors examine how historical methodology might recast some of the questions educational leadership researchers presently engage and how the act of “doing history” might simultaneously lead to new research agendas and social change.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper provides a discussion of the explanatory and disruptive power of historical research methods and how intentional ignorance of uncomfortable historical realities, such as racist institutional structures and practices, undermines present-day efforts to advance equity in schools. Using the mainstream achievement gap narrative as an example, the authors consider the ways in which historical scholarship can effectively disrupt current conceptions of educational inequality and opportunity in the USA.
Findings
The paper suggests researchers close the “history gap” by engaging historical research methods in ways that better ground, contextualize, and disrupt the often ahistorical and uncritical ways the field frames present-day challenges like the achievement gap.
Originality/value
This paper explores the explanatory and disruptive power of historical research as a mode of inquiry in education leadership.