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Education Sciences
Special Issues
Critical Approaches to Educational Leadership: Emerging Trends and New Futurities
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Critical Approaches to Educational Leadership: Emerging Trends and New Futurities

A special issue of Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2026) | Viewed by 2901

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Ann Lopez

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1V6, Canada
Interests: school leadership praxis across contexts; leadership development; decolonizing educational leadership, decolonial methods and approaches; school leadership in global south contexts and the impact of coloniality; critical approaches to educational leadership research and praxis; social justice and culturally responsive leadership
Dr. Donna Swapp

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Education, University of Regina, Regina, SK S4S 0A2, Canada
Interests: decolonial and critical frameworks in interrogating education; decolonizing school leadership; critical history of education; school leaders’ work and wellbeing; critical education policy; social justice leadership; diversity and educational leadership

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We invite paper proposals for a Special Issue in Education Sciences, titled ‘Critical Approaches to Educational Leadership: Emerging Trends and New Futurities’.

This Special Issue comes at a critical juncture not only in education but society at large where leadership in all contexts is coming under scrutiny. Across the globe, human rights are being violated at alarming rates and policies and practices aimed at more equitable outcomes for students are being rolled back. These violations are spurred by envigored political and social resistance to equity, diversity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and practices, as well as decolonial and other anti-oppressive policies, rhetorics, and advocacy; in some cases, they are backed by punitive, regime-sanctioned consequences for institutions and individuals engaged in critical social justice work.

Many of these human rights violations have colonial and/or Western derivates, which hints at grave implications but also hopeful possibilities. In this context, those who research and practice educational leadership are called on to respond to the moment. They must not only decide what is important but how these factors are fundamentally reshaping education (Gurr & Drysdale, 2020). Stone-Johnson et al. (2023) suggest that, in times of crisis, responsible leadership focuses on enhancing, developing, and sustaining educational communities through stewardship. 

This Special Issue reflects an urgency to strengthen, deepen, and expand actions that disrupt, decenter, and counter Eurocentric/Western dominance. More specifically, we situate the field of school/educational leadership and the work of school/educational leaders, practitioners, and consumers at center stage within a critical, antiracist, socially just, decolonizing agenda. Along these lines, contributions are sought that interrogate and offer alternatives to Eurocentrism and Western dominance in understandings and enactments of school/educational leadership. We are keenly interested in critical work in school/educational leadership as it unfolds across diverse contexts, and thus welcome papers from both Canadian and international scholars.

Among other related themes and emphases, we are seeking conceptual, theoretical, and/or empirical contributions that

  1. Disrupt ongoing colonial harms in school/educational leadership;
  2. Deepen our understanding of what it means and looks like to decolonize school/educational leadership;
  3. Offer practical insights on how to advance and/or undertake a decolonizing or otherwise critical agenda in school/educational leadership;
  4. Depict new and/or reimagined scenarios/realities of school/educational leadership in critical times;
  5. Describe decolonizing and/or other critical models of disruption, including relative to theory, community practices, curricula, pedagogies, policy, etc.;
  6. Present examples of success in using decolonizing and other critical frameworks to disrupt and decenter coloniality in school/educational leadership;
  7. Highlight the strengths, challenges, possibilities, and complexities of decolonizing and other critical work in the field of school/educational leadership; and
  8. Affirm Indigenous and other non-Western understandings and approaches to school/educational leadership.

We also welcome contributors to respond to us with any ideas for a contribution that falls outside of the broad scope we have articulated here but that may be of value in advancing the overall topic of the Special Issue.

Contributors are invited to situate the basis of their knowledge, especially and particularly around including a self-reflective paragraph locating/positioning themselves in relation to their proposed contribution.

Timelines:

  • Abstracts of approximately 500 words are due by October 20, 2025.
  • Co-Guest Editors will convey acceptance of proposals by November 24, 2025.
  • Final papers are due by February 28, 2026.
  • Special issue publication date: Spring 2026..

We look forward to receiving your submissions.

  • Ann Lopez, Ontario Institute for the Study of Education, University of Toronto. ann.lopez@utoronto.ca
  • Donna Swapp, Faculty of Education, University of Regina. donna.swapp@uregina.ca

References

Gurr, D., & Drysdale, L (2020). Leadership for challenging times. International Studies in Educational Administration, 48(1) 24-30.

Stone-Johnson, C., Hubbard, L., Resultan, B., & Steilen, K. (2023). Responsible school leadership: Exploring role expansion in crisis and beyond. Journal of School Leadership, 33(5), 472–490.

Prof. Dr. Ann Lopez
Dr. Donna Swapp
Guest Editors

Stephen Francis
Guest Editor Assistant

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • education
  • educational leadership
  • critical leadership
  • school leadership
  • decolonizing educational leadership
  • coloniality in educational leadership
  • leadership frameworks
  • leadership praxis
  • diversity, equity, inclusion

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  • Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 290 KB  
Article
Beyond Tokenism: How Do Racialized School Leaders Respond to Ethnocultural Diversities in Their Schools?
by Marianne Jacquet and Gwenaëlle André
Educ. Sci. 2026, 16(5), 733; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16050733 - 6 May 2026
Viewed by 236
Abstract
The increasing presence of racialized and immigrant students and educators challenges school institutions to critically examine whose knowledge, leadership, and practices are recognized, legitimized, and valued. Within this context, the integration of immigrant and racialized professionals becomes critical and raises questions about equity, [...] Read more.
The increasing presence of racialized and immigrant students and educators challenges school institutions to critically examine whose knowledge, leadership, and practices are recognized, legitimized, and valued. Within this context, the integration of immigrant and racialized professionals becomes critical and raises questions about equity, representation, and the reproduction—or disruption—of racial hierarchies. Institutional ethnography is used to analyze how ethnocultural diversity is addressed by three school principals of immigrant origin as well as on a systemic level. The findings highlight how these leaders navigate, negotiate, and reshape leadership practices within normatively white Francophone minority institutions, illuminating both the constraints imposed by institutional norms and the varied ways leaders mobilize their positionality to enact change. As such, the study reveals contrasting conceptions of leadership as modeling. Hélène leads by example, seeking to inspire teachers and students by embodying an alternative leadership, which might be labeled as “quiet leadership”. By contrast, Sylvain and Armand lead primarily through rules, structures, and institutional alignment. As such, their leadership may be labeled legitimate and uncontestable. The study suggests that transformation is negotiated differently depending on leaders’ socialization, institutional positioning, and perceived freedom to act. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical Approaches to Educational Leadership: Emerging Trends and New Futurities)
16 pages, 431 KB  
Article
Race, Class and Coloniality in Jamaican Education Policy & Practice
by Stephen L. Francis and Robin Shields
Educ. Sci. 2026, 16(4), 615; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16040615 - 13 Apr 2026
Viewed by 623
Abstract
The inception of Jamaica’s education system was built based on European settler colonial ideologies and White supremacist logic. Almost two centuries after the abolition of slavery and over six decades after independence from British rule, colonial vestiges pervade Jamaican education policy and practice, [...] Read more.
The inception of Jamaica’s education system was built based on European settler colonial ideologies and White supremacist logic. Almost two centuries after the abolition of slavery and over six decades after independence from British rule, colonial vestiges pervade Jamaican education policy and practice, resulting in the continued marginalisation of Black students from low-income backgrounds. Despite the commissioning of multiple reports on the state of the education system, these racist and classist injustices persist. In this article, we examine social justice issues at the nexus of national education policy and school leadership practice in Jamaican public schools based on our reflexive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with two Jamaican education policymakers, five education researchers and four public school leaders, alongside Jamaica’s National Student Dress and Grooming Policy Guidelines 2018. Our findings highlight a hierarchical relationship among stakeholder groups in the creation and implementation of Jamaican education policy. Our findings also highlight four themes suggesting that this results from deeply ingrained valorisation of Eurocentric values in policy design that leads to heightened tensions between the Ministry of Education and Youth (MOEY) and school administrators at the level of policy implementation, distraction of school staff from teaching and learning, and disproportionate exclusion of Black students from low-income backgrounds. Implications from our study are the need for stronger cohesion among education policy stakeholders, the incorporation of social justice in teacher and leader preparation and the integration of critical pedagogies at all levels of the Jamaican education system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical Approaches to Educational Leadership: Emerging Trends and New Futurities)
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18 pages, 1532 KB  
Article
Equity Leadership in K–12 Online Communities Under Democratic Duress
by Carol A. Mullen
Educ. Sci. 2026, 16(2), 257; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16020257 - 6 Feb 2026
Viewed by 511
Abstract
To understand virtual leaders’ work at the intersection of equity and community, virtual school leadership (VSL) was examined with relevance to preparation and research. Research questions were: How is VSL described in extant literature? How is VSL applicable to leaders’ preparation and development? [...] Read more.
To understand virtual leaders’ work at the intersection of equity and community, virtual school leadership (VSL) was examined with relevance to preparation and research. Research questions were: How is VSL described in extant literature? How is VSL applicable to leaders’ preparation and development? An integrative review approach was applied to online learning and virtual leadership linked to community and equity concepts. Document analysis was used to qualitatively code 34 (of 132) studies. Despite the demand for cyber schooling, some US preservice programs may lack training on leading equitably and collaboratively in virtual environments. Five findings address what virtual school leaders (aspire to) do in their jobs. Community and equity were leadership orientations as well as concerns discerned from perceptions of virtual schooling. Online public education is ensnared in global democratic backsliding for 82 countries, yet VSL remains underexplored in research. This literature review/conceptual work introduces Equity and Community in K–12 Online Leadership, an original conceptual framework informed by professional standards, virtual learning theories, and factors central to leadership. A critique of findings, along with recommendations for leadership preparation and practice, responds to the call for better preparing preservice leaders for the demands of K–12 online learning. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Critical Approaches to Educational Leadership: Emerging Trends and New Futurities)
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