Research supports the urgent need to describe, document, and research innovative praxis in the field in order to assess and improve educational leadership preparation at the state and national levels, particularly given existing shortages of highly qualified principals and superintendents and the complex demands of leading school reform efforts. Moreover, leadership preparation that specifically supports the development of social justice- and equity-minded leaders are in need. Without frameworks, investigation and documentation are difficult to accomplish, as the conditions, resources, and pedagogical strategies necessary cannot be articulated in a holistic way that can help more leadership preparation programs explore new ways to look in the mirror in order to improve their programs.
For over 20 years, the Berkeley Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) has been innovating new strategies and methodologies in its approach to leadership preparation by engaging with practicing artists, incorporating creative and culturally-based teaching strategies, designing performance assessment events, forming partnerships with arts education organizations, using and applying research on creative and arts-based pedagogy, and networking with other educator preparation programs. This report highlights the impact of a pedagogy integrating performative modalities into social justice leadership preparation across four domains of praxis: Identity & Vision, Model, Conditions, and Reflect. Furthermore, this impact brief highlights some of the powerful learning experiences that provided transformational learning for aspiring leaders who have gone through our program. Finally, we give a basic overview of the PLI Social Justice Leadership Preparation Landscape and how leadership preparation programs can visualize the conditions, resources, standards, and infrastructure needed to support this work. A fully elaborated version of this work is available here.
Finally, we would be remiss not to acknowledge the COVID-19 pandemic and its influence during the time of publication. In the last month, all public schools and universities in California have sharply pivoted from largely in-person experiences to distance learning. While it is too early to assess the full impact, the work we describe in this Impact Report continues to serve as a strong foundation, even in this new reality.