This paper summarizes the scholarship on culturally responsive school leadership (CRSL) approaches and offers recommendations for school- and district-level leaders and policymakers. The most recent research reveals that when CRSL research and practices are present in schools, underrepresented students who have faced historical barriers to accessing education—whom we refer to as minoritized students—manifest improved achievement, a sense of belonging in school, and increased community engagement.
Though this review focuses primarily on school leadership, the paper also describes emergent themes in the CRSL literature regarding district leadership, community-oriented leadership, and extracurricular school leadership practices. School leaders can have a deep impact on student achievement; we find, however, that minoritized students and communities have not experienced many gains with traditional forms of school leadership. In addition to describing major areas of CRSL, this paper problematizes traditional forms of school leadership, which have largely been ahistorical and context- and race-neutral. Finally, this review focuses on Indigenous, experiential, and community-based knowledges (i.e., non-Eurocentric and non-White) to reframe the traditional ways of thinking and discourses about leadership in education.
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