Prepare 210 to 280-word paper based on Amnestic Disorder1. D.docx

Prepare 210 to 280-word paper based on Amnestic Disorder
1. Discuss the symptoms of the disorder use the most current
(DSM-5) diagnostic manual
Cite at least two peer-reviewed sources.
Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines.
DSM -5 web on Amnestic Disorder new changes
http://sgec.stanford.edu/content/dam/sm/sgec/documents/resourc
es/dementia_and_caregiving/2_Updates%20on%20Dementia.pdf
DSM-5 Category: Dissociative Disorders
Introduction
Dissociative amnesia (DA) is one of three dissociative disorders
listed under DSM-V. The disorder involves the temporary loss
of recall memory caused by disassociation, which may last for a
period of seconds or years. The interruption in memory may be
voluntary or involuntary and is most often a result of
psychological trauma. DA involves episodic autobiographical
memory loss inconsistent with normal forgetfulness. Episodic
autobiographical information is associated with contextual
information, such as what happened in the minutes leading up to
a traumatic event. The individual may, however, remember
semantic autobiographical information such as the date, time
and weather conditions of the accident.
Dissociative amnesia often arises from traumatic childhood
events. It can be difficult to identify in children due to their
undeveloped memory and communication skills. In adulthood,
DA can appear as a result of trauma such as from war,
avoidance such as from aberrant sexual behavior, and stressful
situations with extreme emotions such experiences causing rage,
fear or shame.
Brain imaging studies have identified changes and fiber
degeneration in the right temporo-frontal cortex area in

individuals with dissociative amnesia (Staniloiu and
Markowitsch, 2010).
Dissociative Amnesia Symptoms
Under DSM-V, the symptoms and criteria for dissociative
amnesia are (American Psychiatric Association,2013):
· Unable to recall autobiographical memory associated with a
traumatic event. The recall of traumatic events is usually
unconscious.
· The inability to recall traumatic events creates distress.
· The memory dysfunction does not have a physiological cause.
· The memory dysfunction is not dissociative identity disorder.
· The memory loss is not a result of substance abuse or other
substance.
Suppressed memories can be harmful and should be treated even
if the individual re-establishes a good quality of life. If the
memory is being repressed so too is the traumatic events that
triggered the disassociation. The individual may have partial
memory recall through flashes or nightmares. DA is often
comorbid with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The
repression of memories can lead to maladaptive behavior in
adolescence and adulthood such as self-harming or harming
others. Men with a dissociative identity disorder are at a higher
risk of going to prison as a result of directing their aggression
towards society.
Dissociative fugue, formerly a separate disorder, is a subtype of
amnesia under DSM-V. It may involve a temporary or
permanent loss of one’s personal identity or the development of
a new identity. It is often triggered by stressful life events and
involves travel.
Dissociative Amnesia in Daily Life
Dissociative amnesia can be a stressful experience for families
dealing with the stress, depression and confusion of a loved one
who has lost memories. The family may also be dealing with a
stressful event that caused the amnesia, such as abuse or an
accident. Daily activities may trigger the underlying cause and
cause the individual to further disassociate. This risk is higher

when the triggering event is related to the home and family life
– child or spousal abuse, for example.
DA can have adverse effects on a career. The individual will
likely be able to recall basic knowledge, routines and rules, but
other important information may be lost, such as remembering
important contacts.
Families, friends and professional peers can play an important
role in the recovery of lost memories. Recall can be aided by
cues and storytelling. However, these techniques should be
applied with the guidance of a therapist to ensure negative
associations do not cause further disassociation. The relief of
stress can release negative emotions and help memories
resurface. Relaxation techniques can easily be employed in
daily life. Individuals with dissociative amnesia practicing
mindfulness-based therapy (MBT), a practice easy to follow at
home, have produced improvements in memory.
Dissociative Amnesia Therapy
Minimal evidence-based research exists to support the
successful treatment of memory disorders, including for
pharmacotherapy. An objective of dissociative disorder (DD)
treatment is to reintegrate the dissociated selves. DA sometimes
spontaneously resolves, and may do so in days or months, or it
could take years. Generally, the disorder is difficult to treat.
Typical DD treatment involves three phases: trauma exposure,
trauma experience processing and personality integration
(Brand, B. and Loewenstein R, 2010) A review of 16 DD studies
has shown that treatment can reduce symptoms, including
depression, suicidality and post-traumatic stress
disorder.Reducing the underlying symptoms helps to ease the
stress associated with the repressed memories.
In DA, memory recall must also be addressed. A
multicomponent treatment may be pursued. The main treatment
approaches involve psychotherapy, including dream analysis, to
retrieve the hidden memories, and memory training. The use of
computer aids and visual imagery is increasing the effectiveness
of memory training. Since DA is often triggered by trauma some

form of PTSD therapy may be incorporated. One survey of
treatment approaches found cognitive-based therapies to be the
most effective at reducing symptoms and improving memory
recall.(Markowitsch, H. J., and Staniloiu, A.2012)
Hypnotism is an increasingly explored treatment but also a
controversial one. Many recovered memories of childhood
sexual abuse have proven to be false. Hypnosis, as well as other
meditative techniques, can help to relax the patient thereby
relieving stress and making memories more accessible. A
similar result may be achieved through interviewing under
sedation, possibly using cues to guide the patient (Sau Kuen
Kwan, P.,2009).
The media and mental health field are fascinated by cases of
dissociative fugue, a rare condition that is no longer classified
as a disorder but a subtype of DA under DSM-V. The media
exposure typically ends when the person is identified and we do
not hear about their recovery process. These individuals who
may have experienced a splitting of their personality following
a trauma or accident often slowly or spontaneously recover their
memory once reintegrated back into their regular environment.
References
Staniloiu, A., & Markowitsch, H. J. (2010). Searching for the
anatomy of dissociative amnesia. Zeitschrift für
Psychologie/Journal of Psychology, 218(2), 96-108.
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and
statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA:
American Psychiatric Publishing.
Brand, B., & Loewenstein, R. J. (2010). Dissociative disorders:
An overview of assessment, phenomenology, and treatment.
Psychiatric Times, 27(10), 62-69.
Brand, B. L., Classen, C. C., McNary, S. W., & Zaveri, P.
(2009). A review of dissociative disorders treatment studies.
The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 197(9), 646-654.
Markowitsch, H. J., & Staniloiu, A. (2012). Amnesic disorders.
The Lancet, 380(9851), 1429-1440.

Sau Kuen Kwan, P. (2009). PHASE-ORIENTATED
HYPNOTHERAPY FOR COMPLEX PTSD IN BATTERED
WOMEN: AN OVERVIEW AND CASE STUDIES FROM
HONGKONG. Australian Journal of Clinical & Experimental
Hypnosis, 37(1).
The new DSM-5 diagnosis of mild neurocognitive disorder and
its relation to research in mild cognitive impairment.
Sachs-Ericsson N1, Blazer DG.
Author information
· 1a Department of Psychology , Florida State University ,
Tallahassee , FL , USA.
Abstract
The Diagnostic Statistical Manual-5 (DSM-5) has included a
category named the neurocognitive disorder which was formally
known in DSM-IV as 'dementia, delirium, amnestic, and other
cognitive disorders'. The DSM-5 distinguishes between 'mild'
and 'major' neurocognitive disorders. Major neurocognitive
disorder replaces the DSM-IV's term 'dementia or other
debilitating conditions'. A pivotal addition is 'mild
neurocognitive disorder (mNCD)' defined by a noticeable
decrement in cognitive functioning that goes beyond normal
changes seen in aging. It is a disorder that may progress to
dementia - importantly, it may not. Presently, our understanding
of mNCD is derived from research on mild cognitive
impairment (MCI). Whereas there is currently no clear
treatment for mNCD, many experimental therapies now and into
the future will focus upon secondary prevention, namely
decreasing the risk of progression to major NCD. In this article,
we will focus on mNCD by reviewing the relevant literature on
MCI. We will review the research on the incidence and
prevalence of MCI, conversion rates from MCI to dementia, risk
factors for conversion of MCI to dementia, comorbidity of MCI
with other neuropsychiatric disorders (NPS), and the
development of treatment strategies for neuropsychiatric
disorders in MCI. The presence of NPS is common among
individuals with MCI and is an important risk for progression to

dementia. However, there has been little research on effective
treatments for NPS in MCI. Clinicians and investigators must
determine if the treatment of the NPS in mNCD will improve
quality of life and help reduce the progression of the cognitive
impairment.
KEYWORDS:
mild cognitive impairment; psychological and behavioural
symptoms; screening and diagnosis
New DSM-V neurocognitive disorders criteria and their impact
on diagnostic classifications of mild cognitive impairment and
dementia in a memory clinic setting.
Tay L1, Lim WS2, Chan M2, Ali N2, Mahanum S3, Chew P4,
Lim J4, Chong MS2.
Author information
· 1Department of Geriatric Medicine, Tan Tock Seng Hospital,
Singapore; Institute of Geriatrics and Active Ageing, Tan Tock
Seng Hospital, Singapore. Electronic address: [email protected]
· 2Department of Geriatric Medicine, Tan Tock Seng Hospital,
Singapore; Institute of Geriatrics and Active Ageing, Tan Tock
Seng Hospital, Singapore.
· 3Institute of Geriatrics and Active Ageing, Tan Tock Seng
Hospital, Singapore.
· 4Department of Psychological Services, Tan Tock Seng
Hospital, Singapore.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE:
To examine diagnostic agreement between Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V)
Neurocognitive Disorders (NCDs) criteria and DSM, Fourth
Edition (DSM-IV) criteria for dementia and International
Working Group (IWG) criteria for mild cognitive impairment
(MCI) and DSM-V's impact on diagnostic classifications of
NCDs. The authors further examined clinical factors for
discrepancy in diagnostic classifications between the different
operational definitions.
METHODS:

Using a cross-sectional study in tertiary memory clinic, the
authors studied consecutive new patients aged 55 years or older
who presented with cognitive symptoms. Dementia severity was
scored based on the Clinical Dementia Rating scale (CDR). All
patients completed neuropsychological evaluation. Agreement
in diagnostic classifications between DSM-IV/IWG and DSM-V
was examined using the kappa test and AC1 statistic, with
multinomial logistic regression for factors contributing to MCI
reclassification as major NCDs as opposed to diagnostically
concordant MCI and dementia groups.
RESULTS:
Of 234 patients studied, 166 patients achieved concordant
diagnostic classifications, with overall kappa of 0.41. Eighty-
six patients (36.7%) were diagnosed with MCI and 131 (56.0%)
with DSM-IV-defined dementia. With DSM-V, 40 patients
(17.1%) were classified as mild NCDs and 183 (78.2%) as major
NCDs, representing a 39.7% increase in frequency of dementia
diagnoses. CDR sum-of-boxes score contributed independently
to differentiation of MCI patients reclassified as mild versus
major NCDs (OR: 0.01; 95% CI: 0-0.09). CDR sum-of-boxes
score (OR: 5.18; 95% CI: 2.04-13.15), performance in amnestic
(OR: 0.14; 95% CI: 0.06-0.34) and language (Boston naming:
OR: 0.52; 95% CI: 0.29-0.94) tests, were independent
determinants of diagnostically concordant dementia diagnosis.
CONCLUSION:
The authors observed moderate agreement between the different
operational definitions and a 40% increase in dementia
diagnoses with operationalization of the DSM-V criteria.
Copyright © 2015 American Association for Geriatric
Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Educational Administration
http://eaq.sagepub.com/content/48/3/424
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/0013161X11432922
January 2012
2012 48: 424 originally published online 24Educational
Administration Quarterly
Muhammad Khalifa
Principal as Community Leader
Paradigm in Successful Urban School Leadership:ed-New-ReA
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KhalifaEducational Administration Quarterly
© The University Council for
Educational Administration 2012
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1Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
Corresponding Author:
Muhammad Khalifa, Michigan State University, 407 Erickson
Hall, East Lansing,
MI 48824, USA
Email: [email protected]
A Re-New-ed
Paradigm in Successful
Urban School
Leadership: Principal
as Community Leader
Muhammad Khalifa1
Abstract
Purpose: This article examines the impact that a principal’s
community-
leadership has on school–community relations and student
outcomes.
Comparisons are drawn between leadership behaviors that
empha-
size school-centered approaches and community-centered

approaches.
Research Methodology: Ethnographic research methodology was
con-
ducted over a 2-year period, during which the researcher
conducted partic-
ipant observations, interviews, and descriptive and interpretive
memoing.
Findings: The principal’s role as community leader—including
high princi-
pal visibility in the community and advocacy for community
causes—led to
trust and rapport between school and community. Consequently,
parents
who were previously hostile changed their relationship with
school, and
supported his or her handling of their children. This led to
improved aca-
demic outcomes for students. Implications: This study has
implications
for how principals view their role, presence in, and relationship
with the
community. It also offers reflection on how and where the
center of school–
community relationships should be (i.e., school vs. community).
Article
2014eaq.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Khalifa 425

Keywords
academic achievement, at-risk students, community leadership,
empirical paper,
school leadership, school–community relations
A strong relationship between students’ school and home
environments was
one of the most valuable assets utilized by early Black school
leaders in seg-
regated communities (Horsford, 2009; Morris, 2008, 2009;
Siddle Walker,
1993, 2000, 2009). Few studies have focused on modern urban
principals
who exemplify historical Black models of community-school
relations. Thus,
this ethnographic study builds on historical findings in which
principals in
Black segregated, pre-Brown (the 1954 Supreme Court Decision
Brown v.
Board of Education) schools served as a “bridge” (Morris, 2002)
or “con-
duit” (Siddle Walker, 2000) through which the community was
served. This
study extends dialogues about the unique challenges of school
leadership in
urban communities by critiquing separatist models of school–
community
relations—referred to in this study as “traditional” models.
Thus, this study
contests the notion that school officials can operate in the best
interest of
school children without the voice of the community
stakeholders (Dawson,
1984). Drawing upon school–community relations theory
(Epstein, 1987)

and research on early Black principals in segregated schools
(Horsford, 2009;
Kaprinski, 2006; Morris, 2008; Siddle Walker, 1993), this
current study
seeks to understand how a principal can enhance the social and
academic
lives of children by serving as both a community and school
leader. Specifi-
cally, three questions were investigated: (1) Why have the goals
of school-
community partnerships primarily centered on school or district
(and not
community) goals? (2) Why is there a tacit assumption that
principals can
serve a neighborhood community without maintaining a regular
presence in
the communities they serve? And (3) what are the practices of
principals who
foster the type of school–community relations that lead to
student academic
and social success?
What follows is a review of relevant literature that explains the
concept of
school and community overlapping spheres that focuses on the
historical and
current cultural aspects of Black school and community leaders
and ulti-
mately supports the link between community leadership and
school leader-
ship in urban communities. Following the literature review is a
section
describing the methods used in implementing the study,
including the site
selection, participant selection, and the procedures used in data
collection

and analysis. Prior to the section in which the findings from the
research are
shared is a rich description of context in which the school
exists. Findings
426 Educational Administration Quarterly 48(3)
from the study are presented according to the major themes that
emerged
through analysis of the data. The article closes with a
discussion of the con-
clusions generated based on the findings and the implications
the findings
have for school leadership in urban communities.
Literature Review
Three areas of research are relevant to my investigation of a
principal who
positively influenced the social and academic outcomes of his
alternative
school students: (a) research that conceptualizes the relationship
between
school and community as overlapping spheres, which allows me
to operation-
ally define what counts as effective school–community
relations; (b) research
that suggests community leadership is an essential component of
school lead-
ership in urban communities; and (c) the historical and current

cultural
aspects of Black school and community leaders. The
information presented in
the literature highlights what elements of school–community
relations may
be most useful for principals in urban and predominantly
African American
contexts.
School and Community as Overlapping Spheres
In articulating an understanding of overlapping spheres relevant
to urban
contexts, history provides examples of how effective school and
community
relationships existed. Before the Brown v. Board of Education
(1954) deci-
sion, Black segregated schools and the communities they served
were almost
indistinguishable and exemplify what current theory describes
as an overlap-
ping sphere of communities and schools (e.g., Epstein &
Sanders, 2006).
Furthermore, the overlapping spaces that families/communities
and schools
occupied were beneficial for both the school and the community
(Anderson,
1988; Epstein, 1987; McGaughy, 2000; Sanders & Harvey,
2002). Siddle
Walker’s (1993) historical analysis of one such school
illustrated how “the
parents depended on the school’s expertise, guidance and
academic vision,
and the school depended on the parents’ financial contributions”
(p. 175).
Siddle Walker’s (1993) historical analysis of early Black
schooling chal-

lenges current understandings of parental involvement; the
parents in her
study were involved in the school in culturally specific ways.
So for exam-
ple, while parents may not have attended traditional PTA-style
meetings,
they collectively served as the economic backbone of the
school. These
historical expressions of African American school–community
relationships
allow for the following definition of school and community
relations:
Khalifa 427
collaborations between school and community stakeholders that
benefit
school, community, and student performance. This resonates
with Epstein’s
theory of overlapping spheres (Epstein, 1987), which asserts
that “students
learn more and succeed at higher levels when home, school, and
community
work together to support students’ learning and development”
(Epstein &
Sanders, 2006, p. 87).
In this study, community refers to structures, institutions, and
relation-

ships that operate in the spaces community members occupy.
“Community”
is performed in residences, markets, churches, Masonic lodges,
schools, and
other neighborhood milieus. Though community members may
indeed share
norms, they may also have diverse, even divergent, norms
(Shields & Seltzer,
1997). These diverse and even divergent expressions of
community have
implications for how school leadership best operates in urban
areas; prior
scholarship suggests that school leaders should play an active
role in com-
munity settings.
Community Involvement as an
Essential Part of School Leadership
“People with the least amount of power must be central to the
decision-
making process” (Normore, Rodriguez, & Wynne, 2007, p. 656).
In addition to the research that acknowledges the benefits of
overlapping
school and community spaces, a number of studies highlight
leadership
behavior as central to expanding a school in a way that serves
community
needs (Gold, Simon, Mundell, & Brown, 2004; Osterman, Crow,
& Rosen,
1997; Van Voorhis & Sheldon, 2004). Several studies have
demonstrated
that school leadership can play a role in community-oriented
goals, improve
the neighborhood community, and thus improve the lives of

students
(Carpenter-Aeby & Aeby, 2001; Siddle Walker, 2005). In other
words, lead-
ership plays a central role in the development of the entire
child, which is
crucial to his or her continued academic success. Essentially, a
better com-
munity member will be a better student (Hale, 1986; Ladson-
Billings, 1995;
Noddings, 2005).
In operationalizing this overlap, the community-based
leadership per-
formed by principals must be coupled with a deep understanding
of the sur-
rounding neighborhood community being served. Denhardt and
Glaser
(1999) found that in order to effectively address community
needs, leaders in
urban communities must understand “the character of the target
community,
and [demonstrate] a willingness to support community desires
and direction
in bringing about change” (p. 152). This might mean reaching
out in ways
that consider parents’ historical, social, or even racial histories.

For example,
because of extensive histories of racial discrimination and
exclusionary prac-
tice, Black parents often have difficulty connecting with public
schools
(Diamond & Gomez, 2004; Lareau & Horvat, 1999). Diamond
and Gomez
(2004) found that working-class Black parents tend to view
school and home
as separate spheres and were less able to “customize” a quality
education for
their children than middle-class Blacks. But in addition to
having a deep
understanding of the neighborhood contexts, urban school
leaders must build
trust if they are to develop community relations with parents.
Unfortunately, it is often difficult to build this trust. Trust,
rapport, and
social capital can all be built when principals expand their role
to include
community leadership as defined by the community. In fact, in
many post-
Brown, urban public schools, there are significant differences
and disconnect
between school leaders and community leaders. Community
leaders enjoy
support and stature in the community; trust is central to any
community lead-
ership (Chang, 1993; Purdue, 2001). Community leadership, for
the urban
community, is that which represents community interests. This
point is high-
lighted in Pfautz, Huguley, and McClain’s (1975)
historiographic study, as
they examined African American community leadership in

Providence,
Rhode Island. They found that Black school leaders are
“socially anchored in
the black community” and that many are also “street leader(s)”
whose “repu-
tation might continue to be the most available power source” (p.
466).
Therefore, school leaders who serve urban Black communities,
but who
ignore the historical cultural relationships with, and behaviors
of, local com-
munity leaders may have difficulty building trust—an essential
component of
effective community leadership.
In addition to school–community overlap, understanding, and
trust, the
focus of school and community relationships has traditionally
been informed
exclusively by school interests (such as test scores, as opposed
to commu-
nity-based interests, such as employment or neighborhood
safety). That is,
although studies on contemporary schools acknowledge the
importance of
overlapping school and community spaces (e.g., Sanders &
Harvey, 2002),
most educators have approached the issue of school–community
relations
with school interests as the centerpiece and unit of analysis.
And in practice,
these overlapping spaces are not commonly found in
contemporary urban
communities (Goldring, 1986; Lareau & Horvat, 1999). This all
suggests that
principals remain very traditional in their approach to school–

community
relations (Osterman et al., 1997). For example, a number of
scholars
Khalifa 429
(Delgado-Gaitan, 1991; Lopez, Scribner, & Mahitivanichcha,
2001) found that
traditional methods of involving parents in school were not
accessible to
Latino families; for school leaders to be effective with
marginalized com-
munities, innovative community approaches must be developed
and
employed.
It is increasingly clear that for principals to develop these
effective
approaches to school–community relationships, they must seek
understand-
ing and service within the neighborhood community. Indeed, it
has been
difficult for principals to understand that most urban
communities are char-
acterized by difference and not by homogeneity (Fine, Weis, &
Powell, 1997;
Shields & Seltzer, 1997) and that community goals for
education can be very
different from that of school faculty and staff (Williamson,

1997). Yet these
understandings will not be realized by viewing the community
only from a
school context perspective. Thus, principals, especially urban
principals,
must move beyond their school walls in order to gain an
understanding of the
unique social and cultural conditions of their neighborhood
communities. In
doing so, they may find that grades, behavior, and test scores
are not the pri-
mary issues at the forefront of community-based interests. The
hope is that
principals’ increased community presence will help them
develop and main-
tain culturally appropriate school and community leadership
practices.
Cultural Aspects of School and Community Leaders
When addressing the main question of how principals can serve
as commu-
nity leaders, it is important to consider the community context.
As Van
Voorhis and Sheldon (2004) suggest in their understanding of
school-
community relationships, “principals hold the key to initiating
programs and
processes” (p. 66). It is also important to acknowledge that a
comprehensive
approach—involving supportive families and social networks—
is most
impactful for the academic and social success of students
(McGaughy, 2000;
Williams, Davis, Cribbs, Saunders, & Williams, 2002).
However, when
faced with contexts they do not understand, principals rely more

on the theo-
retical or standardized, generic behaviors with which they are
comfortable
(Larson, 1997). But this bureaucratic, predictable decision-
making is often
culturally inappropriate, unresponsive, or even detrimental
toward commu-
nity needs (Larson, 1997). Instead, a nuanced, culture-specific
leadership
approach is needed for effective community relations,
especially in times of
misunderstanding. A number of scholars have demonstrated how
this has
happened in the pre-Brown era, particularly in Black segregated
schools of
the American South. They give hope that culturally appropriate
approaches
to urban school leadership might occur by integrating historical
models of
Black principals with current concepts of overlapping spheres
and commu-
nity leadership.
According to Morris (1999), early Black principals viewed their
“own role
as one that extends beyond the boundaries of the school” (p.

594). Both
Morris’s (1999) and Siddle Walker’s (1993, 2000, 2005) studies
of exem-
plary early Black principals identified Black principals who
were as visible,
active, and trusted as any other Black community leaders such
as pastors,
political figures, or organizational heads. These principals also
viewed them-
selves as the “bridge” between themselves and the broader
White community
and as advocates for community-based causes. In her historical
analysis,
Tillman (2004) similarly suggested that “the Black principal
represented the
Black community; [and] was regarded as the authority on
educational, social
and economic issues” (p. 104).
Moving from a pre-Brown to a post-Brown era, scholarship on
contempo-
rary Black principals also demonstrates that culture plays a
central role in the
effectiveness of school leadership; principals who understand
their students
can better serve them. Lomotey (1987), for example, found that
in general
Black principals lead differently than White principals.
Moreover, this dis-
tinct Black school leadership style has a positive impact on the
academic
achievement of Black students because it is based on a unique
understanding
of, and connection to, the Black community. Building on these
earlier stud-
ies, Gooden (2005) found that Black secondary principals show

a compas-
sionate understanding of Black students and their communities.
These
principals also demonstrate that social capital, fluid
interactions, and high
community-based visibility are relevant to school–community
relations
(Purdue, 2001). In turn, good community relations lead to
improved aca-
demic outcomes for children. Hence, when principals remain
behind the
school walls, they are breaking with this historic tradition.
Consequently,
their ability to address (and understand) the needs of the
community and the
students in their schools is diminished. Therefore, it seems
logical to ask how
principals can actually become community leaders.
When addressing the question of how school leaders become
community
leaders, historical analyses suggest that for early Black
principals, advocat-
ing for community causes is integral to community leadership.
This would
entail becoming heavily involved not only in school-based
concerns but also
in community causes such as the many civil rights issues of the
era. For
example, Siddle Walker (2005) reveals that Black, pre-Brown
educators
mobilized advocacy groups, enlisted professional organizations,
drew up peti-
tions, and formed interracial alliances that challenged the racial
oppression of

Khalifa 431
Black communities and students. But this community advocacy
was not lim-
ited to pre-Brown schools. According to Gold et al. (2004),
contemporary
principal advocacy and organizing can actually lead to
substantive and sus-
tainable school reform. Therefore, consideration of principal-
advocacy allows
us to unpack ways in which school leaders can place community
issues (as
opposed to merely school issues) into the center of the school–
community
relationships. Advocacy for and understanding of community-
based causes
and performing culturally responsive leadership all inform the
conceptual
lenses of this study. This study focuses on a principal who
integrates the tra-
ditional Black school leadership style into his role as a
contemporary urban
school principal. My specific research questions were as
follows: (1) Why
have the goals of school–community partnerships primarily
centered on
school or district (and not community) goals? (2) Why is there a
tacit assump-
tion that principals can serve a neighborhood community

without maintain-
ing a regular presence in the communities they serve? And (3)
what are the
practices of principals who foster the type of school–community
relations
that lead to student academic and social success?
Research Methods and Design
Little is understood about the continuity of modern urban
leadership practice
with models provided by Black principals who served in the
pre-Brown era
(Siddle Walker, 1993); thus, this research is fairly unique. In
addition, the
research questions center on school-centered versus community-
centered
goals, both principals’ presence and behavior in the
neighborhood commu-
nity, and principals’ practices in school–community relations
that influence
students’ academic and social success. Because these questions
deal with
overlapping contexts, flexibility and subsequent in-depth
cultural observa-
tions were necessary components of this research. Thus,
ethnography was
chosen as a method.
Ethnographies occur in natural settings and allow for a flexible
research
process that is responsive to the normal events that occur
(Creswell, 1994).
According to Spradley (1979), “ethnography is the work of
describing cul-
ture” (p. 3). But it is important to consider how ethnographic
data are

recorded. In this regard, Chilcott (1987) argues that
ethnographic research
must be more than a reporting process; rather, he says,
“ethnographers must
provide readers with a sense of cultural theory and problem
orientation that
dictate the focus of research” (p. 212). In this study, I believe
that the extended
time and observation methods entailed in an ethnographic study
enabled me
to unearth a number of practices and networks that would have
remained
unnoticed with any other research method. For example, I
observed aspects
of the school and neighborhood communities during the last 6
months of the
study that were obscure at the outset of my research, so the
school culture and
its acceptance of hyperghetto (Wacquant & Wilson, 1989) street
culture,
urban dress, and African American English could not have been
contextually
understood without an extended ethnographic approach. Thus,
through eth-
nography, I was able to locate the place and importance (or lack
thereof) of

these aesthetic patterns without attaching meaning to them in a
way that a
researcher with less time may have done. Moreover, this
ethnography has
allowed me to grasp a deep understanding of both the school
and community
culture and of how the parents and students understand their
school and
community.
This methodology has allowed me to gain much greater
understandings
about the contexts that I studied. I first noticed that the cultural
and social
patterns recognizable to students did not resemble those
depicted by
Afrocentric or even historical Black culture from the U.S.
South; rather, as
Wacquant and Wilson (1989) describe, their environments were
rife with
cyclical patterns of crime, drugs, teen pregnancy, violence,
overlapping com-
munity-prison culture, and school failure. This is not to say that
there were
not recognizable patterns of resilience, agency, and success; in
fact, I argue
that the school profiled in this study—Urban Alternative High
School
(UAHS)—is exactly that. And at base, UAHS offers a glimpse
of how a
school leader enacted leadership both in a mistrustful
community and in an
alternative school. Yet the detailed and nuanced data, the
researcher’s close
cultural/racial similarities with most participants, and the
extensive time

spent collecting data in the field contributed to a compelling
portrait of an
atypical, but effective, school leader. In the forthcoming
sections, I describe
how I selected and gained access to the research site and offer
brief descrip-
tions of the participants. This is followed by a description of the
research site
and the role of trust and how it informs the delicate relationship
that parents
and community members have with their schools.
Research Site Selection and Access
Initially I was interested in effective leadership practices for
marginalized
and at-risk middle and high school students. Both the literature
(Dunbar,
2001; Raywid, 1983) and my initial exploratory interviews of
principals in
the area led me to focus on alternative schools. Urban students
and students
of color are often marginalized, and a number of exclusionary
practices in
traditional schools lead these students to alternative schools
(Dunbar, 2001)
Khalifa 433
and into eventually to what is often referred to as the school-to-

prison pipe-
line (Ferguson, 2000). Specifically, Dunbar and Villarruel
(2002) describe
how zero-tolerance policies disproportionately affect African
American and
Latino students. This is also illustrated in the works that show
the overrepre-
sentation of students of color in the special education classroom
and low
educational tracks (Gay, 2002); scholars such as Blanchett
(2006) and Ferri
and Connor (2005) show how this is a result of White privilege
and rac-
ism. Similarly, Watts and Erevelles (2004) explain that negative
student
typologies—such as “at-risk” or “deviant” students—are
socially con-
structed. According to their research, it is actually a system of
racism and
oppression—and the students’ natural reaction to, for example,
prison-like
school environments—that lead to students being labeled as
deviant. This
system leads to students of color being disproportionately
placed in alterna-
tive schools. Alternative schools often contribute to the
delinquency and
school failure of the very children that they claim to help
(Dunbar, 2001;
Raywid, 1983). Alternative schools for at-risk youth have been
most often
described as a “dumping ground” for students whom traditional
schools no
longer want (Dunbar, 2001; Kelly, 1993; Raywid, 1983). And
Dunbar (2001)
shows that alternative schools can often have the opposite effect

for which
they were intended—that is, to make kids even more deviant or
maladapted
to the normative structures and expectations in school.
These bodies of research—the social construction of deviance,
marginalization/
criminalization of students in public schools, the enduring
failures of alter-
native schools, and the role of racism—played a role in that it
was my inten-
tion to choose a “successful” school. To this end, I visited six
alternative
high school campuses in a tri-county area in selecting a research
site. Except
for UAHS, these schools fell within a pattern suggested by
research on failing
alternative schools. Four of the six schools had high principal
turnover and all
but UAHS had low graduation rates. UAHS was distinctly
different from the
other five alternative schools and was ultimately selected
because of the aca-
demic and social successes that the students experienced. For
example, the
students had a high school graduation rate that remained above
95% and over
two thirds pursued concrete plans after graduation—mostly
college or uni-
versity attendance, with some going into the military.
Furthermore, UAHS
departed from the tendency of schools to disproportionately
place students of
color into special education programs. Though less than 10% of
Davistown’s
(city in which UAHS was located) students are diagnosed with a

learning
disability, 18% of UAHS students were identified as eligible for
special edu-
cation services—most being diagnosed with hyperactivity
disorders (UAHS
Annual Report; Enrollment Demographics). However, at UAHS,
although
there were two reading specialists who would rotate and pull
students from
class for extra help, a part-time social worker who addressed
social and
familial issues, and other learning specialists who would visit
the school on a
part-time basis, there is no discernable special education
program. Moreover,
classroom teachers would refer any students needing the extra
services, and
students would often even request these services themselves.
The principal
and the staff expressed satisfaction about their successful
student perfor-
mance and seemed eager to share their story with others.
After I chose the alternative school and met with the principal, I
was given
full access to the research site. On my second visit, the

principal said to me,
“you can go anywhere here; you don’t need an appointment; just
like parents.
That’s how I run the school.” Once access to the site was
secured, selecting
individuals to participate in the study was the next task. The
participants
selected included the school principal, 13 current and former
students of
UAHS, nine teachers and five support staff, three community
members, and
members from five different families of current UAHS students.
To gain a
comprehensive perspective on the school leader in both his
school and com-
munity contexts, individuals from different roles were selected
and data were
collected from and about them through various methods.
Participants
Principal. The principal was African American and had been a
student,
teacher, and principal in a large urban school district. He was
raised in an
African American community context. This upbringing in an
African American
community is similar to what most UAHS students and parents
experienced. At
the time of this study, he was in his 33rd year as the leader of
the school and had
taught some of the parents, and even some grandparents, of the
current student
population.
Students. UAHS serves students in Grades 8 through 12 with a

total popu-
lation of approximately 100 students. According to the most
recent data pro-
vided by Standard and Poor’s School Matters, approximately
65% of the
student population is African American and the remainder is
primarily White,
with 10% of that being Hispanic or multi-racial. For the 2-year
period of this
study, the Black population fluctuated between 80 and 90 of the
total 100
students. All students at UAHS had experienced academic or
behavioral
problems in traditional public schools and were referred or
recommended to
UAHS. Although Joe interviews each student and a
“representative family
member,” his policy is to never turn a student away from entry
into UAHS.
Most students attending UAHS went on to graduate from high
school, and
Khalifa 435
over 60% went on to some form of post-secondary education. A
total of 13
current or former students were selected for interview as a part
of this study.

Staff. The teaching staff is relatively experienced, with most
having more
than 5 years of teaching experience. The majority of the
teaching staff is
White (total of 11 White staff members: 8 teachers, 1
curriculum support
staff, and 2 reading specialists), even though the principal is
Black and was
the founding administrator of this alternative public school. The
school had 5
Black teachers and 1 Black social worker out of a total of 16
professional
staff members. This is a considerably higher Black staff
presence than any of
the other schools in the district.
Representatives from the community. An important subset of
the participants
for this study needed to come from the community. Data from
families’ and
community members’ interviews and observations were
essential for under-
standing the context in which the school operated. For example,
these partici-
pants offered insights on the level of trust that the community
had for the
UAHS principal and other district personnel. The three
community members
who were interviewed for this study have been active in the
community and
had children as students either in Urban Alternative High
School or in one of
the other schools in Davistown. Additionally, members from
five different
families of current UAHS students were interviewed. The
families and neigh-

borhoods of UAHS students are characteristic of any large, poor
urban area
(Sugrue, 1998). Many of the parents are working-class and lack
a college
education. Many families maintain homes in one of the city’s
subsidized
housing units. The social and cultural capital that traditional
White students
enjoyed (Bourdieu, 1977; Coleman, 1988; Lareau, 2000) was
not accessible
to UAHS parents because their capital tended to be devalued by
traditional
school teachers and administrators. In fact, many parents would
share their
experiences and provide innumerable examples of their
exclusion and mar-
ginalization within the district.
Data Collection and Analysis
This 2-year ethnographic study occurred during the 2006-2007
and 2007-
2008 academic school years at Urban Alternative High School
(UAHS).
I visited UAHS one to two times per week for the first year of
the study. As
time passed, I increased my visits and observations. During the
last 6 months
of the data collection process, I visited the school three to five
times per
week for the entire school day. In addition, I participated in
nine home visits
throughout the study. Along with open-ended interviews,
participant obser-
vations, field notes, examination of data, and media sources, I
shadowed the

school leader as he traversed the school and community
environments. I
shadowed the principal in 23 community visits—that is, his
trips to locations
outside of the school, such as homes, restaurants, district
administration
offices, stores, and a prison. As I observed the principal’s
leadership behav-
iors (school-based or community-based), I conducted purposive
interviews.
During these interviews, I obtained details that enriched my
descriptions and
interpretations of those observed leadership behaviors.
Not all of the interviews, however, came with ease, trust, and
accessibility.
Initially, a number of the students and teachers expressed
suspicion about my
presence, with one teacher referring to me as “a spy from
downtown (the
school district’s administrative offices).” Others were trusting
from the out-
set. Trust and rapport increased due to my prolonged presence
at UAHS
(Babbie, 1992; Creswell & Miller, 2000; Glesne, 2005) and the
personal and
social interactions that I developed with participants.

Specifically, four fac-
tors likely contributed to the open and comfortable relationship
I experienced
with the staff, students, and principal: my race, my ability to
speak in African
American forms of English, my ability to engage in aspects of
African
American and urban culture, and my ability to cogently respond
to conversa-
tions and dialogues common in the Black community. For
example, when
students joked with the principal, I knew when to chuckle and
when to remain
silent, as a student may be ostensibly joking but in reality
expressing pain or
fear. Indications of trust included the increasing number of
teachers and stu-
dents who invited me to enter their classrooms and spaces—
examples include
students engaging me in conversations about local hip-hop
artists or inviting
me to their own performances as beginning rap artists. All of
these small but
important microcultural affiliations enhanced my accessibility,
trust, and rap-
port with the participants in this study.
Following each personal encounter, observation, or interview, I
organized
my data into broad themes. Interview responses and field notes
were coded
based on categories of school and community leadership,
community rela-
tionship (positive support of or negative resistance to the
principal/school),
principal’s impact in the community, and student achievement

(both social
and academic). Triangulation—such as examining newspaper
articles, mem-
ber checking, referring to district, county, and state data, and
interviews of
community members unconnected with UAHS—and alternative
interpreta-
tions were discussed to ensure trustworthiness of findings. The
prolonged
engagement also allowed me to check the data for consistency
over an
extended period. This extended trustworthiness to the data
(Lincoln & Guba,
1985; Seale, 1999) and allowed for me to grasp a more complete
and vivid
description of the research context.
Khalifa 437
A Site Description: The Importance of Trust
Throughout the data analysis and even at the outset of this
study, it was
apparent that the students and parents trusted the UAHS school
leader, yet it
was also clear that they maintained a deep mistrust for the other
administra-
tors and educators at the traditional schools in the district.
UAHS was

designed in the early 1970s to address the lingering problems of
low Black
academic achievement in the district and to placate the local
Black protest
culture and anger that was so endemic during the civil rights
era. UAHS
students come from any one of the traditional high schools in
Davistown.
According to the principal, all students referred to UAHS were
at risk of
school failure and dropout or had dropped out of one of the
local traditional
schools: “By the time I get ‘em, they are in need of serious
help. In fact, most
of them wouldn’t make it through school if it wasn’t for this
program.” Here
and in fact frequently, the UAHS principal alluded to the extent
to which
UAHS students had experienced school failure and had
therefore fallen into
a pattern of marginalization in the district. These
intergenerational academic
and social failures led to a deep mistrust of Davistown teachers
and admin-
istrators.
A context of mistrust. A number of indicators suggest that
UAHS parents
specifically, and Black Davistown parents generally, did not
trust staff at
traditional schools. Articles in newspapers, parent-held
community meetings,
and interviews suggest that parents and community members
were suspicious
of traditional schools. For example, the city’s newspaper
routinely featured

articles about Davistown’s racial achievement and suspension
gaps. When
asked about a newspaper article that reported the district’s
tendency to sus-
pend Black students 10 times more frequently than White
students, Ivory—
parent to a 13-year-old UAHS student—responded, “It don’t
surprise me!
They was doin’ that when I was a student there. That’s one of
the number one
reasons that Nikki (her daughter) go here (UAHS), ‘cause I
can’t trust them
over at those other schools.” The newspaper articles on the
racial suspension
gaps also highlighted this mistrust. In one instance, a
representative from an
African American parent support group said, “Either they don’t
know how,
or they don’t want to teach Black kids.” This rationale is
perhaps why several
community meetings were held in local churches to address “the
racism in
Davistown” school district. It is, then, not surprising that
Lareau (2000)
found that working-class parents maintain separateness between
themselves
and the schools that serve their children. The context in this
current research
corroborates Lareau’s finding but suggests that—at least for the
working-
class African American parents featured in this study—they did
so because of

the lack of trust, resulting primarily from a history of racism
and marginaliza-
tion. In fact, low graduation rates, poor academic achievement
and aca-
demic tracking, disproportionate sanctions by school and city
officials, and
persistent racism all contributed to the low trust that the
community held in
traditional school officials.
Parental expressions of this mistrust were actually ubiquitous
throughout
the study. In another instance, Mrs. Jones, a parent of two
daughters at UAHS,
spoke of “sneaking into the back door” (interview, November
14, 2007) of
Harrison High School—the district’s traditional school that her
daughters
attended before coming to UAHS. She believed this “sneaking”
was neces-
sary because, in her view, the teachers and the schools were
unfairly targeting
her girls and not educating them properly. Whenever she arrived
at the
school—often after being called by the principal—Mrs. Jones
sat for a “long
time” in the office while, as she suspected, the teachers were
given time to get
their classes “together.” When the phone calls home increased,
Mrs. Jones

visited the school on her own initiative and asked if she could
sit in class with
Taushaunda (the eldest of the two girls and the one most often
sanctioned in
school) and observe. Even then, the office staff called the
teacher and gave
the teacher 15 to 20 minutes “to straighten the class up and start
teaching.” So
Mrs. Jones said that she began to visit the school through the
backdoor or
loading dock, observe her daughters for 10 or 15 minutes from
the hallway,
and “sign in to the sign-in book on the way out of the school.”
Mrs. Jones’s
actions—as is the case with the behavior of many parents at
UAHS—
demonstrated protest to, in her view, an oppressive system that
was not fair
to her and her family. She was not prepared to accept the
narrative about her
own daughters that was forwarded by the school; rather, she was
determined
to (1) develop her own counternarrative about “what was really
going on” at
the school and (2) challenge oppression or, in her words,
“disagree with what
they were doing to us [African American families].” This
mistrust of school
and feelings of maltreatment in Davistown’s traditional schools
were actually
expressed in the statements of all of the parents interviewed for
this study.
Yet the trust they had for the UAHS principal stands in stark
contrast to the
mistrust they held for teachers and principals in traditional
schools.

Trust in the UAHS leader. While parents were mistrustful of
traditional
school principals in Davistown, they trusted the UAHS
principal, relying on
him for counsel and help with both personal and educational
matters. An
indication of this trust in him was demonstrated by the
interactions that
occurred between community members and him. Parents would
frequently
come to UAHS asking questions and informing the principal
about their chil-
dren and personal lives. These exchanges were just as likely to
occur in the
Khalifa 439
community. Community members—some former UAHS students
and par-
ents, and some not—would engage Joe on a personal level or
seek counsel. In
one restaurant encounter with a parent, he counseled a
concerned mother who
had problems with her son’s behavior and school performance at
one of the
traditional schools. Though her son Willie had never attended
UAHS, the
parent herself was a student there many years ago. Joe informed

her about her
options and told her to think about going to meet with
Davistown’s superin-
tendent about the case; Joe said that he would go with her if she
decided to
go. Much like this restaurant exchange, the home visits were
equally as tell-
ing. I accompanied Joe on one particular home visit in which he
delivered a
report card to Sharon, whose daughter attended UAHS. They
discussed
grades for the first five minutes, but for the remaining time,
they discussed
housing, the racial climate in the district, and the administrators
they thought
were being “fair toward Black kids.” The trust that the
community held for
Joe was likewise apparent from the interactions parents had
with Joe at
UAHS. Sometimes visitors wanted advice and sought counsel,
but at other
times, they were just paying a visit to a well-established and
entrusted com-
munity leader; indeed, this was further indication that the
community held
deep trust in his leadership.
Findings
This ethnographic study investigated three questions: Why have
the goals of
school–community partnerships primarily focused on school or
district (and
not community) goals? Why is there a tacit assumption that
principals can
serve a neighborhood community without maintaining a regular
presence in

the communities they serve? And what are the practices of
principals who
foster the type of school–community relations that lead to
student academic
and social success? Overall, the findings suggest that the
principal’s high
visibility in the community and advocacy of community-based
causes led to
trust, credibility, and rapport with the UAHS neighborhood
community. This
bond was enough to foster an atmosphere whereby parents who
were previ-
ously distant and mistrustful of schools became supportive of
UAHS and its
principal. The principal established an “official” presence in
and advocacy
for the community, but this overlap also squarely placed parents
and com-
munity members into the school context. In addition, the impact
that the
newfound parental inclusion had on the students was
noteworthy; the posi-
tive school–community relationship ultimately contributed to
successful
school leadership and positive social and academic outcomes for
students.
Ultimately, the UAHS principal was able to establish
community credibility

and trust, and parents were overwhelmingly supportive of his
handling and
treatment of their children. The fluid and intimate relationship
he developed
and maintained with the community was the leadership behavior
needed for
success in this urban context.
The particulars of these findings are organized into three major
sections.
In the first section, I relate how the principal created structures
and processes
that embraced, and even merged, the home and school
environments; these
vivid descriptions of this “overlap” allow us not only to see
leadership behav-
iors in the school but also to see a clear understanding of how
spaces were
created for community-based leadership and the impact this had
on the aca-
demic and social lives of students. The second section focuses
on principal
advocacy of community concerns—as opposed to only
educational goals—
being placed at the center of administrative efforts. It is in the
section that
I also elucidate how these particular leadership behaviors (i.e.,
community-
based advocacy) lead to parental support and trust—elements
that ultimately
facilitated a more effective leadership within the school
environment. This all
leads up to the third section of these findings, in which I
present the impact

that this type of leadership had on UAHS students. In each
section, I also note
similarities between these current findings and historical models
of African
American school leaders. Ultimately, all of these sections
illustrate the ben-
efits of a principal who also serves as community leader.
School–Community Overlap: Building Trust and Rapport
The first major finding of this study is that the principal
performed leader-
ship in a way that led to school and community overlap, which
in turn led to
community rapport and trust of the principal and school.
Actually, building
trust in communities is the biggest challenge to developing
meaningful col-
laborations (Chang, 1993). Chang (1993) indicates that existing
power-
relationships and racial differences intensify the complexity of
collaborations.
Chang’s findings were confirmed at UAHS and the surrounding
community
in that the traditional school leaders were unable to develop a
trusting rela-
tionship with the African American parents and community
members. But by
establishing a school–community overlap, the UAHS principal
was able to
understand the community’s concerns and thus place them at the
center of
the relationship. This led to an increased and unprecedented
trust between
Davistown’s Black parents and a school leader. In
deconstructing this find-
ing, I highlight not that the UAHS principal shared a cultural

background
with many of the African American students and families, but
that he placed
their community-oriented concerns and goals at the center of
school–community
Khalifa 441
relationships. Indeed, urban community members rarely have a
voice in how
school–community relations occur. The principal in this study
differed from
this norm in that he validated local culture and gave community
voice in
creating an overlapping school–community space (Epstein,
1987).
In the community surrounding UAHS, the principals acted as a
community
leader and a bridge between the formal institutions and the
community—
essentially giving the community access to his more privileged
social net-
works; as a result, community members had greater access to
opportunities in
Davistown and UAHS. Parents and community members
believed that they
had equal opportunity to resources and fair treatment from an
“official.” This,

in part, allowed the principal and staff to develop a culture of
success at the
school. Conversely, these findings suggest that because trust
and rapport
were nonexistent between traditional school leaders and the
neighborhood
community around UAHS, the parents were not supportive of
leadership
behaviors at the traditional schools. And they tended to
interpret school
administrative action in much the same way they would have
interpreted, say,
police racial profiling or judicial injustice. The examples shared
below dem-
onstrate not only the school–community overlap but also the
specific leader-
ship behaviors that were enacted in fostering such an integrated
context.
Fostering overlap: Bringing the community into the school. Part
of fostering
overlapping school and community spaces was allowing
unrestricted, com-
fortable opportunities for parents to enter the school. In this
regard, UAHS
parents were frequently present at UAHS and maintained
constant dialogue
with Joe and the UAHS staff. Joe learned from parents what was
happening
with UAHS students and the community, and they comfortably
became
involved with their child’s education. Consequently, UAHS
served as an
extension of the neighborhood communities. Community
functions were
common at the school, and members of the community—

parents, former stu-
dents, extended family, and young children and siblings of
UAHS students—
were almost constantly in contact with the UAHS staff. One
former UAHS
student illustrates this school–community overlap as she
explained her
experiences of being pregnant, and then a teenage mother at a
time that the
school did not offer motherhood services:
You know, like all my baby stuff, he was like helping me with
every-
thing, milk, everything. I didn’t have to worry about nothing
when
I was pregnant with her and after I had her ‘cause he made sure
I took
my butt to school and my mom watched my baby. If my mom
didn’t
watch my baby, I took her to school with me. (Margret, former
UAHS
student)
The overlapping contexts prompted former student, Ahmed, to
remark, “It
wasn’t just an education at (UAHS). It was an upbringing”
(interview, April

26, 2007). The educational model at UAHS had both a
deliberate presence of
the community in the school and a strong presence of the school
in the com-
munity (teachers and Joe going to students’ homes, churches,
and other com-
munity functions).
Fostering overlap: School presence in the community. The
UAHS principal
established the school overlap in the community by leveraging
staff and other
resources to support a regular community presence. Though all
teachers were
required to partake in report card delivery, the UAHS staff
members with the
most visible presence in the community were the principal and
the school-
community liaison. Both would simply visit students’ homes to
“check in to
see how everything is going.” Just as parents may drop by the
school unan-
nounced, Joe will “pop up at your (a student’s) house without
warning,”
according to Dominique, an 11th-grade UAHS student. The
UAHS school-
community liaison, Khadijah, explained:
If we call your house a couple of times and a student doesn’t
respond,
either Joe or myself are going by [the house]. We feel very
comfortable
doing so, and students know that. We’re welcomed ‘cause it’s in
the
best interest of the kids.

Field notes collected during home visits show how the UAHS
principal
served the neighborhood community beyond the location of
what was osten-
sibly required from school principals. During home visits,
parents commonly
asked Joe for advice. From transportation, legal or job-related
issues, to aca-
demic and racial marginalization in the district, the parents
trusted Joe’s
opinion and sought his help. Most parents seemed unaware that
Joe needed
their input as much as they needed his.
In highlighting the school’s presence into the community, it is
most note-
worthy that the principal played a major role in fostering this
overlap. As
demonstrated in the following example, Joe’s willingness and
alacrity to
advise parents was an indication of his community leadership;
Shelia was a
current UAHS student, and her mother and grandmother
previously attended
UAHS. A visit to Shelia’s home demonstrated Joe’s willingness
to help on
any issue—even those unrelated to Sheila’s status at UAHS.
Toward the end of the home visit, the mother again prompted
Joe to speak
about the education of her other children. She handed Joe her
son’s report
card (who was not yet old enough to attend UAHS). Joe
commented, “Why
you takin’ fundamentals of math? You should be takin’
algebra.”

Khalifa 443
As a school leader, he adapted to their unique needs. Sheila has
a sister
who is a year older than her but who attended one of the
district’s traditional
high schools. During the visit, their mother explained to Joe
that she was
about to put Sheila’s sister in UAHS because she was starting to
mess up in
school. Joe then spoke to both Sheila and her sister:
Boys love pretty girls that are dumb. You should be independent
stu-
dents. Your grades aren’t bad, but they can improve. You’ve got
two
years left. College should be in the picture. I think you can do
better
than this [pointing to Sheila’s sister’s grades].
These types of exchanges earned Joe the trust and credibility
that he
needed to serve this urban community. The UAHS principal
exemplified how
a school principal could also serve as a community leader—
being both
responsive to, and an advocate for, community concerns. Put
simply, Joe

concerned himself with (non-school) issues that were important
to commu-
nity stakeholders. In this instance, he was speaking to a family
about educa-
tional, social, and even familial issues that were completely
unrelated to his
position at UAHS. When independently interviewed, Sheila and
her family
confirmed that Joe was a family friend and supporter—perhaps,
in their real-
ity, even more than he was a principal. When they faced
difficulties or bewil-
derment with regard to educational or social issues, they turned
to him. Past
African American principals have similarly served their
communities; many
historical African American principals and educators were de
facto commu-
nity leaders because many worked in segregated, and often
hostile, environ-
ments (Savage, 2001; Tillman, 2004).
Leadership behaviors in support of school–community overlap.
The school and
community overlap that was exemplified by Joe occurred
through a number
of leadership behaviors. More specifically, the explicit and
observable behav-
iors that supported community overlap and trust were (a)
constructed per-
sonal exchanges in which the principals and staff interacted
with students and
parents, (b) home visits, and (c) mentoring, or in some cases,
even challeng-
ing teachers that were exclusionary toward students. Not only
did Joe estab-

lish his presence in the community, but he also rationalized why
he uses
school resources—in this case, time flexibility in the work
schedule—to
establish this overlap:
If you (i.e., teachers) do report cards you get a day off too! You
can
make it a three-day weekend you know, and they usually do.
Most of
the teachers don’t take that time off, because they don’t mind
going
into the homes. You (teachers) get to see something different,
you know,
when you uh go to the homes. They sit in the kitchen just like
you and
I did over at that parent’s house yesterday. (Joe, UAHS
principal)
This quote indicates the deliberate use of resources—here
instructional
personnel—to develop structures that strengthened school–
community over-
lap. This suggests that a key finding—that leadership behaviors
of the UAHS
principal created opportunities for school–community overlap—

is similar to
what earlier scholars (Epstein, 1987, 1995) have described.
Joe’s focus and
advocacy on community-based causes led to mutual trust
between the school
and community, and eventually to changes in the UAHS student
behavior. In
further elaboration of leadership behaviors, these findings
suggest that UAHS
principal’s practices, such as giving a speech at a local church,
speaking out
at board meetings or disciplinary hearings to advocate for a
specific student
or cause, and showing up at a student’s house for dinner, are
indeed leader-
ship behaviors. In the following sections, I provide categories
and examples
that typify countless leadership behaviors that occurred
throughout the study.
These examples are meant to elucidate how leadership
happened, how it was
situated within school–community relations, and how the
leadership behav-
ior ultimately impacted student behavior and/or achievement.
Personal exchanges with students and parents. In much the same
way that
scholars described a principal’s close and personal
connectedness with segre-
gated Black communities (Horsford, 2009, 2010; Siddle Walker,
1993,
2009), Joe initiated and participated in close personal exchanges
as he enacted
school and community leadership. He routinely engaged in
personal conver-
sations with students and parents, often about community-based

issues. The
times of the day that this usually happened were before and
after school; in
one such morning exchange, he encouraged a mother to stay in
contact
regarding her elder son’s (non-UAHS student) criminal court
proceedings:
What’s going on with the case? You know, you gotta keep me
informed ‘cause if I don’t know what’s happening, I can’t help.
You
know, it helps if you have someone go down there with you
some time.
These types of personal exchanges helped him to become close
with par-
ents and students and to earn their trust. It allowed him to
personalize his
conversation with them and encourage them in student-specific
or situation-
specific ways. In one case during the hall passing, Joe walked
up to Marcus—a
UAHS senior who, according to his teachers, was doing quite
well—and
said: “Step into my office, I wanna talk to you about
something.” Marcus
Khalifa 445

responded, “I already know, it’s cool now.” Joe snapped back,
“Marcus, you
don’t even know what I want! Well, I need to talk to you
anyway. I need to
know.” When Marcus stepped in, Joe asked him about an earlier
confronta-
tion that he had with his ex-girlfriend Mary. “Naw, she be
stalkin’ me!”
“Well, you need to come and tell me when that happens. But we
don’t put our
hands on girls. Real men don’t do that” Marcus, nearly yelling
responded.
“Man, I aint never touched her!” The conversation went on for
some time as
Joe shared a story about a person he knew who went to prison
for a number
of years for striking his fiancée in the face. The personalized
nature of the
dialogues made Joe vulnerable to his students and parents, but
he seemed to
trust them every bit as much as they trusted him. Moreover, the
conversation
led to an increased rapport and trust. Students and parents saw
Joe as real, as
one of them, a person with problems too, but who cared about
them and their
issues.
In another example that demonstrates these personable
exchanges, a par-
ent came in and waited by his office door. Joe immediately saw
her face and
stepped away from the conversation he was having with a
couple of UAHS
teachers. When we entered his office, the parent—who
graduated from

UAHS 20 years earlier—explained that her daughter was found
guilty of
stealing from the local shopping mall. “I should have sent her to
you; I just
don’t know what to do with that girl.” “Send her to her father”
Joe responded.
“Well, he aint up to no good either . . . he aint gonna do
nothin,’” she
responded. “We gonna get it right,” Joe encouraged. “Bring her
here after
school and we will take care of her.” The parent said, “I might
just enroll her
here, but the problem is that she need to drop her brother off at
school and she
‘a miss the bus if she do that” (i.e., come to UAHS). Joe
repeated his offer,
“Look, she’s around bad influences, just tell her to catch the
bus, and she can
come here. Wait, did she get probation? . . . I’m a talk to her
probation offi-
cer.” Exchanges like this show Joe’s concern for community
members,
including those who were not affiliated with UAHS.
Additionally, this con-
versation is evidence that he served—in this case offering
parental counsel
directly from the school—as a community leader. As a
consequence of these
personal exchanges and nurturing relationships, parents and
students were
willing to trust Joe despite their general mistrust of other
principals in
Davistown. This finding confirms that the close school–
community ties his-
torically enacted by Black school leadership (Horsford, 2009;
Morris, 2008;

Siddle Walker, 1993) can be enacted in a contemporary urban
school-
community context.
Unannounced home visits. Another leadership behavior that
promoted
school–community overlap happened when the principal created
a safe and
accessible space in the community for himself and UAHS
school staff. This
sometimes would be at well-publicized community events or by
delivering
report cards directly to student homes. But at other times, the
principal would
informally visit a student’s house for dinner and build his
relationship with
students and their families. These visits occurred frequently
during this study,
and I share examples of this in forthcoming sections; however,
an interview
with a former student, Darrell, offers a lucid glimpse of how
this leadership
behavior works. Actually, Darrell had graduated from UAHS
over 10 years
ago. He continued to occasionally visit the school and speak
with Joe and

other staff. When Joe visited his family at home, he said that
the conversation
was rarely about “academic progress and school stuff.” Rather,
he would just
“swing by and shoot da breeze.” In other words, he would
casually speak to
Darrell’s mother and grandmother about what was happening in
the neigh-
borhood and in their personal lives. Interview data revealed that
during home
visits, the principal, parents, and children would laugh, joke,
and talk about
popular culture. They might in one instance grieve together and
at other times
suggest solutions to problems facing their community and
school. Such
exchanges built an extensive rapport between community and
school.
Accordingly, Joe was a natural part of the community, and the
community
members were a natural part of school. This communicative
reinforcement of
school–community overlap (Epstein, 1987) created an inclusive
atmosphere
that eased tensions and suspicions that Black parents generally
held about
Davistown principals.
Mentoring or confronting exclusionary teachers. A third
leadership behavior
that fostered trust and community overlap was the UAHS
principal’s encour-
agement or, if necessary, enforcement, of student inclusivity.
UAHS students
and their parents were actually aware of the marginalization
they faced in the

district. One way that Joe filled the roles as both school and
community
leader was by promoting a culture of inclusion at UAHS. With
some of the
more egregious exclusionary teacher behaviors, Joe would
enforce a culture
of inclusion. One common example was that he prevented
teachers from
placing students in the hallway for inappropriate conduct and
poor achieve-
ment. So initially, Joe would assume the role of a mentor to
teachers. But if
teachers persisted in their exclusionary practices, he confronted
them and
enacted leadership behaviors that enforced a culture of
inclusion at UAHS.
Mentoring played a central role in fostering community overlap
because
many traditional teachers who joined the UAHS teaching staff
had neither
community-based approaches nor inclusionary teaching
practices. Thus, in
promotion of this goal, Joe became a mentor to his teachers. In
one example
of how these mentoring relationships occur, Mike, a UAHS
social studies
Khalifa 447

teacher, reflected on how Joe unabashedly offered him help. He
recounted
how Joe approached him in his first year at UAHS and said,
“Man, you gotta
do a better job at controlling your students. Try to identify the
ring-leader,
and use him. And I can tell you who it is, but you need to find
out and develop
a relationship with him.” Joe mentored all of the new teachers
in a similar
way. Mike was able to learn quickly, but Carroll, the UAHS art
teacher,
found the teaching more difficult; it took 2 years to adjust, as
she explained,
“After the first year, I thought I was not going to be able to do
it. I thought ‘I
just don’t get it.’ But then, I started documenting everything
and I would ask
him (Joe) is this more like what you want? Eventually, it started
to work out.”
In our interview, she explained that at her previous school they
would “sim-
ply send kids to the office. But here, that doesn’t fly.” She said
that Joe was
“forcefully encouraging” at times, and that eventually she
learned to work
harder—and more inclusively—with students in her classroom.
However, when the mentoring and advice did not work in
changing
teacher exclusionary behaviors, Joe would confront what he
believed to be
racist or unfair practices toward the at-risk Black UAHS
students. For an
example of this, we look at Joe’s relationship with Mary, a

middle-aged
White woman who served as a UAHS biology teacher. Mary was
in her 24th
year of teaching, the last 5 of which were at UAHS. On one
particular day,
Jackson was standing outside her classroom. As Joe and I
walked up, he
asked the student why he was in the hallway. “‘Cause Mary put
me out,”
Jackson responded. Joe forcefully opened Mary’s door and said,
“The stu-
dent has to remain in the classroom and complete his
assignments.” After the
student entered the classroom and Joe walked away, he
expressed frustration,
“She just doesn’t listen, man; she doesn’t know how to teach
Black kids!” Joe
informed me that he tried to mentor her into constructing an
inclusionary
classroom culture, but to no avail. In his view, she refused his
mentorship and
continued to exclude Black children. So in the staff meeting that
week, Joe
returned to the issue. As he opened the meeting, he said,
“Several teachers are
still placing children in the hallway; in a situation, you could
lose your job for
that!” He continued, “Now anyone doing that is a racist, and
doesn’t want to
teach Black kids.” This leadership behavior—mentoring and
enforcement—
showed kids and their parents that the principal was willing to
advocate for
the inclusion of kids. In return, they entrusted Joe with leading
their children.
Again, Joe’s leadership behavior resembled principals in the

historical Black
community who resisted racism and fought for the inclusion of
their com-
munity (Anderson, 1988; Morris, 1999, 2008).
In point of fact, these behaviors were effective for Joe because,
like
the pre-Brown, African American principals, he promoted
UAHS as a
community-linked, relevant school (Siddle Walker, 1993). He
was able to cre-
ate structures at UAHS that would accommodate and leave a
permanent space
for the community. Therefore, when considering many of the
experiences of
racism and marginalization that UAHS Black parents faced,
Joe’s leadership
resonated because they viewed him as a community member
with similar
interests. Even more, he was a leader from within the
community. Thus, when
problems erupted between the Black community and the
predominantly White
authority, they called on their trusted school and community
leader—Joe.
Despite the fact that this was a small alternative school that had

a longstanding
principal, there are a number of behaviors that principals who
serve the same
demographic population could learn. That is, while charisma
certainly played
a role in Joe’s success at UAHS, these findings suggest that
other urban school
leaders could enact similar community overlap and advocacy
behaviors. Table 1
illustrates some of these behaviors and how they differ from
traditional school
principals. But in the following section, I demonstrate that one
of the most
important leadership behaviors was the principal’s advocacy for
community-
based causes.
Principal Advocacy in the Community:
A Way Toward Building Trust
Advocacy for community causes. The findings in this research
suggest that
when principals show concern and advocate for community
causes, skeptical,
distant parents begin to trust and support the principal. These
findings report
that advocacy lends credibility to the principal, and thus allows
him to lead
the school with parental support, involvement, and trust. This
finding is not
surprising given prior research on the topic; Pfautz et al. (1975)
found that
school–community relations improved when the school leader
acted as a
“street leader” socially anchored in the community he served.
Many of Davis-

town’s traditional schools had exemplary standardized test
scores, safe and
clean environments, high post-secondary college attendance
rates, and other
markers of good schools. But because African American, ESL,
and Latino
students were often not included in these successes, many
Davistown parents
still resisted these traditional school administrators. Also, some
parents likely
resisted because in their own youth, they were mistreated and
abused by
teachers (McKenzie, 2009). Moreover, “school-related”
accomplishments,
such as high standardized test scores, are not necessarily
coterminous with
community interests or goals. Indeed, a history of abuse—and
acts that are
interpreted as abuse or racism—culminates in the mistrust that
the commu-
nity has for official institutions. At UAHS, however, the
principal was able to
Khalifa 449
Table 1. Comparison of Community-Based/Traditional
Leadership Behaviors
Leadership

Behaviors (Both
Educational and
Community-Based) UAHS Principal (Examples)
Other Principals in Davistown
(Examples)
Community overlap
activities
Weekly home visits, speaking
engagements in community
churches, support at
community advocacy
meetings, involvement in
student defense hearings
PTA, support for fundraising
activities, basketball/football
games, open house
Principal–parent
discussions
(African American
UAHS parents)
Significant time spent
discussing “non-education”
issues with parents,
mutual advising and
information sharing, usually
collaborative
The meetings are strictly
about student behavior and
academic performance, often

informing parents of child’s
poor behavior/performance
Purpose of
community visits
Advocacy-based, family-
oriented, dinner meetings,
friendship visits
Very structured educational
reasons (for example, reading
day at the community
library), very impersonal
Parental
perceptions of
principal
Fair with children, has great
concern for children and
community related issues,
as a friend
Not fair with Black children,
not collaborative; as an
uncompromising authority
figure
Rapport and
accessibility to
the community
Informal; parents always
welcome in school;
principal always welcome

in community homes
Formal; no strong presence in
community; appointments
always needed
Goal of school–
community
relations/
partnerships
Community-based
goals: ending racism
in Davistown; helping
parents in need; educating
community about relevant
info
School-based goals: raising
testing achievement scores;
improving attendance;
addressing truancy, bullying,
gangs
Community-
based advocacy
activities
Speaking at rallies held
by community, directing
parents where to get help
and info for educational/
personal issues, visiting
victims of discrimination/
crimes

None observed or referenced
in interviews
(continued)
Leadership
Behaviors (Both
Educational and
Community-Based) UAHS Principal (Examples)
Other Principals in Davistown
(Examples)
Trust with
community
Trusted by parents, students,
and community members;
parents trusted decisions
made about child
Not trusted by parents,
students, or community
members; parents suspicious/
resistant to decisions
Rapport with

community
Maintain a very strong
mutual dialogue with
community; strong rapport
Minimal or nonexistent
rapport with parents,
students, community
Table 1. (continued)
put the community at ease through his advocacy for causes that
the commu-
nity interpreted as fighting against oppression and opening up
previously
blocked opportunities.
Principal’s commitment to student and community advocacy.
One central way
that Joe established overlap and a community leadership role—
which con-
tributed to his success as a school leader—was by his advocacy
for commu-
nity causes. Part of this was Joe understanding advocacy to be a
central part
of his role as principal. In fact, he seemed to take pride in his
advocacy for
children, and he described himself as an advocate. In one
example, the local
police called Joe and informed him that they would be picking
up a male
student from the school who had groped a female student. Joe
did not allow
the officer to arrest the student on school grounds. Joe’s
opinion was that the

student was in school learning and had not caused any problems
in school. He
believed that the student’s education should not be
compromised. If the stu-
dent committed the offense in the community, then Joe felt that
is where he
should interact with the police and not in a school. Here is Joe’s
recollection
of the event:
Now, we had a kid here Wednesday that the police department
said
that he groped a girl. How does he know? They said his name
came up.
You can’t come out here [to the school]! I had them scared
because
I could have challenged it (all the way up into the legal system),
but
I didn’t. But they can’t take him from school.
Indeed, occurrences like this left a belief with students and
parents that Joe
prioritized the interests of their children over all other interests.
These glimpses
Khalifa 451
of community leadership suggest that the principal’s
commitment to student

and community advocacy, particularly to community-based
causes, was nec-
essary for leadership in this urban context.
Another manner in which Joe frequently advocated for students
occurred
during the school board and disciplinary hearings held by
Davistown School
District. These hearings determine if an offending student will
be perma-
nently barred from attending any of the district’s schools for
prior violations
and offenses. The UAHS parents felt that the hearings were
racially biased
against Black students, and Joe routinely intervened:
See I had my parents go down to the meeting, and they put it on
TV.
I had them raise hell, and they stopped the meeting. Then they
wanted
to bargain then. I don’t mind a protest. That’s what America’s
about
isn’t it? See the thing about it is, I don’t think I’ve changed as
far as
my belief system. But when I was in Iowa, I was doing the same
thing
with White kids.
When I asked him directly about his involvement in the
hearings, Joe
fondly reminisces about how he fights to keep Black students in
school when
they are disproportionately targeted by the expulsion hearings:
Researcher: Describe what has happened during the hearings.
Joe: See this is a hearing when they want to put a kid out for the

rest of
the year, and the kids appeal to the Board. The other day a kid
[who
the district was trying to expel], a woman said he hit her I said
“well
show me how he hit you.” She said “he bumped up against me.”
I said, “I aint buying that.” I carry a lot of weight on them
things.
R: If you weren’t there, do you think that a lot more kids would
be
expelled?
J: Oh yeah! I got to look out for them. I got to. Who else is in
this
district is going to look out for these Black kids? Who? Give me
a name of one. Give me a name of a Black administrator who
will
stand up for these Black kids . . . I’m an advocate for kids.
Joe’s advocacy for student inclusion in school, as well as
community-
based causes, contributed to the trusting relationship he had
with the com-
munity. Like many Black, urban, and alternative school students
(Dunbar,
2001; Gregory, Skiba, & Noguera, 2010), UAHS students were
often
excluded from school and faced legal court cases. UAHS was
unique in that
the principal personally advocated for a number of these legal
cases.

Moreover, the UAHS principal utilized additional school
resources for stu-
dent and community-based advocacy. Thus, the community-
liaison and the
social worker often assisted the principal in student and
community-based
advocacy.
Although many UAHS staff members played significant roles in
advocat-
ing for students, the UAHS principal took a leadership role in
the advocacy.
In his leadership performances, he actually modeled ways that
this advocacy
occurred. In one instance, a parent who said that she did not
“trust any school
employee” allowed Joe to pick up her son and bring him to
school an hour
before any of the other students and before most teachers arrive.
Joe told her
that her son needed to catch up with others in the class and that
it would be
good that he got some discipline before he “tried to slip out at
the end of the
day.” The parent readily agreed; her agreement was a marked
difference from
her responses to traditional school staff. This example,
however, would still
be a form of educational advocacy for students. What is most

remarkable and
perhaps rare in school leaders was his demonstration of
community advocacy.
Yet if urban principals begin to advocate for community causes,
they will
likely earn the trust and support that Joe did among his
stakeholders.
Glimpses of community-based advocacy. Joe’s visibility and
advocacy in the
community were major components of his school leadership.
This, perhaps
more than anything else, gained him the credibility as a fair
person who
clearly cared about the interests of children and their families.
One example,
which we will call the Veteran’s Park incident, is perhaps the
clearest exam-
ple of how Joe demonstrated advocacy for the community’s
interests. Veter-
an’s Park is a local park situated in an accessible area to many
of Davistown’s
low-income, African American youth. The swimming pool is the
main attrac-
tion for these youth, and many of the city’s most affluent
residents also swim
there. During the summer months, some years prior to this
study, five young
Black Davistown youth were accused of taking a pager and
cellular phone
that belonged to a middle-aged, White professional who was
also swimming
at the park. The staff of the pool unjustifiably, and without
parental consent
for a minor, searched and detained all five Black youth and
infringed on their

rights by accusing them of taking the items.
None of the accused youth were UAHS students, yet the parents
had heard
of Joe’s reputation in the community and called him
immediately. In the
months following the incident, Joe and a few parents organized
several pro-
test marches around the property of Veteran’s Park. He also
requested the
involvement of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and
the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
After a brief
police investigation, officials determined that the students were
innocent of
Khalifa 453
any wrongdoing. Parents, students, and community members—
led by this
community-responsive school leader—rallied in support of the
children.
After pro bono legal representation and a community-based
protest regarding
the violation of the students’ human and civil rights, the
municipal offices of
Davistown settled the case by paying $100,000 to the young
complainants.

Prepare 210 to 280-word paper based on Amnestic Disorder1. D.docx

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