Leadership and Intercultural Dynamics

Citation

Abaya, J. (2010), "Leadership and Intercultural Dynamics", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 48 No. 3, pp. 419-423. https://doi.org/10.1108/09578231011041107

The increase in the numbers and diversity of children in American schools has necessitated a curriculum, as well as pedagogical skills that take into account this diversity. Unfortunately, traditional leadership praxis, as well as teaching styles seems to have disregarded this potential rich source of cultures, histories, and backgrounds. Consequently, the minorities are put through systemic pedagogies that label them as “at risk” while imposing on them foreign visions and educational objectives, making them prone to high rates of drop‐out and low achievement levels. For educational leaders this is a challenge as schools are neither homogenous nor served by homogenous communities. The emergence of multiple cultures in American schools not only requires a type of leadership that would serve the needs of students from multiple cultures but also those willing and open to venture into uncharted waters of new leadership styles that acknowledge the diversity and translates it into a power base upon which teachers can anchor their pedagogies.

In the book Leadership and Intercultural Dynamics, two highly regarded professionals in the area of school leadership and social justice – Collard and Normore – bring together a wide range of scholars who aim at pricking the conscience of current and future educational leaders. Widely travelled and deeply committed to fostering insights and understanding of specific cultures and the intersections of cultures, both editors have first‐hand information as they identify with the borderland cultures. The editors and contributors question what colors their professional duties and offer an alternative leadership praxis that would broaden their view and deepen their appreciation of these cultures located at the borderlands. Grounding their arguments and recommendations on personal histories, professional experiences, intellectual engagements, and moral commitments, the authors have produced a masterpiece that is a must for all school leaders and professionals who work with people from the borderlands who might not necessarily see and construct life and situations as we do but nonetheless deserve to be heard.

The book is organized around five parts subdivided into sixteen chapters. In Part I Collard contends that educational institutions in the twenty‐first century are characterized by demographic diversity. While giving a historical perspective of multiculture from the middle ages to the present day, the author argues against operating from monocultural assumptions and frameworks. Consequently, it is important for educational leaders to reflect on their educational beliefs, experiences, and behaviors and to reconstruct them to become competent intercultural agents. While advocating for appropriate research methods for leadership in intercultural contexts Collard discredits cross‐cultural as well as macro‐level studies that are based on ontological assumption of a fixed external reality. Instead, he calls for more tightly focused, micro‐level methodologies.

Part II focuses on indigenous cultures. In chapter three Normore uses historical and cultural experiences of Canada's First Nations to build a foundation for developing a culturally relevant leadership development program in support of social justice. The author insists that serving First Nations students requires a unique set of leadership skills and knowledge reflective of and responsive to the cultural and linguistic diversity of the student populations. At the same time, a culturally relevant curriculum for First Nations must not only encompass opportunities to build a powerful knowledge‐base but also be exposed to in‐depth knowledge and skills. In the fourth chapter Faircloth and Tipperconic explore the complex nature of leadership in schools serving American Indian and Alaska Native students. Framing leadership as a multifocal construct, the authors give a list of characteristics of an effective leader in Indian education as reported by current and past members of Penn State's American Indian Leadership Program (AILP). The authors contend that the greatest challenge to the praxis of effective leadership in Indian education is creating and maintaining a balance between the beliefs, customs and practices of the indigenous communities and the practices of the larger educational community. In chapter five, Court explores the complexities that can blight innovative attempts to develop more inclusive leadership structures and practices. By use of discourse analysis, the author reflects on the experiences of Mere Katene, a young Maori bilingual teacher, whose story illustrates how deep‐seated issues around cultural difference and inequalities of power can confound a well‐intentioned innovative. In chapter six Johansson Fua discusses the traditional forms of leadership in the Tongan community and highlights some key concepts that guide traditional leadership. The author suggests certain concepts from Tongan traditional leadership that ought to be adopted and developed as an approach to contemporary educational leadership and offers some key recommendations on developing educational leadership in Tonga.

Part III focuses on the work in multicultural settings. In chapter seven, Garza and Merchant identify the glaring disproportionate academic underachievement between Latinos and their Anglo counterparts. Consequently, deficit‐oriented definitions have been used by public schools in designing programs to compensate for these deficiencies. Contending that there is need to take a critical look at principal preparation programs for those destined to work with Latinos, the authors recommend a model for leadership that is driven by a philosophy of social justice advocacy. Chapter eight extends this discourse whereby authors Velez and Collard question the validity, usefulness and reliability of ethnic descriptors in contemporary US culture. The authors discuss an array of meanings in which personal and public utterances falsely categorize and obscure differences among minorities of Mexican, Latin American, and Spanish descent in the USA. Educational leaders need to realize that individuals are culturally and historically situated and as such nuanced strategies of care and responsibility are required. Chapter nine focuses on the experiences of Muslimness, and debates the key issues relevant to managing it in schools with substantial numbers of Muslim students. Shah discusses how Muslim learners feel that they are specific targets of discrimination and unfounded “Islamphobia” leading to exclusion and discrimination. This exclusion signals a culturally hostile environment and undermines any positive sense of self, and constitutes a potential challenge to multicultural strategies for achieving inclusion. Part III ends with a case study presentation on intercultural leadership in an Australian binational setting. Sutherland presents a narrative offered as a contribution to understanding intercultural dynamics and the leadership that is generated in a contemporary binational and bilingual leadership context. To work successful in such a setting, respect to all members of the school community, application of inclusive practices openness to new ideas and the voice of the “other” are necessary.

Part IV focuses on the work in international contexts. The eleventh chapter, entitled “changing conceptions of learning in Zhejiang Province, China”, mainly dwells on a research work conducted at the beginning of an international leadership program at Hangzhou Normal University to explore participants' conceptions of learning and leadership. Wang and Collard present a summative evaluation of the program and confirm that respondents held more diversified and complex conceptions and had come to see learning as promoting personal, team, organizational, and social development. Chapter 12, “Chinese leaders and Western discourses”, is a continuation of the previous chapter. Initial and summative conceptions of leadership as well as conclusions and implications are discussed in detail. Wang and Collard concede that conceptions of learning and leadership are not necessarily absolute, stable or culture‐bound over time in the manner assumed by cross‐cultural theorists. Conceptions from after the course reflected their encounters with contemporary Western discourses. As such the participants emerged as active learners mediating cultures rather than the passive recipients of inherited local traditions of global forces. In chapter thirteen, Eklund, Johansson and Repa examine the rhetoric and practices of educational leadership in a Belarus context. The authors use an evaluation focus based on the effects of two different international cooperation efforts in school leadership training developed a leadership profile for good practice in Belarus. In chapter fourteen, “Riding the waves: educators, leaders, and intercultural practices in overseas schools”, the authors examine the transformational process of an educator from monocultural to intercultural. Using reflective data, Murakami Ramalho and Sperandio describe expatriate educators' perceptions of their personal transformations and the complex scenarios involving intercultural interactions that must be negotiated in intercultural school settings. Oliva completes Part IV by introducing in chapter fifteen the shifting landscapes/shifting langue from the in‐between. Langue is defined as a system of linguistic possibilities shared by a speech community. The author uses the concept of langue as a basis of an alternative qualitative research method namely dialogic educational criticism. Oliva notes that the new method explicitly heightens the importance of a researcher's “dwelling” in the transactive space.

Part V contains the final chapter of the book. In this chapter, Collard offers justification for a new theoretical perspective to inform educational leadership. The author advances alternative research methodologies based on dialogical and interactive modes capable of capturing the subjective and complex realities of actors within institutions and society.

Leadership and Intercultural Dynamics is a useful text for every professional whose work entails working with people from different cultures. The book includes works of authors from various regions of the world including Australia, Hong Kong, Britain, Canada and the USAamong others, thus giving the book a world view. Highlighting diverse groups of people such as the Latino's, Hispanics, Chinese, Muslims, Native American, Maori as well as the Inuits and Innus of Canada makes the reader aware of their existence and above all brings to light different cultures that if tapped could lead to a permanent change in leadership praxis. In view of the above, the book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in not only understanding the diversity amongst groups of people but also in acknowledging that diversity can and should be a launching pad to one's commitment at gaining and fostering deeper insights and understandings into specific cultures and happenings at their intersections. Given the high level of professionalism and deep understanding of the individual leadership contexts, as well as the recommendations put forth in this book, the authors have successfully articulated their arguments and have shown their commitment to the ethics of compassion and social justice. Their invitation and quest to all and sundry to join them in their journey towards greater understanding of the aspirations, heritages, and needs of fellow human beings is worth taking up whether working with indigenous communities, multicultural communities or within an international context. By the end of that journey, the reader will have developed a sense of moral responsibility and taken an active role in challenging the policies, practices, structures, and inherited cultures which violate fundamental human rights.