Social Justice in Leadership Preparation: A Poststructural Exploration of a Concept From Within Liminal Spaces

Abstract

St. Pierre (2015) suggested that researchers consider entering into research through an interest in, and a deep investigation of, a specific concept. Deleuze and Guattari (1994) maintained that a concept is a nebulous structure of a network of ideas that continuously remains unfolding. Therefore, researching a concept becomes an attempt at unraveling its complexities. Through a close reading (Butler, 1995; St. Pierre, 2015) of how the literature on educational leadership preparation conceptualizes social justice, this tripartite investigation includes an integrative literature review of social justice leadership preparation (Torraco, 2005), a narrative inquiry into the lived experiences of professors of social justice (Jones, 2003, 2006; Kim, 2015; Polkinghorne, 1988; Riessman, 2008), and an exploration into the method used to transform data into an ethnodramatic, musical presentation pulled from the narratives of these professors/researchers as these stories are juxtaposed against the storied experiences of students in K-12 schools (Conlon, 2015; Saldaña, 2009). In a field that critiques itself for its limited understanding of how the concept of social justice is situated within the field (Diem & Carpenter, 2012; McKenzie et al., 2008), these investigations open spaces for critical reflection and discourses surrounding the complexities of preparing leaders for social justice work.