Leadership Deflection and Systemic Inertia: Implications for Equity in Ethnically and Linguistically Diverse Schools

Abstract

This article explores how school leaders working in ethnically and linguistically diverse schools operating within a centralized system position themselves in the face of tensions created at the meso- and micro-levels by the structural gaps at the macro level. Using data from a qualitative study, it reveals how school leaders contribute to organizational stagnation in centralized systems by sidestepping both the challenges encountered and the need to confront structural inequity in multicultural schools, and in so doing, how they inadvertently reinforce the conditions that perpetuate inequities and limit meaningful change toward culturally responsive environments in multicultural schools.