Clarifying Conceptual Foundations for Social Justice in Education

This theoretical chapter discusses four distinct conceptual frameworks that link school leadership to social justice. These conceptual frameworks have emerged in the US education context and are used more for the training of teachers: antibias education, multicultural education, critical pedagogy, and whiteness studies. This chapter presents the conceptual frameworks using four basic constructs: the role of education in social justice, the definition of social justice, theory of leadership action, and implications for preparing school leaders. By comparing these ideas, we highlight some of what each framework offers for identifying and interrupting injustice in education. We present an argument for school leadership preparation programs developing an intentional and coherent conceptual framework for social justice as the backbone of their preparation course designs.