Educational diversity and learning leadership: a proposition, some principles and a model of inclusive leadership?

Abstract

This article presents the case for developing a particular form of leadership to meet the challenge of educational diversity. A model for inclusive leadership is articulated drawing upon the fields of educational management and leadership, knowledge management, individual differences and educational inclusion. The article begins with a proposition about the nature of professional learning, knowledge management and educational diversity. It develops the notion of a “thinking practitioner” engaged in developing praxis. This is understood to describe a process of developing and using a mix of theoretical and practical knowledge specific to an educational context. A set of principles for “learning” leadership and also “learning leadership” are examined in relation to this proposition. These principles following Aristotelian philosophy are related to the idea of pragmatic virtue and are identified as a basis for the construction of a conceptual model of inclusive leadership. This model is offered, in turn, as a heuristic for use in understanding the systemic and human interaction between structure and agency in actualizing provision for educational diversity in the learning community. Finally, this conceptual framework is presented as a tool to use in further establishing an integrative management of a personalized and social approach to education grounded in an emerging notion of virtuous leadership.

Keywords:

• learning leadership
• educational diversity
• praxis
• individual differences
• inclusion

Notes

1. The philosophy of pragmatism as articulated by Charles Sanders Pierce and William James provides one foundation for further developing an approach to theory that requires an applied and contextual application to thought that is to be found in action. For an introduction to this intellectual movement, see Menaud (2002). A second useful source is Kuklick (2001).

2. This notion is perhaps not too far removed from Freire’s argument that praxis is an important aspect of learning as defined in the political empowerment of the disadvantaged or oppressed (see Freire 1972).

3. William James presented a series of seminal lectures inaugurating the field of Educational Psychology in 1892 at Harvard (Talks to Teachers on Psychology and Life).