Enriching Educational Leadership Through Community Equity Literacy: A Conceptual Foundation

ABSTRACT

Educational leaders are essential to fostering authentic and equitable partnerships between schools and communities. Yet, many aspiring principals leave preparation programs underprepared to develop these partnerships, counter inequitable neighborhood conditions, and work in solidarity with community stakeholders. Therefore, this article describes work to develop a conceptual framework around community equity literacy (CEL) to build educational leaders’ capacity, an assessment instrument to measure CEL, and a future research agenda. The CEL conceptual framework is anchored in leadership theories, research on school–community partnerships, and the national Professional Standards for Educational Leaders. This article concludes with implications for leader preparation and further research.

Notes

1. In this article, I use the term school leader (i.e., school principal) to also mean educational leader.

2. In this article, I use the terms African American and Black interchangeably.

3. In this article, I use the terms instrument and assessment interchangeably and to mean “any systemic method of obtaining information, used to draw inferences about characteristics of people, objects, or programs; a systematic process to measure or evaluate the characteristics or performance of individuals, programs, or other entities, for purposes of drawing inferences; sometimes used synonymously with test” (American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council for Measurement in Education, 1999).

4. For a detailed discussion on the instrument under development to measure CEL, see Green and Rodgers (2017).

5. This was later validated through subsequent research.

6. This equity work essentially aims to eliminate opportunity, resource, and power gaps for all children.

7. Goldring, Cravens, et al. (2009) examined leadership assessments that were used in districts that were part of the Council for Great City Schools and the Wallace Foundation’s Leadership for Educational Achievement in Districts (LEAD), which are comprised of urban school systems.

8. This body of research also suggests that the dimensions of knowledge, skill, responsibilities, processes, and organizational outcomes are important to assess in principal leadership.

9. I refer to these as constructs in the assessment instrument.

10. For more information on how perspectives and attitudes inform behavior, see Ajzen’s (1991) and other scholars’ rich body of research on the theory of planned behavior.

11. Goldring, Porter, and colleagues (2009) were initially referring to the ISLCC standards, which were the national standards at the time.