Reflective Practice on Leadership Committed to Social Justice - Counter Story of an African American Superintendent

Oct 15, 2026

Reflective Practice on Leadership Committed to Social Justice presents an autoethnographic counter story centered on an African American superintendent and the political, organizational, and cultural dynamics shaping lived leadership experience. It analyzes a real community incident involving metal child sculptures on a school fence, sparked by racialized objections and community debate. Systematic journaling and document review trace decision processes, power relations, and social justice concerns, using critical race theory to surface complex issues of self, context, race, gender, and networking within an urban school district.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages4

Reading Time10 min

AccessFree to download

The Purpose and Central Assumptions

The Community Incident and Requests for Removal

Leadership, Selfhood, and Analytical Framework

Documenting Events Through Journaling and Evidence

The Story and Its Meanings

Reflective Practice on Leadership Committed to Social Justice: Counter Story of an African American Superintendent Ardella Dailey California State University, East Bay The central assumption of this paper is that the use of autoethnography is the best approach to obtain a deeper understanding of the political context, organizational culture, and complex dynamics of a person’s lived experience in a leadership position. The central narrative follows the accounts documented through systematic journaling, and explicated following a first person narrative. This counter story should be viewed as a knowledge bank and source of legitimate information to understanding nuanced cultural meanings, and the identification of social justice and equity issues. In August, 2005, I received a letter from a retired African American principal in the school district I worked as Superintendent. She lived in the community and was very upset because she had driven by a school and there, on the fence, were figures of children; these figures were alternated on the fence and made from metal. She described the figures as looking stereotypically like a pickaninny caricature. Pickaninny is a potentially offensive, derogatory term, which refers to children of Black African decent or a racial caricature thereof. She was most offended by the braids sticking up in the air and demanded that the figures be removed immediately. I contacted the principal and learned that a White parent in the school had created a variety of metal sculpture pieces as cutout figures to be wired to the fence as artwork. There was no specific district policy regarding school site decisions to add artwork. The retired principal formally requested their removal on the grounds that they were racially, stereotypically negative representations. This request resulted in citywide community discussions and board members began to take positions. The situation described above demonstrates the intersection of race, power, gender and networking relationships within the context of an urban community’s school district. The central narrative follows the accounts documented through systematic journaling and explicated following a first person story. Through the application of some tools that critical race theory offers, the analysis of the text surfaces complex issues tied deeply to the temporal and context determined nature of the self. Educational Leadership and Administration: Teaching and Program Development Volume 26, March 2015 ISSN 1064-‐4474 © 2015 California Association of Professors of Educational Administration This inquiry indeed places the self within the position of a female, African American superintendent. The central assumption of this paper is that the use of autoethnography is the best approach to obtain a deeper understanding of the political context, organizational culture, and complex dynamics ofthe dimensions of the superintendency as lived experience. According to Reed-Danahay (2009) the term autoethnography can vary depending upon the emphasis placed on auto (self), ethno (the cultural link), and graphy (the application of a research process) . Put another way, in comparison to the participant-observer researcher associated with conventional ethnographic research – where the researcher is expected to keep his or her distance from the experiences (or events) under review-the observer in an autoethnography is a central participant to the act of sense-making, interpretation, and final analysis (Wall, 2006) . The participant and the observer is the researcher at the same time. Anderson (2006) succinctly captures these distinctions in describing analytic autoethnography as: “Ethnographic work in which the researcher is a full member in the research group or setting, visible as such a member in the researcher’s published texts, and committed to an analytic research agenda focused on improving theoretical understandings of broader social phenomena.”(p. 375)

FAQs

What is the paper’s central assumption about using autoethnography?

The paper argues that autoethnography is the best approach for developing a deeper understanding of the political context, organizational culture, and complex dynamics of a leader’s lived experience.

What incident triggered community discussion about social justice and equity?

Figures of children made from metal were placed on a school fence; they were described as resembling a racially stereotyped “pickaninny” caricature, leading to requests for their immediate removal and resulting debates among community members and board members.

How does the author support the narrative and verify the sequence of events?

The author uses a field notes journal and reviews community meeting notes, newspaper articles, board meeting notes, and the superintendent’s weekly communication to the board.

Oct 15, 2026

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