Leadership in non-white majority schools: the symbolic negation of distance

Abstract

This project explores whether the embodied cultural capital of non-white students is institutionally recognised in majority non-white schools and colleges by staff leaders at various levels. It does this through a postcolonial lens and Bourdieu’s sociology. Cultural capital is the linguistic, artistic, religious, and historic heritage and knowledge of non-white students. The study explored the extent to which this embodied cultural capital is empowered and legitimised as symbolic capital by staff leaders in order for it to become part of the mainstream institutional ethos and cultural pedagogy of the two secondary schools and one sixth-form college involved in this project. This study looked at how staff leaders understand, recognise, articulate and interact with diverse cultural capital. It will conclude by applying Bourdieu’s concept of ‘the symbolic negation of distance’ to the research sites as a way of explaining how cultural inequalities can be reproduced.

Keywords:

• cultural capital
• multicultural
• educational leadership
• school
• postcolonial/whiteness
• cultural pedagogy/ethos

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘British Values’ consist of four values to be ‘actively’ promoted in schools as part of central government’s Prevent strategy.

2 Prevent is part of central government’s counter-terrorism strategy where certain authorities (such as schools) look to identify those in danger of being drawn into terrorist-related activities.