Educational Politics for Social Justice

Employing a social justice framework, this book provides educational leaders and practitioners with tools and strategies for grappling with the political fray of education politics. The framework offers ways to critique, challenge, and alter social, cultural, and political patterns in organizations and systems that perpetuate inequities. The authors focus on the processes through which educational politics is enacted, illustrating how inequitable power relations are embedded in our democratic systems. Readers will explore education politics at five focal points of power (micro, local/district, state, federal, and global). The text provides examples of how to “work the system” in ways that move toward greater justice and equity in schools.

Book Features:

• Conceptualizes educational politics within a pragmatic social justice framework.
• Examines the various layers of politics and how they interact.
• Explains governance structures and policymaking processes, such as policy formulation and implementation.
• Offers insights into how power operates and how it can be invoked to support the needs of struggling students.
• Explores why certain values, needs, and ideas are heard while others are not.

Catherine Marshall is the R. Wendell Eaves Distinguished Professor Emerita of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Cynthia Gerstl-Pepin is professor and dean of the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Mark Johnson has been a classroom teacher, school administrator, and policy analyst and is currently a researcher at The Learning Partnership in Chicago.

“A timely, thoughtful and thought-provoking contribution for educators wanting to prepare their students for participation in the politically intense and complicated American system of governance from the local level to international relations world-wide, Educational Politics for Social Justice is ideal as a classroom curriculum textbook and is unreservedly recommended for both community and academic library Contemporary Education Issues collections.”

—Midwest Book Review

“This call to action for educators posits the goal of education policy and practice as a means to provide social justice and equality for marginalized populations.”

—CHOICE

“This is a text that supports leaders as they shift the ways they engage with the political and policy process and utilize their spheres of influence to challenge and disrupt the systems that stymie transformation in a local context….(It)challenges those who want to work toward justice with critical starting points, conversation starters, and strategies for collaborative leadership.
—From the Foreword by Enrique Alemán, professor and chair, educational leadership and policy studies, The University of Texas at San Antonio

“Educational Politics for Social Justice is a welcome and updated text on a critical topic. Unlike other more-traditional texts addressing the politics of U.S. public schooling, the authors’ explicit commitments to using politics to enact policies that are socially just remains a radical and liberating proposition in a time of fraught political danger for many who attend and work in our public schools. The authors note that 'playing it safe' is the privilege for only the few and willfully ignorant. If educators are truly committed to their students, this text provides the analytic tools and consequent strategies to make public schools better for all of our students. Bravo!”
—Catherine A. Lugg, professor of education, Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University

Contents (Tentative)

Foreword Enrique Aleman

Preface

part I: Centering Justice in Educational Politics

1. Power, Democracy, and Social Justice Values
Introduction
Centering Justice: A Framework for Action
Power Dynamics and Control in Framing Policy
Who Defines Policy Problems?
Centering Justice: Valuing Democracy and Justice
Strategic Democratic Possibilities
Democratizing Politics and Centering Justice
A Centering Justice Oriented Analysis: An Example
Summary

part ii: Multiple Arenas of Educational Politics

2. Micropolitics: “Hidden” Conflicts and Power
Introduction
Structural Power Dynamics
Sociocultural Power Dynamics
The Power of Micropolitics for Centering Justice
Centering Justice: A Curriculum with Two Kings
Summary

3. Democracy and Community in Districts?
Introduction
The Players on School Boards and in the Central Office
Ways to Look at District Politics and Policy
Expanding Agendas to Center Justice
Summary

4. State Policy Shifts and Cultural Idiosyncrasies
Introduction
Shifts in the Role of State Education Policy
Key State Policymakers, Arenas of Power, and Concepts of Analysis
Summary

5. Federal Policy Communities and Interest Groups
Introduction
Centering Justice: The Opt-Out Movement
Summary

6. Global Education Politics
Introduction
Actors, Arenas, and Structures for International Politics
Cross-National Comparisons of Education
Social Justice Approaches to the Comparative Education Policy
Relevant Questions for International Comparisons
Differing Contexts and Values Across Countries
International Sharing and Borrowing
Continuing Challenges and Controversies
Questions from Centering Justice Framing
Global Framing of Policy Discourse
Politics for Social Justice: Thinking Glocally
Centering Justice: Greta Thunberg and “School Strikes for the Climate”
Summary

part iii: Making Connections for Policy Action

7. Policy Webs, Pendulum Shifts, and Interconnections
Introduction
The Policy Web of Leadership
Pendulum Swings of Webs of Control, Values, and Priorities
The Paradox of Policy Intent and Unintended Consequences
The Paradox of Ignoring Race and Culture: The Immigrant Experience
Interweaving of National and International Politics
Unanticipated Consequences and Hidden Goals
Cross-Purposes, Stupidity, and Contradictions
Interrelationship Among Organizations and Interest Groups
Making Connections: Family-Centered Integrated Service Systems and Schools
Centering Justice: Designing a School Around Caring Relationships
Summary

8. Leading for Justice and Equity
Introduction
Exposing Inequitable Power and Injustice
Engaging Political Arenas
Centering Justice: Can a Superintendent Take a Stand?
Alternative Approaches for Leadership
Centering Justice in Educational Politics
Specific Tools for Centering Social Justice Leadership
Examine Advocacy Strategies
Summary

References

Index

About the Authors