Lopez, A. E. (2020). Decolonizing educational leadership : Exploring alternative approaches to leading schools (1st ed.). Palgrave Macmillan

The book is grounded in historical context; Professor Lopez draws on her experience as a practitioner and scholar to methodologically examine the continued tensions in education and schooling. This book offers new ways of engagement for leaders seeking to connect theory to practice in decolonizing education. In the current climate, where xenophobia, anti-immigrant sentiments, and other forms of exclusion make up much of the discourse, educational leaders need to seek ways to foreground other forms of knowledge and transfer them into their daily leadership practices. Lopez contributes to other critical leadership approaches while foregrounding a decolonizing approach that unsettles the coloniality manifested in education and school practices. Chapters provide school leaders with examples of ways they can challenge coloniality, white supremacy, and other forms of oppression in schooling that negatively impact some students and their educational outcomes. The contents of this book are forwardly recasting educational leadership as a pragmatically constructed, cognitively dynamic, and programmatically inclusive platform for teaching, learning, and leadership. It will greatly benefit educational leadership scholars, students, and professionals. the link allows you to buy the book

Lopez, A. E., & Jean-Marie, G. (2021). Challenging anti-black racism in everyday teaching, learning, and leading: From theory to practice. Journal of School Leadership, 31(1-2), 50-65.

Anti-Black racism and White supremacy continue to have dire impact on the lives and educational outcomes of Black people and students in educational spaces. Examining ways in which this form of racism is disrupted, confronted, and challenged in education and schooling is important not only to Black students, scholars, practitioners, and staff, but to all People of Color. Drawing on research conducted with educators in, Canada, the United States and our lived experiences as Black educators this article examines how antiblackness and anti-Black racism is manifested in schooling spaces through teaching, learning, and leadership, and offers actions that educators can take in everyday practice to confront and disrupt. In so doing connect theory to practice, and offer possibilities that school leaders and others can act on. The link to the full article

Vidya Shah, Gisele Cuglievan-Mindreau, & Joseph Flessa. (2022). Reforming for racial justice: A narrative synthesis and critique of the literature on district reform in ontario over 25 years. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, (198), 35.

Ontario school districts are struggling to respond to racism in schooling and society. How has the literature on school district reform in Ontario addressed these ongoing and growing concerns? Through a narrative synthesis and a systematic literature review, we map and characterize the existing literature on school district reform in Ontario in the past 25 years. By combining systematic searches in main online databases with key journal and author search, we analyzed and coded a total of 95 documents. Framed through Critical Race Theory (CRT) and in conversation with recent studies on anti-racist district reforms in the United States, we conceptualize four approaches to district reform literature in Ontario: The Politics of Race Evasion, the Politics of Illusory Equity, the Politics of Representation and Recognition, and the Politics of Anti-Racist Resistance. The authors conclude with a commentary on the use of these conceptualizations in district operations and policies, as well as directions for future research. They also propose a potential fifth approach to district reform, The Politics of Regeneration. The link to the whole article

Li, Y., & Karanxha, Z. (2022). Literature review of transformational school leadership: Models and effects on student achievement (2006–2019). SAGE Publications.

This systematic literature review critically evaluates 14 empirical studies published over a 14 years span (2006-2019) to answer questions about the models and the effects of transformational school leadership on student academic achievement. The analysis of the related literature utilized vote counting and narrative synthesis to delineate the status quo of the current research field. It was found that the majority of these studies were conducted in Western and English-speaking countries and these studies utilizing different research methods and models reported mixed results. Recommendations for future research directions include use of an integrated leadership framework and complexity in the study of leadership in schools. The Link to the whole article