Grounding Leadership Development in Local Knowledge and Context: The Case for African Indigenous Knowledge

Introduction

Recent studies show that school leadership plays a vital role in student outcomes and significantly impacts student learning (Leithwood et al., 2020).  As such, school leadership theorizing and practice have gained the attention of scholars, researchers and practitioners in the global north and the global south. How educators are supported and developed to take on leadership roles matters.  

Moorosi (2020) defines leadership development as a process by which individuals learn to perceive and describe themselves as leaders. This process develops leadership identity mainly through socialization experiences (Moorosi & Grant, 2018).  Becoming a leader involves more than being put in a leadership position (Ibarra et al., 2013). It requires acquiring new and necessary skills for the work and adapting styles to the requirements of that position. Within the African context, various studies point to the need for leadership development of school leaders, both before they assume formal roles and ongoing development while on the job (See Lopez & Rugano, 2018; Moorosi, 2014; 2020; Pansiri, 2011). The need for school leadership development remains critical in Africa.  The knowledge and epistemologies that undergird leadership development is a vital question for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers. 

(Moorosi, 2021) argues that most of the leadership and management practices in Africa rely on Western models and, in most instances, do not fit the context and therefore lack relevance. Moorosi further notes that school leadership and management in Africa are mainly represented in deficient ways that do not promote Indigenous ways of developing leadership and management knowledge and practice within the local educational contexts. Anti-colonial scholars (See Dei, 2022; Moorosi, 2020) point to the influence of colonial legacies on the African continent in school leadership models that continuously rely on Western models. They argue that school systems on the continent of Africa continue to use policies and practices in the form of the school curricula, the language of instruction, and examination systems that do not embrace local knowledge or enhance authentic learning of students and call for the embedding of African Indigenous Knowledge in education and schooling. 

Shiza (2013) contends that the school curriculum in Africa remains problematic because it negates the voices of African Indigenous populations, and education leadership practices in the continent are modelled mainly along western systems. Local Indigenous knowledge focuses on the knowledge of local people and organizations and brings about knowledge-gathering, knowledge synthesis and decision-making (Dei, 2022; Hauser et al., 2020; McElwee et al., 2020; Rayne et al., 2020; Tengö et al., 2017). African Indigenous knowledge is critical in school leadership development, as replicating Western models will not help improve Africa’s education system, as most western education models do not fit the African context (Moorosi, 2021).

Challenging Colonial Legacy in Leadership Development

The field of educational leadership has not provided enough resistance or challenged the colonial legacy (Moorosi, 2021). Western approaches to leadership continue to dominate in a context that is not suitable and significantly in a context where local indigenous knowledge systems have been and continue to be undermined by colonial legacies (Khalifa et al., 2019). Most educational leaders in the African continent inherited colonial leadership structures, and practices meant to wipe out indigenous culture, norms, language, spirituality, and epistemologies clean of ‘indigeneity’ (Khalifa et al., 2019). Replicating western models does not help improve Africa’s education systems in the long term, and the education trajectory in countries must be rethought through African Indigenous Knowledge lenses. Leadership development is essential to any country, school, or organization’s sustainability as this enhances relations between education and communities. Knowledge gained from multiple knowledge systems creates conditions that maximize students’ learning outcomes. (Olsson et al., 2004).  Without critical examination, leadership development models borrowed from the West can no longer be adopted wholesale to the continent of Africa and other former colonies. These models perpetuate the notion that knowledge from local contexts is not valuable. Leadership development grounded in local knowledge recognizes that leadership, particularly school and educational leadership, is contextual and more effective when connected to local indigenous experiences and knowledge.  The Need for African Indigenous Knowledge

Kovach (2021) emphasizes the importance of employing different methodological options when determining the needs of indigenous communities.  Kovach suggests further that indigenous communities are not widely recognized, resulting in the absence of indigenous research methods and methodological discrimination.  Smith (1999) suggests an urgent need to identify community knowledge and work with communities to support education and schooling. (Smith, 1999) posits that some research methodologies regard communities’ values and beliefs, practices, and customs as ‘barriers’ to research or as exotic customs with which researchers need to be familiar to carry out their work without offending. It’s essential to consider different approaches and methods to engage in African Indigenous Knowledge as its foundational in supporting communities on the continent of Africa. Smith argues that most Indigenous lived experiences and life is centred on the Western Imperialism frames, which do not provide the ‘lived’ experiences and the ‘reality’ of Indigenous people.  Wa Thiong’o (1992) points to the fact that African origins are literarily grounded in the landscapes, languages, cultures and imaginative worlds of peoples and nations whose histories were interrupted and radically reformulated by European imperialism. African Indigenous knowledge is about acknowledging how Africans come to know and make sense of the world heavily embedded in histories, culture and relations to physical and metaphysical realms of existence (Dei, 2011; Abidogun & Falola, 2020). The increased focus on local indigenous knowledge creates space for leadership development grounded in local experiences instead of policy borrowing from the West. Critical scholars argue that grounding school leadership development in indigenous and local knowledge is sustainable and calls for deeper partnerships between indigenous knowledge holders, practitioners, and scholars to work together to bridge the gap (Dei, 2012; Moorosi, 2021; Olsson et al., 2004). The post highlights the importance of grounding leadership development on the African continent in local indigenous knowledge and context. The blog further reviews ways that African Indigenous Knowledge can support the local leadership development of school leaders, replacing settler colonialism logic. This outcome that results in epistemic violence on Indigenous and colonized people everywhere (Lopez, 2020).  Colonized education has destroyed the ways of knowing and culture of those they colonized. Garcia and Natividad (2018) note that “even though education is touted as social mobility and freedom for Indigenous peoples [including Indigenous peoples of Africa and other colonized spaces], the politics of knowledge production and dissemination are ultimately tied to the modern Western ordering of the world” (p. 9). Suppose education systems are to serve the needs of students truly. In that case, it is crucial that school leaders build on local knowledges, engage in the renewal of self, and create space for recentering and reconnecting through African Indigenous Knowledge (Lopez, 2020). The post argues for educators’ need to centre local knowledge and decolonize education in educational discourse and practice in all colonized spaces and counter practices and policies grounded in Western epistemologies. The impact of colonization continues to impact the educational outcomes of students in the areas of assessment and evaluation, particularly in some countries where the dominant language of assessment and instruction is a language from Europe. Research has shown that drawing on community knowledge empowers school leaders, improves student performance, and supports a positive school environment. Communities in many countries on the continent of Africa are calling for implementing policies embedded in local community knowledge and epistemologies as they focus on increased student outcomes and recognize the value of local knowledge in pedagogy and curricula. This blog amplifies the importance of centering on local African Indigenous Knowledge and its role in knowledge production and leadership development.  

The need for African Indigenous Knowledge as part of leadership development is critical in moving forward, as school leadership is essential to improved student outcomes. For African education systems to move forward is vital to center on African and local knowledge. Wester knowledge systems can no longer be at the centre of African education. African scholars and scholars of African descent call on education systems to engage in new/counter-analytical approaches to improving school leadership and theorizing leadership frameworks using alternative epistemologies (Lopez, 2020).

Professor Ann Lopez, ann.lopez@utoronto.ca