Critical Praxis Leadership

Critical Praxis Leadership: Grassroots Narratives from Justice-Driven Leaders for a Democratic Future is a powerful new book written for a broad audience of educators devoted to achieving equity in public education. In the wake of the past 50 years of surging neoliberal economics, policy and ideology that have given rise to emboldened far-Right movements, the weaknesses of democracy as a political project for promoting equity and justice are revealing themselves in multiple spheres of social life. In the U.S., protectionist and isolationist policies enmeshed with xenophobia, racism, misogyny, homo- and transphobia, and ablism lay bare the historical architecture of inequitable and unjust social structures that provide fuel for the engines of economic and social disparity. Education, long saddled with the Sisyphean task of leveling the playing field and affording economic advancement for economically and socially marginalized populations, has been effectively reeled into an administrative agenda aimed toward maintaining social reproduction which continues to funnel Black, Brown, female, disabled and queer bodies into subordinate social roles and carceral institutions or vanquish them entirely from social life. Within this shameless historical moment of cruelty, it is crucial to highlight the stories and experiences of leaders dedicated to cultivating equitable and just environments amid this global crisis. Justice-driven leaders who engage in critical praxis leadership emphasize grassroots efforts for genuine, actionable change rather than performative gestures or media attention. Their work unfolds in diverse contexts, motivated by different factors and involving varied groups of people. Critical Praxis Leadership features theoretically rich, practically grounded narratives from PK-12 and higher education leaders who strive to become justice-driven in their day-to-day work. As PK-12 school administrators, higher education administrators, union leaders, and community leaders reflect on the ways their praxis is informed by Black feminist, anti/decolonial, posthuman, anti-oppressive and other critical frameworks, readers will be immersed in real-life experiences by a variety of voices. They will get an inside look into how justice-driven leaders strive to live their philosophy in their practice and navigate complex situations while striving toward equitable change in institutions of learning. Practical for professors and students alike, readers will experience real world narratives, praxis-oriented questions and activities, and evocative artwork. While walking alongside current leaders in the field, readers are invited to unpack their own philosophies of justice-driven leadership and engage with thinking/doing justice-driven leadership differently to refine their visions of leadership through a lens of complexity and futurity. The activities and narratives in this book remind readers of the ever-presence of the past in who we are and who we wish to be as educational leaders working within historically rooted institutions designed to maintain systems of power and oppression. They remind readers of the deep colonial and racist roots that still shape the lives of learners and leaders alike, and they propose a movement toward a just future. Readers are encouraged to revisit the past, reclaim their knowledge of how social and institutional systems came to be what they are, and choose to do leadership differently as best they can, always working toward justice that lay on the horizon. Perfect for courses such as: Foundations of Educational Leadership, School Leaders as Change Agents, Leadership in Higher Education, Critical Perspective on Educational Leadership, Leadership for Equity and Inclusion, and Collaborative Approaches to Educational Leadership

Tricia Kress, PhD is a Professor in the Educational Leaderships for Diverse Learning Communities EdD program at Molloy University in Rockville Centre, NY. She has been working with teachers and young people in urban schools for over two decades. Her research is situated at the nexus of critical pedagogy, curriculum studies, and educational leadership.

Warren E. Whitaker, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Educational Leadership for Diverse Learning Communities EdD program at Molloy University. He has spent the last 18 years working in the education field as an equity, justice-focused practitioner and researcher. His research focuses on disabled and racially minoritized student experiences in education, postsecondary education transition, ADHD, and the intersection of leadership, critical pedagogy, and neoliberal education.

Kathryn (Katie) Strom is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at California State University, East Bay, Director of CSUEB's Center for Research on Equity and Collaborative Engagement (CRECE), and co-founder of the Posthuman Research Nexus (a global organization that supports and connects scholars engaging in posthuman and other complexity perspectives). Dr. Strom's research combines multiple critical and complex theories to study teacher learning and practice (particularly in support of multilingual learners), as well as to advocate more broadly for more relational, difference-affirmative ways of thinking-being-doing in education and academia. The latter includes her commitment to supporting doctoral students and early career scholars to successfully navigate the hidden curriculum of writing a dissertation and publishing afterward. A scholar of teaching and learning, Dr. Strom has used her knowledge of social justice, scaffolding, and systemic functional linguistics to develop lessons and workshops to support her doctoral students and junior academics in their writing over the last decade. Her most recent book, Scaffolding the Language of Power: An Apprenticeship in Writing at the Doctoral Level, turns these lessons into a comprehensive and interactive guide for doctoral-level writing. She is also the co-author of Becoming-Teacher: A Rhizomatic Look at First Year Teaching and Decentering the Researcher in Intimate Scholarship: Critical Posthuman Methodological Perspectives, along with many peer-reviewed articles and several special issues. Her most current work is in partnership with the Smithsonian Institute's Network for Emergent Socioscientific Thinking (NESST), exploring ways to support educators and their students in shifting to the complex ways of thinking needed to create sustainable futures in the Anthropocene era.