UC Davis

AbstractThis qualitative study explores the ways teacher leaders define educational social justice for themselves and what that means in their teaching. The purpose is to contribute to the body of literature on teachers’ own perspectives and experiences of how they attempt to teach and lead for social justice within their context and roles. By using written surveys and semistructured interviews, teacher leaders shared their own definitions of teacher leadership and educational social justice. The three themes that emerged about teacher leadership from the survey are leadership as service, leadership by example, and leadership as a process, not a position. Identifying as a social justice advocate was a continuum rather than a binary, with most teachers aspiring towards it and feeling like more work was necessary to embrace the title. Within follow-up interviews, three other themes about educational social justice emerged. One, teachers made conscious curricular choices to reflect social justice objectives. Two, as teachers they had to navigate and negotiate competing political climates, both locally and nationally. And finally, these teachers felt a personal toll and felt a personal impact of social justice-motivated teaching. These participants found that formal collaboration, school policies, and critical national events provided both support and challenges to working towards social justice objectives. Keywords: social justice teaching; social studies education; teacher leadership; secondary teachers.