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This article reports on a phenomenographic study of Black women undergraduates who were resident assistants in a predominantly White institution (PWI) of higher education. Critical race feminism, namely intersectionality, was used to explore how they navigated the responsibilities of their position and social identities. Findings are that participants navigated the resident assistant leadership role and their social identities by (a) engaging in relational service, (b) tentatively negotiating the expression of their social identities and related oppressions, and (c) seeking support responsive to their multiply intersecting social identities. How they navigated their status identities and social identities varied according to their sense of obligation to serve residents and sense of risk in expressing (some) social identities and related experiences. Recommendations for continued professional leadership development of resident assistants are provided.

A growing body of researchers documents the unique barriers women face in their academic career progression and the significance of mentoring networks for advancement of their academic trajectories as faculty. However, few researchers explore the embedded tensions and conflicts in the social processes and relations of mentoring networks, and the implications this has for social capital. Using this as our starting point, our narrative reflections suggest that while productive orientations and shared experiences as women faculty of color promote supportive professional roles; the structural, relational, and cultural dynamics subtly frame the basis of our tensions. In moving beyond these, we advance the need for structured and constructive engagement of our differences in building the social capital of peer mentoring networks. While this is not an easy task, we hold that it requires fluid and ongoing negotiations of these relationships if collective goals are to be realized.

This case involves dilemmas for educational leaders who may face the process of school consolidation brought on by decreased funding and demands for accountability. We highlight the challenges and opportunities to collaborate within and across diverse communities and schools with varying expressions of cultural, political, ethical, and organizational power and interests. The teaching notes coincide with aspects of the case that involve principal responsibilities, equity concerns, and negotiations amid the demands of multiple constituencies. Theoretical frameworks highlighting asset-based approaches, leadership for social justice, and micropolitics are emphasized.

The authors describe a process of self-assessment attuned to equity and justice in the policies and practices that affect student diversity, namely, those associated with the selection of candidates. The disproportionate rate of rejection for applicants from underrepresented groups and the unsystematic process of applicant selection operated as hidden curriculum affecting the opportunities for the program to enhance meaningful relationships among diverse groups of students. The authors describe institutional and sociopolitical conditions, and individual actions reflecting a faculty’s will to policy. Faculty efforts supported and challenged systemic change to increase racial and ethnic diversity among aspiring educational administrators.

We conducted a content analysis of 34 statements of interest submitted by applicants applying for admission to an education leadership preparation program. The purpose of the analysis was to understand their orientations toward social justice. Using Kumashiro's (2000) and Apple's (2001) discussions of antioppressive education, we identified three practices in the candidates’ treatment of the writing prompt concerning leadership related to Othering: ignoring, marginalizing, and mentioning. The fourth practice—embodying, or evidencing through practice, a social justice orientation—we identified in statements submitted by a few applicants ( n = 7). This article centers on the analysis of the applications of these seven candidates through the metaphor needle in a haystack. Through conducting a secondary-level analysis to extrapolate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of critical literacy and elicit our collective perceptions of what constitutes social justice leadership, we found the social justice orientations—“or needles”—for which we searched. This self-reflexive approach to research reflects the model of program evaluation that we are developing called self-assessment for equity. We provide recommendations for faculty interested in improving their program's capacity to identify, prepare, and sustain social justice leadership.

This chapter illustrates how indigenous concepts, philosophies, and traditions were introduced into a doctoral course on Curriculum Theory and undertaken by students to inform their development of cultural and curriculum leadership. A central activity in the course was clay-molding. Qualitative data in the form of personal reflections and student work samples (pottery, book review, essay) are accompanied by academic literature to provide insight into the question of how indigenous concepts support sensemaking in the development of curriculum leadership that is culturally emancipatory. Personal reflections on the course from the professor and the students are extended by a critical friend who contributes through the concept of culturally competent leadership.

In this chapter we present a model of self-assessment for equity (SAFE) to guide faculty in leadership preparation programs concerned with equity and justice. The conceptual framework for this model derives from a review of the literature on social justice in educational leadership preparation and addresses the gap in the literature on the evaluation of educational leadership programs. We discuss how we conceptualize and implement SAFE in the context of the mission statement guiding the educational leadership program in which we work.