Emancipatory School Leaders in Educational Market Contexts

Schools in the U.S. are faced with a complex set of barriers that limit their ability to provide equitable and meaningful education to students, such as reduced funding levels, increased concentrations of high-needs students, and institutionalized forms of oppression. However, research suggests that school leaders can spearhead efforts to overcome these challenges toward more equitable and socially-just ends for historically marginalized students. Marketized districts, in which families choose schools rather than being zoned to geographically-proximal schools, are a context research suggests can negatively impact the provision of equitable educational resources to historically-marginalized students. Additionally, research suggests school leaders face a different set of circumstances than leaders working in non-marketized districts, such as pressure to compete for student enrollment, which can encourage unjust leadership actions. Leadership is a localized process, and to understand equity-oriented leadership we must analyze it with a contextual lens. Unfortunately, research has rarely investigated equity-oriented leadership within markets. This study aims to fill this gap by incorporating a mixed-methods design to examine equity-oriented school leaders’ practices and perceptions within seven marketized urban districts in the United States. The findings show that equity-oriented leaders included in this study tended to perceive market policy as conflicting with ideals of equity and justice. However, leaders drew on their justice orientations to engage in more emancipatory work, both broadly and to respond to market imperatives to compete for student enrollment. This study makes three contributions to equity-oriented school leadership literature. First, and most substantially, it presents a framework of 17 complementary and mutually-reinforcing emancipatory leadership practice areas with 31 sub-practices across four domains of work. Second, it connects emancipatory school leadership practice to educational market policy, showing alternative and more socially-just ways of leading than previous research has shown. Finally, it elevates the perceptions of emancipatory school leaders who are embedded within marketized school districts, providing unique insights into the justice-oriented impacts of market policy in schools and districts. The study has implications for educational stakeholders, including researchers, practitioners, and preparation programs seeking to develop leaders who can engage in the actions listed on the framework, particularly within marketized settings.