Aspiring Urban School Leaders’ Conceptualizations of Culturally Relevant Instructional Leadership

While just one responsibility of many, urban school leaders play a major role in setting standards for classroom instruction. This paper describes aspiring urban school leaders’ (ASLs) conceptualizations of culturally relevant instructional leadership. Drawing from an analysis of data collected during collaboratively taught program modules focused on instructional leadership, several themes were identified. First, when examining ASLs initial grasp of culturally relevant teaching, a wide range of understandings of culture is revealed, from an invocation of deficit orientations related to forms of ableism and trauma-informed approaches to those reflecting critical consciousness. Second, ASLs were found to operate within organizational and district policy contexts that differentially enable their development as culturally relevant instructional leaders. Finally, ASLs’ practice and analysis of observations using the culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) tenets and teacher practices support their development as expert observers, and provides practicum instructors with valuable data on ASLs’ skill development in this area. The implications for principal preparation programs, K–12 principal practice, related research, and policy are also discussed.