Leading Diverse Schools: Tempering Accountability Policy with Social Justice

This qualitative research examines how school principals perceive social justice and accountability, the actions they take, and the reasoning process they use in their attempt to satisfy accountability mandates while simultaneously tackling the various causes of social injustices in their schools. This constructive study aims to gain an in-depth understanding of the world from the subjects’ points of view, to unfold the meaning of their experiences, and to uncover their lived world. It employs semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions guided by the conceptual framework developed from review of literature on social justice, educational leadership, and accountability policy. Twenty-two school principals and vice-principals from the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) were interviewed. The findings show that some participants define social justice as equity, which goes from the economic and political dimensions of resource distribution and equality of opportunity and access, to the cultural aspect of social representation and inclusion. Some view public education as a social justice endeavour with a particular reference to the purpose of public education. Others construe social justice by focusing on its end goal – the academic and social outcomes of students and the impact on their lives. Study participants implement their social justice beliefs and values in praxis by engaging all stakeholders and catalyzing them to be the new force for the social justice movement. Evident in this study is that participants enacted their social justice practices by putting students at the centre, positioning themselves as social justice leaders, developing people for social justice, building school climate through justice, and fostering positive relationship with families and communities. Under current accountability context, principals in this study responded to the current reform by going beyond its narrow focus through instilling a sense of moral responsibility in their perceptions of accountability itself. As social justice activists, they are proactively engaged in expanding its parameters by encompassing the moral, social, and professional aspects of their accountability. Leading for social justice thus becomes a process of constantly confronting and tearing down such obstacles and barriers by leveraging the politics of accountability and social justice to move towards what is best for students.Ph