Spiritual weapons: Black female principals and religio‐spirituality

Abstract

The historic connection of religion and spirituality to women, education, advocacy, and leadership is prevalent in Black American histories in general and the role of the religion and spirit in promoting education and socialisation. Important in this history is the intersection of spirituality and leadership for Black American women. This research privileges woman and female agency in rearticulating gender and race in ways that are meaningful despite subjectivities. This study, informed by notions of religio-spirituality, is taken from a larger study of the life narratives of four Black female principals. Through narrative analysis, the intersectionality of gender, race, and religio-spirituality highlighted the relationship of past and current religio-spiritual leadership understandings that contest the status quo in US schools. Our study highlights one example in which the historicity and analysis of gender and race contributes to reconceputalising educational administration by emphasising the voices of Black women principals, voices that provide alternative understandings of educational administration, stress the importance of gendered and raced voices in administration, and question formulaic models of leadership and the research that reifies them.

New Lands, New Languages: Navigating Intersectionality in School Leadership

“…As parents learned to negotiate aspects of their own and their children's diasporic identities (Arifeen and Gatrell, 2013), Saeeda's identity practice afforded bridge leadership (Horsford, 2012). Most would expect a positive response to a focus on raising academic attainment (Witherspoon and Taylor, 2010;Arnold and Brooks, 2013;Santamaría, 2014;DeMatthews, 2016); instead, male governors questioned her authority. Naming oppression is an important pro-active and defensive strategy used by Black women principals (Witherspoon and Taylor, 2010), but naming institutional racism revealed the gulf between Saeeda's professional knowledge, understanding, expectation and values and that of her colleagues (Mistry and Sood, 2011).…”

“…Their appointment to under-resourced schools (Bloom and Erlandson, 2003;Arnold and Brooks, 2013) attended by students from materially impoverished homes (Witherspoon and Taylor, 2010;Arnold and Brooks, 2013;DeMatthews, 2016) meant Black women principals entered a cycle of stereotyped identities as Messiah, sacrificial lamb, or scapegoat when their advocacy for students became problematic (Bloom and Erlandson, 2003;Arnold and Brooks, 2013). This was a harsh environment in which to work (Bloom and Erlandson, 2003;Witherspoon and Taylor, 2010). Principals were expected to follow education policy against the educational interests of minoritized children (Bloom and Erlandson, 2003;Witherspoon and Taylor, 2010).…”

“…Their exclusion constitutes "institutional silencing" (Gitlin, 1994, p. 4 cited in Bloom andErlandson, 2003, p. 345) (also Witherspoon and Taylor, 2010). More recently, a small but important literature is developing a discourse about the links between women and the communities they serve in the United States (Bloom and Erlandson, 2003;Witherspoon and Taylor, 2010;Arnold and Brooks, 2013;Santamaría, 2014;DeMatthews, 2016), South Africa (Lumby and Heystek, 2012;Moorosi, 2014;Lumby, 2015), Canada (Armstrong and Mitchell, 2017), Australia, Canada, New Zealand (Fitzgerald, 2006), and England (Coleman and Campbell-Stephens, 2010;Lumby and Heystek, 2012;Curtis, 2017). Each reveals the ubiquity of racial and gendered oppressions women principals experienced with respect to individual identity, institutional and wider social practice (Holvino, 2010).…”

“…This was a harsh environment in which to work (Bloom and Erlandson, 2003;Witherspoon and Taylor, 2010). Principals were expected to follow education policy against the educational interests of minoritized children (Bloom and Erlandson, 2003;Witherspoon and Taylor, 2010). At the same time they were expected to use their cultural resources to take responsibility for children's needs (Fitzgerald, 2006;Coleman and Campbell-Stephens, 2010;Witherspoon and Taylor, 2010).…”

“…Principals were expected to follow education policy against the educational interests of minoritized children (Bloom and Erlandson, 2003;Witherspoon and Taylor, 2010). At the same time they were expected to use their cultural resources to take responsibility for children's needs (Fitzgerald, 2006;Coleman and Campbell-Stephens, 2010;Witherspoon and Taylor, 2010). For some, bridge leadership (Horsford, 2012) increased the emotional labor of working and walking between worlds (Fitzgerald, 2006;Curtis, 2017) or the potential for "being ghettoized" (Wilson et al, 2006, p. 250).…”