Which schools are in greater need of culturally responsive leaders? A pedagogical uncertainty management perspective

ABSTRACT

This study examines the possibility that certain schools may benefit more from culturally responsive leadership than others. We conceptualize culturally responsive leadership as a special form of leadership for uncertainty management. Acknowledging that student diversity usually adds additional complexity to the already difficult task of teaching, we hypothesize that the desired effect of principals’ culturally responsive leadership is more pronounced in schools in which alternative social mechanisms for pedagogical uncertainty management are less well-developed. Our data from the Korea Multicultural Education Survey 2017 give credence to this postulation. The results indicate that the effect of principals’ culturally responsive leadership tends to be larger in schools characterized by lower levels of teacher collegiality and/or school-community partnership. Considering that these two organizational features are characteristic of effective social mechanisms for pedagogical uncertainty management, schools with these features less clearly discernable would likely be in greater need of culturally responsive leadership.

KEYWORDS:

• Culturally responsive leadership
• pedagogical uncertainty
• teacher collegiality
• school-community partnership
• school organization

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea grant from the Korean government (NRF-2017S1A3A2065967).

Notes on contributors

Seung-Hwan Ham

Seung-Hwan Ham is an associate professor of education at Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea. His current research aims to identify the characteristics of effective policies and leadership practices for educational and social inclusion of diverse students. His papers have appeared in many journals in the social sciences broadly, including American Journal of Education, Policy Studies, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, and Social Policy & Administration. He has recently co-edited Multicultural Education in Glocal Perspectives: Policy and Institutionalization. He received a Ph.D. in educational policy from Michigan State University, where he was an instructor in the College of Education and a research fellow in the Education Policy Center.

Jihyun Kim

Jihyun Kim is an assistant professor in the Educational Leadership Program at Lehigh University. Jihyun Kim received her Ph.D. degree in educational policy from Michigan State University. Prior to the Ph.D. study, she worked as a teacher in an elementary school in Korea. Her research interest includes teaching quality, teacher evaluation, policy evaluation, policy implementation, and principals’ leadership. She has published in American Educational Research Journal, Teachers College Record, American Journal of Education, and Teaching and Teacher Education.

Saerom Lee

Saerom Lee is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Multicultural Education at Hanyang University, where she earned an M.A. in education. She received her bachelor’s degree in the China and Asia-Pacific Studies at Cornell University. Before pursuing her graduate studies, she worked as a programme specialist at the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU). At APCEIU, she was in charge of international teacher exchange programmes. Her research interests include cultural responsiveness of educators and educational aspirations of immigrant youth in Korea.