Navigating Social Justice

A Schema for Educational Leadership

Michelle Young author Martin Scanlan author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Harvard Educational Publishing Group

Published:31st May '23

£37.95

Available to order, but very limited on stock - if we have issues obtaining a copy, we will let you know.

Navigating Social Justice cover

A highly accessible and easily adaptable conceptual framework that helps educational leaders plan, leverage, and sustain change as they create more equitable schools.

In Navigating Social Justice, Martin Scanlan introduces a comprehensive social justice schema that melds organizational learning with leading for equity. Scanlan distills wisdom gleaned from the experiences of a variety of educational professionals as well as from his own more than three decades of work in equity-focused partnership with elementary schools.

Scanlan’s schema brings together five dimensions—inclusivity, communities of practice, critical formation, social ecosystems, and practical wisdom—that work together holistically to eradicate inequitable practices and policies and promote robust teaching and inclusive learning. For each dimension, the book features real-life vignettes that focus the conversation, exercises that encourage reflection, and suggested opportunities for the application of its central ideas. Each chapter also gives access to online tools, extending its utility. The practical guidance offered in this book not only will enable educational institutions to best meet the needs of families and community members but will also help leaders cultivate the moral and intellectual judgment needed to address social justice issues in schools.

This clarifying equity framework will be invaluable to established and aspiring school leaders, building administrators, district leaders, system administrators, and others in both the public and private education sectors as they engage in ongoing social justice work.

Creating more just schools is both aspirational and urgent—requiring a great deal of school leadership. Scanlan draws deeply on his wisdom about justice and inclusivity, his decades of experience both leading and supporting leaders, and his abundant knowledge of schools to build a rich schema for the work of leading for equity and justice. This book strikes a beautiful balance of giving us new ways of thinking about and seeing the work of leadership with concrete ways to dig into building and rebuilding our own expertise." —George Theoharis, professor, Teaching and Leadership Department, Syracuse University.

"Scanlan keenly discusses the challenges that advocates could face as they navigate the praxis of social justice in educational settings. This book comes to timely fruition as educators encounter resistance to their teaching critical subject matter. It provides opportunities for practical application, discussion, and prompts to extend these all-important conversations." —Mariela A. RodrÍguez, professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, University of Texas at San Antonio

"A powerful testament to the importance of discernment, wisdom, judgement, and continuous learning as essential to the complex work of advancing social justice, Scanlan’s Navigating Social Justice helps leaders (re)organize, reuse, and refine their prior experiences, knowledge, and skills to advance social justice in schools." —Decoteau J. Irby, associate professor of educational policy studies, University of Illinois at Chicago and author of Stuck Improving: Racial Equity and School Leadership 

ISBN: 9781682538012

Dimensions: 226mm x 150mm x 9mm

Weight: 162g

168 pages