Politics, School Improvement, and Social Justice: A Triadic Model of Teacher Leadership

Abstract

This article describes a comparative framework for identifying, analyzing, and practicing acts of leadership. The triadic framework identifies transactional, transformational, and critical domains of leadership, and argues that teachers, heretofore ignored or neglected in discussions of school management, are pivotal leaders in school reform efforts. Empirical data from the authors' current studies are used to illustrate how teachers engage in acts of leadership, and contemporary literatures on leadership are used to extend these descriptions. This discussion intends to be educative; that is, this article intends to better define the elusive concept of leadership, better understand the dynamic processes involved in decision-making, and better describe who leaders are.