Toward inclusive leadership in meeting linguistic and cultural diversity in language education policy: “not giving up on parents and children”

ABSTRACT

The study explores the practices of inclusive educational leadership of local policy makers in a city with a high level of linguistic and cultural diversity (LCD), during a process of policy change. The LCD of the city poses many challenges to managing preschool education. To rethink language ideology toward welcoming LCD, the city’s policymakers adopted an inclusive leadership framework and initiated an inclusive forum comprising policymakers from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds. The study focused on the change process, from an ethnographic perspective, with triangulation of data sources. It involved focus-group discussions, individual interviews with policymakers and classroom observations. The analysis revealed that collective agency enactment was characterized by critical reflections on past professional and personal experience; planning of changes in language education policy; high level of commitment to preschool pedagogical staffs and LCD families; practical steps in facing challenges of LCD classrooms; and future visions and long-term expectations from engagement in the stream of change. The study’s significance is in theoretical and practical understanding of policymakers’ collective agency and their role in creating an inclusive community.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Oranim Academic College of Education Research Fund, Israel; Municipality of Nof HaGalil, Israel; The Rashi Foundation, Israel.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. Notably, there are variations in notions that can be viewed as synonyms to some extent. Thus, Raelin (2016) uses the notion of ‘collaborative agency’ as a form of collaborative leadership.

2. Linguistically and culturally responsive teaching helps LCDC to bridge their background knowledge about an academic topic, which is a central role of this approach (Hollie, 2012)

3. Under children’s culture, we mean a component of their funds of knowledge that may include cultural values of their families and communities, religious and national symbols, national flags, holidays, and some knowledge about their families’ household associated with farming, building, and occupation (e.g. Moll et al., 1992).

4. Menorah is a multi-branched candelabra used in the religious rituals of Judaism.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mila Schwartz

Mila Schwartz is a Professor in Language and Education and a Vice-Rector for Research at Oranim College of Education (Israel). Her research interests include studying language education policy and models of early language education, family language policy, language teachers’ language-conducive strategies and pedagogical development, and linguistic, cognitive, and socio-cultural development of early sequential bilinguals/multilinguals.

Nurit Kaplan Toren

Nurit Kaplan Toren received her PhD in Education and Human Development from the University of Haifa, Israel (2005). She started her career as a high school educational counselor and teacher and is currently Head of Educational Leadership in the Faculty of Graduate Studies, Oranim College of Education, and Senior Editor of the proceedings of the Oxford Symposium in School-Based Family Counseling. Her research examines the structure of parents’ educational involvement and its effect on students’ school functioning, with focusing on antecedents of parents’ educational involvement in different contexts (e.g., culture, age, class environment, and trust relationships).

Orit Dror

Orit Dror is the former Director of the Israeli Institute for Early Childhood Education. Until 2020, she served as the Head of the Early Childhood Department for Oranim College of Education undergraduate students. Orit holds a Ph.D. (Haifa University, 2014), an M.A. (Tel-Aviv University, 2001) in Education, and a bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy (Tel-Aviv University, 1995).

Shiri Lavy

Shiri Lavy is an Associate Professor at the Department of Leadership and Policy in Education at the University of Haifa. She studies well-being and flourishing in education organisations with a specific interest in relationships, character strengths, and a sense of meaning.