Social justice leadership in rural Pakistan : a constructivist grounded theory study of private school leaders

Abstract

This qualitative constructivist-grounded theory (C-GT) study aimed to explore how Pakistani school leaders (PSL) conceptualize and enact social-justice-oriented leadership (if they do) to combat educational and sociocultural inequities to support marginalized students. This study collected data from 11 rural school leaders, over 11 primary and secondary private schools that educate marginalized students, including low-income families, girls, and minority groups in rural areas surrounding Islamabad. Utilizing social justice leadership (SJL) and mental models (MM) as a conceptual framework, I undertook an in-depth, semi-structured interview protocol with each school leader in addition to artifact collection, analytical memos, and diagrams. The emerging grounded theory is a five-step model identifying participants' MM of SJL and exploring their views and actions to address the educational inequities for marginalized students. The findings suggest that school leaders conceptualized and emarginalized students' access to high-quality education that was context-appropriate and encouraged critical awareness. However, most PSL had not received formal training in school leadership and shared some conflicting and problematic MM of leadership as adult-centered, hierarchical, and savior-like. This finding diverges from existing literature on SJL, which is democratic, inclusive, and empowering all stakeholders. Based on the results of this study, MM was a useful lens to explore PSLs' views of justice and equity and how they subsequently enacted social justice to address inequities prevalent in their schools and communities to support marginalized students. Keywords: social justice leadership, mental models, rural schools, marginzalized students