No abstract

The institutional logics perspective provides lenses to analyze and interpret the deep-seated conceptualizations, or logics, structuring a field, the work of actors in a field, and the complexities of change. Leveraging how theory transcends academic disciplines, this article discusses insights gleaned from systematic analysis of 31 empirical studies from the pre-K-12 education field and social sector. To guide future scholarship, this article describes patterns in methodologies for investigating educational reform as a type of institutional change. This theoretical review attends to the ramifications of multiple, competing logics and highlights the mechanisms by which logics bridge macro-level forces and micro-level actions so that researchers and practitioners can better understand reform within the pre-K-12 education field. Taken together, we illustrate the explanatory power of the logics perspective to reveal how diverse actors within the pre-K-12 education field activate the ideas, rules, and resources of education reform. We also provide guidance for scholars applying logics to answer pressing questions about the complex dynamics and long-standing dilemmas of reform.

Using Sue et al.’s microaggressions framework, this qualitative study focused on the preparation experiences of 10 Black, female school leaders to examine how and in what ways identity, leadership, and discrimination were discussed in their administration preparation programs. We find participants were neither given space to explore their identities or experiences of discrimination nor did they learn strategies to address them. Instead, leadership was treated as an identity-neutral endeavor, and conversations regarding racial or gender differences were ignored or silenced. In these ways, the programs perpetrated various microaggressions excluding, negating, or nullifying participants’ experiences as Black female leaders.

In 2020, the United States experienced twin pandemics disproportionately impacting BIPOC communities and their schools and school systems—one new, COVID-19, and one longstanding, that of white supremacy and anti-Black racism. This phenomenological study of 20 Black female principals in two states provides insights into how these leaders, who so often center racial justice and caring for BIPOC children and communities in their leadership practice, grappled with these pandemics and how doing so impacted their leadership and work. Findings suggest that leading through these twin pandemics further cemented these women’s commitments to engage in advocacy and justice work on behalf of their communities and students. They also reported, regarding racial inequity and white supremacy, feeling both a cautious optimism stemming from seeing the work they had long engaged in being taken up at scale, and by white colleagues in particular, and frustration, experiencing this engagement often as “performative” and thus unlikely to lead to real change. And yet they also spoke of their deep commitment to advocacy and social justice moving forward and their role in ensuring that all their students receive the education, opportunities, and outcomes they deserve.

This case study blends the accounts of 10 Black women who engaged in a research study on their experiences of microaggressions when serving as school leaders, to tell the story of one Black female principal in a mostly White suburban district. We describe the ways the environment enabled and perpetuated gendered racist incidents at multiple levels and detail some of the microaggressions affecting her career path, leadership, and community interactions, as well as the ways she overcomes these obstacles and persists. We contextualize this narrative in the literature around gender, race, and school leadership, in studies of gendered racism, and finally in White allyship scholarship. We conclude by posing questions around whose responsibility it is to address these issues, and the structural changes necessary to do so.