Leading Beyond the School Walls: Understanding Principal Community Activism

Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate the ways school leaders perceive and engage in community-focused, activist leadership in response to community needs. We rely on a critical qualitative research design that draws on critical urban theory. Sources of data include a pilot focus group, semi-structured in-depth interviews with activist leaders, and publicly available documents. Findings demonstrate the ways that leaders engaged in activism by developing understandings of the communities they served as a first step to activism, rooting their schools as a physical resource for communities, and responding to community needs via activist practices. Through their work, leaders intentionally countered the impact of white supremacist neoliberal policies that negatively impacted their school communities. Our research contributes to the growing scholarship of in-practice models of activist school leadership, highlighting the necessity for leadership practice that addresses the challenges of disinvestment and heightened resource competition in urban communities of color. Furthermore, this study advocates for an expanded concept of equitable school leadership that encompasses both in-school and community-focused justice work as to engage in wholistic school improvement.