Journal for Leadership, Equity, and Research

Foreword: The Ubiquity Of Wars And The “Good Danger” Of Praxis

Mahmoud Suleiman — 2024-03-11

For a long time, great thinkers like Noam Chomsky and Paulo Freire, among many others, have always been viewed as “dangerous” and even more so in recent days and years. Both are illustrious thinkers and actors who are considered radicals in their own ways, given their defiance against the “banking system” of education; while both men simultaneously pinpoint the “paradoxes of democracy” that hamper creativity and independent thinking of students, educators, administrators, and leaders. Chomsky and Freire have dedicated their work that cultivates the power of language as a means for educational emancipation, intellectual freedom, and social empowerment within overarching universal principles of humanity, justice, and equity. For them, language is the currency for understanding the world realities and the essence of what it means to be human free from bias or prejudice. As such, education should be grounded in emancipation rather than oppression, enlightenment rather than ignorance, and empathy rather than apathy. More importantly, education should be praxis-based in which learners and educators are not brainwashed but constantly brain-triggered to freely dialogue, interact, think, reflect, analyze, apply, and take action to become skillful rather than full of skills.

Perceptions Of Formal And Nonformal Leaders On Cultural Proficiency In Educational Practice And Organizational Change

Brooke Soles — 2024-03-11

When it comes to equity and access through culturally proficient practices, what schools intend to do versus what they actually do can be incongruous by defaulting to traditional accountability metrics over change and innovation. Utilizing the Conceptual Framework for Culturally Proficient Practices, the purpose of this study was to investigate formal and nonformal educational leaders' perceptions regarding the barriers and next steps of Cultural Proficiency implementation following a 10-day Cultural Proficiency training. Findings indicated variations based on individual identity, position in the school system, and external socio-political factors that influence how individuals perceive the implementation, advancement, and/or limitations of Cultural Proficiency work.

Unravelling Child Language Brokering For Health

Krissia Martinez — 2024-03-11

The U.S. healthcare system struggles to provide adequate language assistance to medical practitioners and patients. As a result, health providers and patients rely on ad hoc interpreters, including children, to communicate. Bilingual children who regularly interpret for others, whom we refer to as child language brokers, are important linguistic and cultural conduits for their communities and bridge language differences in vital contexts, such as health and medical settings. In this paper, we explore the experiences of 17 adolescent language brokers and consider the settings, tasks, and people they engage with when language brokering for health. Findings illustrate that child language brokering is a real and important component for immigrant family health, that child language brokering for health is not a uniform experience, and that language brokering for health can sometimes have severe ramifications.

Kicking It In California!

Denise Ramirez — 2024-03-11

Physical education classrooms reflect a range of learners, movers, and abilities. Incoming physical educators report lacking confidence and knowledge in their ability to create inclusive lesson plans. Many undergraduate and liberal studies students are required to take one adaptative physical education pedagogy course; thus, incoming educators tend to lack an array of instructional tools to ensure all students are participating in activities and engaging with peers. The goal of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is for teachers to use a range of strategies by removing barriers to learning and giving students opportunities to experience physical education to the best of their ability. Physical educators have the foundational tools; they just need to envision using those tools differently. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how, by combining the physical education and UDL frameworks, educators can implement an inclusive lesson with a skills rubric and a summative assessment.

Administrator And Teacher Experiences Implementing Restorative Practices

Lervan Atticot — 2024-03-11

Exclusionary disciplinary practices negatively and disproportionately impact Black students academically, socially, and emotionally and have been attributed to the school-to-prison pipeline. This research was conducted to determine the impact of restorative justice practices on exclusionary discipline by evaluating the lived experiences of school leaders and teachers. The findings of this research determined that restorative justice practices can effectively interrupt the over-suspension and expulsion of Black students if implemented as a practice as opposed to a program. Additionally, the following barriers to implementation were identified through this study: time, mindset, lack of resources, and professional development and involvement of all stakeholders. Critical race theory and labeling theory were the theoretical lenses through which this research was conducted. Sixteen school leaders and teachers were interviewed using Zoom. Interviews were transcribed and coded to identify themes. Through this research, some of the barriers to implementing restorative justice practices were identified based on the lived experiences of school leaders and teachers. Additionally, this study identified how restorative justice practices can impact exclusionary disciplinary practices. From the results emerged the following themes and subthemes: sense of community; school avoidance; negative impact on learning and growth; restorative circles as prevention and healing; developing communication and building relationships; shift in school culture; training and resources; times; mindset and stakeholder involvement. Based on the results of this study, three recommendations were made for future research. A qualitative study can be done comparing and contrasting the lived experiences of Black girls at schools that implement restorative justice practices and schools that do not. Another suggestion for future research would entail a qualitative study that requires engaging in a restorative circle as a participant observer. The third recommendation would be a mixed methods study evaluating the effectiveness of the Restore and Heal Wheel on various elements of school culture.

Book Review

Shaylyn Marks — 2024-03-11

As student populations continue to diversify at an exponential rate, issues of cultural dissonance between students and their teachers become increasingly problematic in American schools. Despite the growing diversity of student populations, teacher demographics have remained stagnant (Milner et al., 2019).