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Abstract

Brooks (2008) argues that, 'Justice is both an abstract "big" idea and also a concrete "little" idea' (p. 8) and is understood as a process or a way of "ethical living" in a diverse society' (Furman & Shields, 2003, p. 1358). Social justice then is "where all members of a society, regardless of background or procedural justice, have basic human rights and equal access to the benefits of their society" (Hemphill, 2015, p. 2). Educational leadership for social justice is leadership that ensures fairness in rights and access to the educational benefits of one's society. However, the processes and systems for ensuring fairness are open to various interpretations, are influenced by leaders' conception of social justice and may be seen as complex and contextualized endeavors (Arar, Ogden, & Beycioglu, 2019). Consequently, educational leadership for social justice is a bold undertaking. Educational leadership for social justice assumes that those who are assigned formal leadership roles pay attention to issues of equity and ensure that the power that resides within the social structures of education are more responsive to the rights of citizens (Miller, Roofe, & García Carmona, 2019). As stated by Theoharis (2007), at the heart of educational leadership for social justice are leaders who "…. advocate, lead, and keep at the center of their practice and vision issues of race, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and other historically and currently marginalizing condition" (p. 223). Furthermore, Corbett (1976) notes that in order to do justice one cannot work alone, one needs a community approach. This community approach involves all education stakeholders giving attention to issues of equity and fairness in how policy is designed, how educational leaders practice leadership and the types of partnership relationships that are formed and leveraged among stakeholders to support leading for social justice. The papers in this special issue lead us to examine a range of issues associated with two broad areas of educational leadership for