Navigating Social Justice: A Schema for Educational Leadership

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.