The article discusses the development of an analytic instrument aimed at preparing school leaders for social justice advocacy in 21st century education. It emphasizes the need for effective tools to evaluate social justice competencies among educational professionals, identifying key characteristics and behaviors of social justice advocates. The authors plan to refine their assessment tool through focus groups and further studies to enhance the capabilities of school leaders as change agents in diverse communities.

1. NATIONAL FORUM OF APPLIED EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL
VOLUME 26, NUMBERS 1 & 2, 2013
Social Justice Advocacy Competency: A Step on the Journey to
Develop an Analytic Instrument to Pinpoint Development and Build
Capacity in 21st
Century School Leaders
Shirley Marie McCarther, EdD
Assistant Professor
Donna M. Davis, PhD
Associate Professor
Johanna Nilsson, PhD
Associate Professor
Jacob Marszalek, PhD
Associate Professor
Carolyn Barber, PhD
Assistant Professor
University Of Missouri-Kansas City
_____________________________________________________________________________
Abstract
In this article, the authors document their progress to advance the development of an analytic
instrument for use in the preparation of school leaders, counselors, and educational professionals
in the 21st
century. To begin they acknowledge the need for social justice advocacy in school
leaders; highlight characteristics and qualities of social justice advocates; identify questions
undergirding their investigation; provide an overview of development of the instrument to date;
and share their experiences piloting sample survey items at a national conference of educational
administration preparation professionals. They conclude with a discussion of implications for
school leader, counselor, and teacher preparation programs and offer next steps on their journey
to develop an analytic leader-specific advocacy assessment tool that will allow them to
quantitatively measure social justice advocacy competencies and make informed
recommendations to build capacity in emerging 21st
Century school leaders.
Keywords: social justice; advocacy; leadership; competency; dispositions; and assessment
tools.
_____________________________________________________________________________
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2. SHIRLEY MARIE MCCARTHER, DONNA M. DAVIS, JOHANNA NILSSON,
JACOB MARSZALEK, and CAROLYN BARBER
You are the principal of a middle school in a mid-size urban community situated in the
heart of the nation. One day the president of the local chamber of commerce calls to tell
you the membership received an anonymous donation of a million dollars to equip the
new computer technical wing on the middle school campus. Just last night, the board
voted to endorse the contribution. However, there is one stipulation. The gift is
contingent on your agreement to require all students attending the middle school to sign a
zero-tolerance pledge committing not to date outside their ethnic background and abstain
from using alcohol, tobacco, and drugs until graduation from high school. What do you
say? (Anonymous Session Participant, August, 2012)
Nestled in the corner of a plush hotel ballroom at a big round table are twenty professors
of higher education. As the PowerPoint presentation unfolds, all participants seem engaged –
listening, commenting, and writing – informally responding to prompts on the screen. The
conversation is animated, with one comment stimulating another and sometimes multiple
participants chime in at the same time. The discussion revolves around social justice advocacy
and its pedagogy in school leader preparation programs. For the purpose of this study, we define
social justice as ‘‘the fundamental valuing of fairness and equity in resources, rights, and
treatment for marginalized individuals and groups of people who do not share equal power in
society’’ (Nilsson as cited in Constantine, Hage, Kindaichi, & Bryant, 2007, p. 24). The scenario
listed above is from one of the session participants. We, the presenters, were at a national
conference for school leaders to share our progress to advance the development of the Social
Justice Advocacy Scale (SJAS; Nilsson, Marszalek, Linnemeyer, Bahner, & Hansen, 2011) and
the Teacher Social Justice Advocacy Scale (TSJAS; Barazanji & Nilsson, 2009) into an
analytical instrument for use in the preparation of school leaders, counselors, and educational
professionals in the 21st
century.
This article reports on a collaborative investigation by five colleagues in two divisions of
a School of Education (SOE) in an urban serving university situated in the Midwest. The
research team consists of two professors in the division of Educational Leadership, Policy and
Foundations and three who are in the division of Counseling and Educational Psychology. The
mission, vision, and values of the SOE and the University actively encourage collaboration
among colleagues and so the team came together around shared concerns about the need to better
prepare our candidates to be socially just and educationally equitable school leaders, counselors,
and administrators (Selsky & Parker, 2005; Obermeier & Brauckmann, 2010, Lauring &Selmer,
2012, Shorr, Rothman, & Parks, 2001). Our efforts were launched with a funded project that
explores the characteristics and behaviors of socially just teacher leaders, lead counselors,
building principals, and district administrators.
Purpose of the Study
The goal of our work is to develop a diagnostic models instrument approach for use in the
education of school leaders for 21st
century schools. We investigate patterns of fulfillment (or
accomplishment) that discern knowledge, skills, and dispositions which represent social justice
advocacy models (attitudes of behaviors). The ability to identify models suggests the capacity for
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3. SHIRLEY MARIE MCCARTHER, DONNA M. DAVIS, JOHANNA NILSSON,
JACOB MARSZALEK, and CAROLYN BARBER
individualized assessment of growth and development of new systems and strategies to assist in
this area. Two central considerations guide our inquiry:
• What are the characteristics of social justice advocates?
• How can school leaders foster growth and development of social justice advocates?
Thus, the purpose of the overall research project is to determine whether and/or how school
leaders can identify characteristics and traits of social justice advocates, and this paper outlines
the preliminary steps we undertook to gather information from school leaders about the kinds of
questions and modes of inquiry we might pursue.
Context within the Literature
In recent research related to educational leadership for social justice, McKenzie, et al.
(2007) recommend restructuring leader preparation programs to equip candidates to be effective
social justice educational leaders. Leaders of 21st
century schools must develop the capacity to
lead students, faculty, and the school community across all sectors of the diversity spectrum,
including race, ethnicity, language, gender, (dis)ability, sexual orientation, economic/social class
boundaries and other hegemonic societal practices. Practitioners in the field look to preparation
programs to empower them to address these complex issues (Capper, Theoharis, & Sebastain,
2006). However, some researchers suggest a lack of literature “that focuses on equity issues
within administrator-preparation programs (Brown, 2004; Bell, Jones, & Johnson, 2002; Lyman
& Villani, 2002; Marshall, 2004; Rapp, 2002; Rusch, 2004). Compounding the issue is the
absence in the literature of social justice leader advocacy appraisal tools. This disparity comes at
a critical juncture in urban education; a time when students success calls for the effective school
leader to go beyond the brick and mortar of the schoolhouse out into the neighborhood, the
community, and work in conjunction with the social, political, and business community to
accelerate societal change for all students. Waite, Nelson, and Guajardo (2007) assert the
following:
A difficulty for us, as with any program of educational administration, especially those
concerned with inculcating a sense of social justice and responsibility in their students,
revolves around the ontological. Social responsibility is really an ontological stance.
“What is the nature of the world and my role within it?” (p. 219)
When we consider the kinds of scenarios outlined above, where school leaders are confronted
with ethical decision-making that affects everyone in the school building and perhaps the
community, the question emerges: What are the tools to assist educators in this?
Method
Procedure
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4. SHIRLEY MARIE MCCARTHER, DONNA M. DAVIS, JOHANNA NILSSON,
JACOB MARSZALEK, and CAROLYN BARBER
We were invited to present our initial work on social justice advocacy assessment at a
national conference of professors of educational leadership. The session consisted of an
overview of the need for the development of diagnostic tools for the assessment of social justice
advocacy after which participants in the session explored sample models from the preliminary
work and engaged in dialogue and discussion of the potential implications of the work for school
leaders and preparation programs.
Participants
There were 18 participants in the session. All reported they worked in higher education
institutions, were involved in the preparation of school leaders, lead counselors, or district
administrators, and were tenured or tenure-track professors. They represented fourteen different
institutions. Twelve participants were male (8 Caucasian; 2 Latino; 1 African American; and 1
Asian) and six were female (4 Caucasian; 1 African American; and 1 Asian). No other
demographic or identifying information was collected during the informal conference
presentation session. The session lasted for 55 minutes.
Research Questions Addressed
For purposes of the larger study, we determined that first we needed to pilot the central
question undergirding the investigation and identified the following preliminary questions for the
conference workshop session:
• What are the characteristics of social justice advocates?
• How can school leaders foster growth and development of social justice advocates?
• If you were interviewing a teacher candidate for your building and wanted to assess their
commitment to social justice, what question(s) would you ask?
• What are the implications of this work for school leaders and preparation programs?
Findings
Emerging Findings: What Participants Said
The participants in this study perceived characteristics of social justice advocates in
similar ways. They listed the following attitudes as observable traits: caring; nurturing; empathy;
sensitivity to injustice; and behaviors, including the courage to initiate action; willingness to go
at it alone; and relentless commitment to all children. Responses to the question about fostering
growth and development of social justice advocates drew less specific answers. There were no
precise actions or behaviors discussed; rather, participants offered examples of class lessons and
activities; identified role models; and highlighted course readings and projects.
The third question regarding interview questions for a perspective teacher appeared to
provoke much enthusiasm from the participants. There was concurrence that presenting the
interviewee with a scenario to respond to was the preferred format for obtaining the data sought
from the prospective teacher. In addition to the scenario shared earlier, other examples were built
around a range of topics including differentiated teaching strategies; language [English as a
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5. SHIRLEY MARIE MCCARTHER, DONNA M. DAVIS, JOHANNA NILSSON,
JACOB MARSZALEK, and CAROLYN BARBER
second language]; bullying; sexual orientation; cliques; cyber bullying; poverty; prejudice; and
privilege.
The final question about implications posed in the conference session also raised much
dialogue and discussion. Participants overwhelmingly expressed the need for a the development
of analytic tools to support the assessment of social justice advocacy in school leaders
highlighting the utility of such in screening candidates for entry into the program; placement and
development of candidates with customized educational program plans based on diagnostic
information obtained from an assessment instrument; and benchmarking progress, growth, and
development of candidates as the matriculate in leader preparation programs.
Potential Implication of Learnings from the Study
Participants in this study expressed the belief that school leader preparation programs
need diagnostic tools to support the social justice advocacy development of emerging leaders in
their programs. Their responses align with the sentiments expressed by Waite et al. (2007) as
they proclaim the situation encountered by many professors of educational leadership
preparation programs today:
We believe our students must come to understand the particular responsibility
educational leaders have to create a more just and equitable society. Coming to this
understanding is easier with some students than others. Clearly, our work would be
simplified if we admitted students who already identified a social justice orientation.
However, like other programs, and like the public schools, we must accept students as
they present themselves to us; to do otherwise would belie our role as a public institution.
(p. 219)
Further, participants in this study iterated the shared belief that teacher and counselor
preparation programs would also benefit from the development of assessment instruments to
support the education and training of teacher and counselor candidates in preparatory programs.
These views are aligned with leading research in the field as evidenced by McKenzie, et al.
(2007) who offer “guidance for restructuring educational leadership preparation programs to help
prepare principals and school administrators for social justice advocacy” (p. 112). Their specific
structure and content proposals are consistent with the highly acclaimed teacher education
preparation program literature of Darling-Hammond (2002), French (2002), McDonald (2002),
Murphy (2001 & 2002), and others.
Thus, it appears at this early stage in the development of our work, we have cause to be
hopeful. Perhaps there is a basis to believe we have the ability to identify models of behaviors
and attitudes for social justice advocacy. Further, our session with professors of educational
leadership preparation programs revealed that there may be the capacity for individualized
assessment of growth and development in social justice advocacy learners and practitioners, as
well as the possibility of the development of new systems and strategies to assist in this area.
Projected Next Steps in Our Research
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6. SHIRLEY MARIE MCCARTHER, DONNA M. DAVIS, JOHANNA NILSSON,
JACOB MARSZALEK, and CAROLYN BARBER
In the next phase of our work we plan to conduct a series of focus groups to refine scale
items; beta test survey within the School of Education to validate (pre-service and current
teachers; pre-service and current school leaders); have subject-matter experts review items;
distribute the revised instrument more widely; and follow-up with more in-depth interviews to
gain a deeper understanding of complex themes.
We believe the development of a leader-specific advocacy assessment tool will fill an
important need for school leader preparation programs that will allow them to quantitatively
measure social justice advocacy competencies and make informed recommendations for the
growth and development of 21st
Century school leader candidates and practitioners to become
active agents for change in the communities they serve.
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JACOB MARSZALEK, and CAROLYN BARBER
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Authors
Shirley Marie McCarther, Ed. D. is Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, Policy, and
Foundations at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri.
Donna M. Davis, Ph. D. is Associate Professor of Educational Leadership, Policy, and
Foundations at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri.
Johanna Nilsson, Ph. D. is Associate Professor of Counseling & Educational Psychology at the
University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri.
Jacob Marszalek, Ph. D. is Associate Professor of Counseling & Educational Psychology at the
University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri
Carolyn Barber, Ph. D. is Assistant Professor of Counseling & Educational Psychology at the
University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri.
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