Socially Just Educational Leadership in Unjust Times A Bourdieusian Study of Social Justice Educational Leadership Practices

This book offers a richly observed study of three principals working in some of the most disadvantaged primary schools in Victoria, Australia. It explores their social justice understandings and practices in working to improve the educational outcomes for children in their schools, through autobiography, biographical interviews, in-depth interviews and observations. The work looks into their life histories, the formation of their primary and secondary habitus, and uncovers and examines their encounters with the public education field. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice and his ‘thinking tools’, the book investigates how the principals’ understandings of social justice are shaped by the intersection of their life and work histories.

This book is of interest to educational leadership scholars interested in the application of critical theory to studies of leadership. The book provides an exemplar for the application of Bourdieu’s theory of practice, and it makes a strong contribution to Bourdieusian scholarship, social justice scholarship and educational leadership scholarship.

Dr. Katrina MacDonald is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education and a member of the Centre for Research for Educational Impact (REDI) at Deakin University, Australia. After a career in anthropology and archaeology, Katrina was a primary and secondary teacher in Victoria. Katrina’s key research interests include educational leadership, social justice, spatiality, public education, and the sociology of education through a practice lens (feminist, Bourdieu, practice architectures). She is interested in how school reform and spatial maldistribution has influenced social justice outcomes, and the implications this has for school principals. Katrina is an Assistant Editor of the International Journal of Leadership in Education.