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Long, Jordan

University of British Columbia

Scholars have long argued that public schools are especially important in inculcating the habits and competencies necessary for youth to contribute to a democratic society. Educational leadership scholars position school leaders as having an impact in that regard. However, much of the empirical work in this area does not take place in Canada nor does it conceptualize leadership as a set of distributed leadership practices that are shared and enacted by all school members. This case study of one school at two different points in time reports on the findings of leadership practices that foster a democratic way of life in a rural Western Canadian school context. Four leadership practices were identified as making up a set of practices that were shared and enacted by school members unequally, with the principals of the school enacting them the most. Many contextual factors were found to challenge and facilitate these leadership practices. Through the enactment of these practices, a democratic way of life understood as freedom as expressed through autonomy and providing input and participating in decision-making processes was formed. In many ways, findings of this case study are consistent with theoretical literature that proposes models of democratic leadership, especially those that consist of demonstrably democratic leadership practices, can contribute to a democratic way of life at a school. However, the democratic procedures in the school do not necessarily reflect a commitment to democratic political education more broadly. Therefore, this case study provides modest support for the argument that conceptions of democratic school leadership practices are not uniform, that they are contingent on the context from which they emerge, and that for a broader democratic political education to be encouraged, leaders may need to be guided by a moral-political commitment to fostering a lived experience of political democracy for the school members they lead.

Text

2024-12-19

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/89940

Educational Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/