Culturally Responsive Leadership for Community Empowerment

Abstract

Culturally responsive leadership, derived from the concept of culturally responsive pedagogy, incorporates those leadership philosophies, practices, and policies that create inclusive schooling environments for students and families from ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds. In this essay I extend the tenets of culturally responsive leadership beyond the school site to encompass community-based educational leadership that advocates for cultural recognition, revitalization, and community development. I provide historical examples of educational leaders from three global cities –New York City, London, and Toronto–and discuss how their actions as public intellectuals, “boundary spanners,” and advocacy leaders linked community activism with culture-based curriculum in three national contexts. In the end, I discuss the implications of this framework for leadership preparation.

Keywords:

• culturally responsive leadership
• boundary spanning
• advocacy leadership
• leadership preparation

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lauri Johnson

Lauri Johnson is an Associate Professor at Boston College where she directs the Educational Leadership doctoral program. She has published widely on culturally responsive leadership, the history of community activism in urban school reform, and successful school leadership in high poverty schools. During the 2014 – 2015 school year she is a Fulbright scholar at the University of Nottingham researching the life histories of Black headteachers across the UK.