Leadership and diversity: theory and research

Abstract

Diversity has become a ubiquitous term within education, often harnessed with a second concept, that of inclusion. Despite heightened interest, theorists in education leadership have remained relatively uninterested in multiple aspects of identity and diversity. This article explores the epistemological and methodological implications of moving forward by considering the symbiosis of how diversity is theorised and researched, and how this relates to existing and future leadership power structures. It suggests that both theory and methodology are currently impoverished and a possible remedy of adopting theoretical and methodological interdisciplinarity. It also explores the structural impediments to progress in the orientation of researchers, practitioners, and those who mandate qualifications and fund research. Finally, it suggests that a concerted and determined effort at multiple levels to move diversity from the periphery to the centre might stand some chance of denting the embedded and disabling exclusion which currently prevails.

Keywords:

• race
• gender
• intersectionality
• interdisciplinarity
• methodology