December 6, 2016
Are principals prepared to lead meaningful dialogue about diversity?
Towards More Equitable Practice
Tips from the COE Diversity Committee
December 2016
Are principals prepared to lead meaningful dialogue about diversity?
Principals need to be culturally aware and responsive to better serve increasingly diverse students, staff and communities. For this reason, principal preparation programs (PPPs) need to connect theory about cultural proficiency to practice, especially now that students are expressing many emotions that are reflective of the dialogue portrayed by the media and by the persons closest to them. It is the principal’s responsibility to lead schools that prepare students to be culturally competent as well.
How may PPPs prepare principals to effectively engage with their school community to address situations related to diversity? First, by creating gracious spaces for conversations. Gracious spaces provide a safe place to talk peacefully about important and emotional issues without judgment and with respect. Second, by practicing culturally competent interactions. Rather than trying to overcome cultural differences, candidates should embrace a way of being kind and open-minded with diverse societies. Finally, by recognizing that principal candidates have few interactions or little experience with people who are not of their own ethnic and racial or cultural background. Candidates often come from middle class and white communities, therefore PPPs must help them understand their disconnect to the diversity of their students and help them consider how it affects student achievement.
The PPP at ECU modified its internship to better prepare candidates for culturally competent interactions. The recently published article entitled, Strengthening a principal preparation internship by focusing on diversity issues, describes how interns entered into a gracious space in their internship to learn how poverty, race, LGBT, linguistic diversity, and religious diversity affect eastern rural North Carolina communities. This article shares interns’ reflections about their learning experiences and how they became aware of their own internal biases and recognized inequities inherent in their schools.
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