The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
The ethic of community
The ethic of
community
Gail C. Furman
Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA
Keywords Ethics, Community, Leadership, Social justice
215
Abstract This article proposes the concept of an ethic of community to complement and extend
other ethical frames used in education (e.g. the ethics of justice, critique, and care). Proceeding
from the traditional definition of ethics as the study of moral duty and obligation, ethic of
community is defined as the moral responsibility to engage in communal processes as educators
pursue the moral purposes of their work and address the ongoing challenges of daily life and work
in schools. The ethic of community thus centers the communal over the individual as the primary
locus of moral agency in schools. The usefulness of the ethic of community in regard to achieving
the moral purposes of schooling is illustrated with the example of social justice. The author
concludes that the ethic of community is a vehicle that can synthesize much of the current work on
leadership practices related to social justice and other moral purposes of educational leadership.
In this article, I propose the idea of an ethic of community to complement and
extend other ethical frames used in education (e.g. the ethics of justice, critique,
and care). Proceeding from the traditional definition of ethics as the study of
moral duty and obligation, I define ethic of community as the moral
responsibility to engage in communal processes as educators pursue the moral
purposes of their work and address the ongoing challenges of daily life and
work in schools. Thus, an ethic of community centers the communal over the
individual as the primary locus of moral agency in schools. In what follows, I
first present some background on moral leadership and ethics in education; I
then argue that the ethic of community is a needed complement to the other
ethical frames typically used in education and show how it is related to
achieving the moral purposes of schooling. In other words, I will argue that
ethic of community is a vehicle that can synthesize much of the current work on
leadership practices related to social justice and other moral purposes of
educational leadership.
Background
The argument that educational leadership is fundamentally a moral endeavor
has been developed by many scholars in recent years. Goldring and Greenfield
(2002, pp. 2-3), for example, in their recent work on the “roles, expectations, and
dilemmas” of leadership, state that the “moral dimensions of educational
leadership and administration” constitute one of the special conditions that
make administering schools “different from such work in other contexts”.
Journal of Educational
Similarly, Sergiovanni (1996, p. 57) argues that schools are “moral
Administration
Vol. 42 No. 2, 2004
communities” requiring the development of a distinct leadership based in
pp. 215-235
Limited
“moral authority”. Using more playful language, Hodgkinson (1995, p. 7) states q Emerald Group Publishing0957-8234
that educators are “secular priests working in an arena of ethical excitement”.
DOI 10.1108/09578230410525612
JEA
42,2
216
While the focus on the moral in education is not new – Dewey (1922), for
example, wrote about education as a fundamentally moral practice – what is
new is the increasing interest and rapid expansion of this literature in recent
years. There are probably many reasons for this, including the emergence of
the critical humanist perspective in the 1980s (e.g. Foster, 1986), challenges to
the dominant functionalist research traditions in the field (Greenfield, 1979,
1999), as well as the widely-recognized “new realities” of the social context of
schooling (Cunningham and Mitchell, 1990).
In my view, this emerging literature on the moral in educational leadership
falls into at least three distinct but overlapping strands – moral leadership
theory, the moral purposes of leadership, and ethical leadership practice. First,
scholars have developed a body of work aimed at the explicit development of
moral leadership theory. As Leithwood and Duke (1998, p. 36) note, moral
leadership “has been one of the fastest growing areas of leadership study”.
Scholars who write in this area argue that values are a central part of all
leadership practice and that the proper foci of leadership studies should be the
values and ethics held by school leaders themselves. Sergiovanni’s (1992, p. 16)
argument for a “new kind of leadership” based in “moral authority” is illustrative:
By giving more credence to sense experience and intuition, and by accepting sacred authority
and emotion as fully legitimate ways of knowing – , the value systems undergirding
management theory and leadership practice will grow large enough to account for a new kind
of leadership – one based on moral authority. This kind of leadership can transform schools
into communities and inspire the kind of commitment, devotion, and service that will make
our schools unequaled among society’s institutions.
In addition to advocacy and theoretical work, some research studies have
explored moral leadership in action in the practice of school administrators (e.g.
Dillard, 1995; Enomoto, 1997; Greenfield, 1991; Kasten and Ashbaugh, 1991;
Kelly and Bredeson, 1991; Keyes et al., 1999; Marshall et al., 1996; Reitzug and
Reeves, 1992). Across these studies, common findings are that administrators
are very much aware of the moral aspects of their work and that they do
practice moral leadership in relying on their core values and their commitments
to particular “ends-in-view” in their work in schools.
The second strand in the literature is the increasing attention to these
“ends-in-view” or moral purposes of leadership, that is, the valued outcomes
that should be the goal of leadership endeavors in twenty-first century schools,
such as social justice, racial equity, and learning for all children (Beck and
Murphy, 1994; Furman, 2003; Hodgkinson, 1991). In this strand, the focus is not
so much on the values held by leaders themselves, although this is certainly
relevant, but on the goals of their work, in other words, what leadership is for.
Where traditional leadership studies have tended to take a relatively
value-neutral approach to studying “what leadership is, how it is done, and by
whom” (Furman, 2003), much contemporary scholarship is focusing on the why
of leadership – its moral purposes and how they can be achieved in schools.
Murphy (1999) corroborates this shift in the literature by identifying three new
“paradigms” that might serve as the “center” for educational leadership studies
in the twenty-first century – school improvement, democratic community, and
social justice – and noting that each of these represents a possible “valued end”
for schooling. Relatedly, in describing the work of African American school
leaders, Dantley (2003, p. 196) offers the term “purposive leadership” to capture
these leaders’ sense of commitment to the moral purpose of constructing a
“platform of hope” for marginalized students and communities.
The third development in the literature related to schooling as a moral
endeavor is the emergence of ethics as a distinct area of study during the 1980s
and 1990s. As Beck and Murphy (1997, p. viii) state, educational scholars “are
showing an unprecedented amount of interest in explicit consideration of
ethical issues”, and many are contributing to the development of this strand of
research (e.g. Beck, 1994; Beck and Murphy, 1994; Begley, 1999; Furman and
Gruenewald, in press; Hodgkinson, 1991; Katz et al., 1999; Noddings, 1984;
Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2001; Strike et al., 1998; Willower and Licata, 1997). By
the mid-1990s, ethics was firmly-established as part of the “knowledge base”
for educational leaders, evidenced by:
.
its inclusion as one of seven major “domains” of knowledge in the
document base project of the University Council for Educational
Administration (Hoy, 1994);
.
the proliferation of ethics courses in administrator preparation programs
at universities around the country (Beck and Murphy, 1997); and
.
the inclusion of ethics as one of the six domains in the widely-adopted
“ISLLC” standards for administrator preparation (Interstate School
Leaders Licensure Consortium, 1996).
Given the rapid growth of ethics as an area of study, it is important to identify,
analyze, and critique the dominant concepts and models that are influencing
the field. Beck and Murphy’s (1994, 1997) monographs have made an important
contribution by analyzing the ways that ethics is approached both in the
educational leadership literature and in leadership preparation programs. In
brief summary, they found two primary ways of thinking about ethics in the
field. The first is to approach ethics as principles that can guide ethical
reasoning and decision-making (e.g. the works of Kidder, 1995; Strike et al.,
1998). The assumption underlying this approach is that individual educators,
in their day-to-day professional practice, are confronted with ethical dilemmas
that are difficult to resolve; by applying principles of ethical analysis, the
individual can think through such ethical dilemmas and make decisions that
are ethically sound. For example, a particular dilemma may be understood as a
conflict between two competing values, such as justice versus mercy; when the
dilemma is understood in this way, then principles for resolution may be
applied. These principles for resolution involve comparing the possible
The ethic of
community
217
JEA
42,2
218
outcomes of decisions that are based in differing approaches to ethical
reasoning, such as ends-based (consequentialist), rule-based
(non-consequentialist), or care-based thinking (Beck, 1994; Kidder, 1995).
The second way of thinking about ethics in the field of educational
leadership, according to Beck and Murphy (1997, p. 33), is to equate ethics
with “perspectives that inform perceptions, character, and beliefs”. In this
view, “ethics is less about making decisions using objective principles and
more about living morally in specific situations” (Beck and Murphy, 1997,
p. 33). In other words, ethics is based in the character of the individual –
his or her internalization of moral values and virtues that guide personal
and professional practices, including the resolution of moral dilemmas
encountered in daily practice. Nodding’s (1984) focus on caring in human
relationships and Starratt’s (1994, p. 29) presentation of the “foundational
qualities of an ethical person” are examples of this approach. Although the
two approaches to ethics identified by Beck and Murphy – principles for
decision making and individual character – are different in their emphases,
it should be noted here that both focus on the individual as an ethical
actor; in other words, both imply that individuals are the primary “moral
agents” who have an impact on schooling, a point I will return to shortly.
Perhaps the most familiar ethical framework in common use in education is
the tri-partite frame developed by Starratt (1994, 2003). Starratt claims that
three “ethics” underlie ethical practice: the ethic of justice, the ethic of critique,
and the ethic of care. These ethics complement each other, and each are needed
in the project of “building an ethical school.” The ethic of justice requires that
we “govern ourselves by observing justice. That is to say, we treat each other
according to some standard of justice which is uniformly applied to all our
relationships” (Starratt, 1994, p. 49). In other words, fairness or equal treatment
is the core value underlying an ethic of justice: “The basic idea [of justice] is
that a society must establish rules that are fair to all and then live by those
rules” (Noddings, 1999). If the ethic of justice looks toward fairness, the ethic of
critique looks toward barriers to fairness. The assumption here is that it is
insufficient to work for fairness within existing social and institutional
arrangements if the arrangements themselves are unfair. One must also
critique the present system, examining the ways that policies, practices, and
structures might be unfair, how they might be advantaging one group over
another. The ethic of critique is necessary because:
No social arrangement is neutral. Every social arrangement, no matter how it presents itself
as natural, necessary or simply “the way things are,” is artificial. It is usually structured to
benefit some segments of society at the expense of others. The ethical challenge is to make
these social arrangements more responsive to the human and social rights of all the citizens
(Starratt, 1994, p. 47).
The ethic of critique is important for schools because it “forces educators to
confront the moral issues involved when schools disproportionately benefit
some groups in society and fail others” (Starratt, 1994, p. 47).
The third frame, the ethic of care, is concerned less with fairness – the
equitable distribution of resources and application of rules – and more with
caring for individuals as unique persons. The ethic of care requires absolute
regard for the dignity and intrinsic value of each person, and “desires to see
that persons enjoy a fully human life” (Starratt, 2003, p. 145). Further, the ethic
of care “focuses on the demands of relationships, not from a contractual or
legalistic standpoint, but from a standpoint of absolute regard” and “love”
(Starratt, 2003, p. 145). The ethic of care balances the ethic of justice; what may
be “fair” for one person may not be fair for another, unique individual in very
different circumstances and with very different needs. In presenting the ethic of
care, Starratt closely follows the foundational work of Gilligan (1982) and
Noddings (1984), which in turn reflects the “I-and-Thou” philosophy of Buber.
Across all of these approaches to the ethic of care, a central premise is that
relationships are at the center of human life; however, the focus is primarily on
one-to-one relationships, that is, on individuals and their responsibility to be
caring in their relationships with others.
While other analysts approach ethics differently and might disagree with
Starratt’s frame, there is no question that it has been influential in the field of
educational leadership; many university-based administrator preparation
programs have used Starratt’s 1994 book in ethics courses (Beck and Murphy,
1997), and many researchers and analysts use his work as a theoretical frame
(e.g. Enomoto, 1997). Shapiro and Stefkovich (2001, p. 18), however, suggest
that Starratt’s tri-partite frame needs to be expanded by adding a fourth ethical
dimension – the ethic of the profession – arguing that:
[. . .] even taken together, the ethics of justice, critique, and care do not provide an adequate
picture of the factors that must be taken into consideration as leaders strive to make ethical
decisions within the context of educational settings. What is missing – that is, what these
paradigms tend to ignore – is a consideration of those moral aspects unique to the profession
. . . To fill this gap, we add a fourth to the three ethical frameworks . . . a paradigm of
professional ethics.
The moral aspect unique to the profession, they state, is the moral imperative to
“serve the best interests of the student” (Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2001, p. 23). In
other words, Shapiro and Stefkovich are arguing that, however valuable, the
ethics of justice, critique, and care do not adequately take in the unique
professional responsibilities of educators, which are shaped not only by
personal values, but also by professional ethical codes. The ethic of the
profession places “students at the center of the ethical decision-making
process” (Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2001, p. 23) and is a necessary complement to
the other ethics. Shapiro and Stefkovich thus propose a four-part model that
includes the ethics of justice, critique, care, and the profession.
Within these several frames for thinking about moral leadership and ethics
are glimmers of and gestures toward the communal. Shapiro and Stefkovich
(2001, p. 22), for example, recognize that individuals’ professional ethical codes
The ethic of
community
219
JEA
42,2
220
are influenced by “community standards, including both the professional
community and the community in which the leader works”. They also note that
the ethic of critique is linked, in the works of Giroux (1991), Shapiro and Purpel
(1993) and others, to “social discourse” (Giroux, 1991, p. 48) and dialogue. In
other words, it is only through “social discourse” that the voices of the
marginalized can be heard and the inequities of the system can be exposed.
Sergiovanni (1992, p. 86) includes an entire chapter on “collegiality as a
professional virtue” in his book on moral leadership, suggesting that
promoting collegiality (or the communal) is one of the tasks of moral leadership
in schools. Similarly, in her treatise on caring in educational administration,
Beck (1994) calls for a leadership that emphasizes relationships, encourages
collaboration, and promotes a sense of belonging for students and staff.
Starratt (1994, p. 50) perhaps goes the farthest in linking ethics to the
communal. He reminds us that concepts of justice are not developed in
isolation, but are shaped by “participation in the life of the community” and
that moral choices are best made in a communitarian setting. He states:
It can be argued that an ethic of justice, especially when focused on issues of governance in a
school setting, can encompass in practice the two understandings of justice, namely, justice
understood as individual choice to act justly, and justice understood as the community’s
choice to direct or govern its actions justly. In a school setting, both are required (Starratt,
1994, pp. 50-51, emphasis in the original).
In work subsequent to his 1994 book, Starratt (1996, 2003) puts even more
emphasis on the communal, positing that the “administering of community” is
one of the primary goals of moral leadership in schools.
These gestures toward the communal suggest that these ethical theorists
have been influenced by the growing interest in community in education (to be
discussed in the next section) and wish to draw connections between these
ethical frames and the communal. Yet these gestures toward the communal are
peripheral to the central points in each frame and do not change the fact that
most approaches to ethics in educational leadership are based in the
assumption of the individual administrator as ethical leader, decision-maker,
and moral agent. As Leithwood and Duke (1998, p. 36) state, “Much of the
writing about moral leadership . . . adopts the perspective of those in formal
administrative roles”. Thus, these approaches tend to highlight and focus our
attention on the cognitive, emotional, moral, and even spiritual experiences that
are internal to the individual actor and that serve that individual as a guide for
his or her moral leadership practice. With the exception of Starratt’s (1994,
1996, 2003) suggestions for the collaborative work needed to “build an ethical
school,” little attention is given in the ethics literature to the communal
processes that are necessary to achieve the moral purposes of schooling in the
twenty-first century. Thus, these ethical frames do little to pull our thinking
beyond the mindset, so entrenched in our Western society, our schools, and our
field of study, of the individual as “leader” and moral agent.
The ethic of community
Along with ethics, community has been increasingly a subject of educational
analysis and research in recent years. Advocates of community– building in
schools claim multiple potential benefits, including a reduced sense of alienation
for students, improved achievement, enhanced collegiality for educators, and the
possibility for practices that are more democratic (Furman, 2002; Louis and
Kruse, 1995; Sergiovanni, 1996); a thin but growing research base supports some
of these claims (e.g. Beck and Murphy, 1996; Bryk and Driscoll, 1988; Shouse,
1996). In fields other than education, the concept of community is also gaining
ground. For example, Wenger’s (1998) work in business organizations seems to
show that “communities of practice” are the fundamental social units that
promote learning, creativity, and constructive action within organizations.
While it is not the purpose here to review this community literature in any depth
(and most readers will be familiar with the basic assumptions and claims within
this work), what is needed here is to show the link between this work on
community and the proposal for an ethic of community.
Much of the literature on community in schools emphasizes the importance of
relationships, collaboration, and communication; however, in its general usage,
the term “community” tends to connote an entity, a thing, a product, or a specific
type of social configuration. In other words, when one perceives the term
community, one conceives a mental image of a tangible entity. Thus, when
Sergiovanni (1994) calls for a new metaphor for schools – substituting
“community” for “organization” – one still envisions a community-like
organization. Beck (2002) corroborates this tendency to view community as a
thing in her analytical review of the literature on community. She found that
“ontological” images of community abounded: community was likened to “a
family,” “a circus,” “a neighborhood,” or “a jazz group.” In other words,
community is typically conceived as a thing, an entity to be “created” in schools,
or a specific type of “social/organizational arrangement” (Beck, 2002, p. 26).
In contrast, in my recent analysis of the prospects for “creating” community
in schools (Furman, 2002, p. 285, emphasis in the original), I concluded that:
[. . .] community is processual. The sense of community, of connection with others, is based in
relationships, which depend in turn on the ongoing processes of communication, dialogue,
and collaboration, and not on a set of discreet indicators such as “shared values” and “shared
decision making.” Thus, community is not a product or entity that can be measured, but an
ongoing set of processes that are facilitated by educators who understand and are committed
to these processes.
In other words, to promote fundamental changes in how schools operate with
the goal of enhancing community-like experiences, it is more important to focus
on the processes of community than the entity of community, and it is more
important to inspire commitment to these processes than commitment to the
metaphor or image of community as an end “product.”
The proposal here for an ethic of community devolves from this analysis of
community as process. In its simplest terms, an ethic of community means that
The ethic of
community
221
JEA
42,2
222
administrators, teachers, school staffs, students, parents, and other community
members interested in schools commit to the processes of community. In other
words, they feel that they are morally responsible to engage in communal
processes as they pursue the moral purposes of schooling and address the
ongoing challenges of daily life and work in schools. Thus, an ethic of
community centers the communal over the individual as moral agent – it shifts
the locus of moral agency to the community as a whole. It leads to a practice of
moral leadership that is clearly distributed and based first and foremost in
interpersonal and group skills, such as:
.
listening with respect;
.
striving for knowing and understanding others;
.
communicating effectively;
.
working in teams;
.
engaging in ongoing dialogue; and
.
creating forums that allow all voices to be heard.
It also means that all persons involved in school communities need to develop
these moral leadership skills and practices.
The ethic of community complements and expands the frames developed
by Starratt (1994) and Shapiro and Stefkovich (2001) in its focus on the
communal rather than the individual. Where the other frames highlight the
values that might guide ethical practice in schools – justice, critique, and
care – the ethic of community centers this ethical practice in communal
processes. Thus, the ethic of community is useful in mitigating one of the
perennial problems of “traditional” research in educational leadership – the
unrealistic assumption that “heroic” leaders can provide the vision and
expertise to overcome the many challenges facing public schooling in the
twenty-first century and lead schools in transformative directions (Bogotch,
2002; Heifetz, 1994). The expanded ethical frame is illustrated in Figure 1.
This definition and argument for an ethic of community generates two
immediate questions[1]:
Figure 1.
Ethical framework
centered in the ethic of
community
(1) What are the “communal processes” to which educators should commit?
(2) Why is a leadership practice based in an ethic of community important
in today’s schools?
To address these two questions, in the following sections I will draw from
recent literature on democratic community and social justice in schools.
Democratic community and communal processes
What are the “communal processes” to which educators should commit if an
ethic of community is adopted as a guide to leadership practice? While there is
no one answer to this question, recent work on democratic community in
schools is very useful in suggesting promising directions.
The idea of democratic community has acquired some shared meanings in
recent educational literature. Kahne (1996) uses concepts derived directly from
Dewey when he contrasts “traditional communitarians,” who value traditional
roles, responsibilities and norms, with “democratic communitarians,” who
consider democracy as a “way of life” in which “community norms and values
[are] continually held open to informed critique” (Kahne, 1996, p. 27). According
to Kahne, in such a democratic community diversity is recognized and respected,
and change is expected. From this perspective, democratic community may be
defined as a participatory way of life, a process, “not a stagnant end” (Kahne,
1996, p. 34), in which individuals are committed to the “full and free” interplay of
ideas (Kahne, 1996, p. 34). Similarly, Apple and Beane (1995, p. 6) discuss the
foundations for a “democratic way of life” and how it might be enacted in
schools. The central concerns of democratic schools, they state, include the “open
flow of ideas, regardless of their popularity; the use of critical reflection and
analysis to evaluate ideas, problems, and policies; concern for the welfare of
others and the common good; and concern for the dignity and rights of
individuals and minorities” (Apple and Beane, 1995, pp. 6-7).
From these and other discussions of democratic community in schools (e.g.
Crow and Slater, 1996; Furman and Starratt, 2002; Maxcy, 1995; Reitzug and
O’Hair, 2002), some common meanings or principles emerge:
.
Democratic community is based on a reverence for open inquiry, or the
“full and free interplay” of ideas (Dewey, 1916, p. 83).
.
Democratic community members feel a responsibility to participate in
open inquiry to work for the common good.
.
In democratic community, the worth and dignity of individuals and the
value of their participation are respected.
Two observations on this understanding of democratic community as
developed in education should be noted here: first, this concept of democratic
community is very concerned with diversity, that is, with how to be both
democratic and communal in an increasingly diverse and multicultural society.
The ethic of
community
223
JEA
42,2
224
Second, as Furman and Starratt (2002) have noted, this understanding of
democratic community is virtually synonymous with the concept of “deep
democracy” as developed by Gutmann (1987), Green (1999) and others. For
example, Green (1999, p. 60, emphasis in the original), who writes from the
perspective of philosophy, reflects the democratic community principles of
open inquiry, respect for individuals, and working for the common good in her
advocacy for deep democracy in our increasingly diverse society:
The best hope today for preserving what is most insightful and rich in the world’s diverse
cultures is deep democracy . . . This involves respecting, communicating receptively, and
cooperating with those whose values are different than but not unalterably antagonistic to
one’s own, even as one celebrates one’s own cultural memories and renews the rituals that
give one’s cultural tradition ongoing life in new times and circumstances”.
Using these nearly interchangeable principles of democratic community and
deep democracy as a basis, I suggest the following three sets of communal
processes as a starting point for leadership practices that embrace an ethic of
community in schools:
(1) processes for knowing, understanding, and valuing;
(2) processes for full participation and inquiry; and
(3) processes for working toward the common good.
I offer the specific suggestions that follow as a sample of the many possibilities
that could be developed in schools.
Communal processes for knowing, understanding, and valuing
First is a set of processes that aim at knowing, understanding, and valuing
others as unique individuals and as members of valued cultural groups. This
deeper knowledge and understanding of others, while a prerequisite for
developing respect for the worth and dignity of individuals, is often a problem
in schools. Indeed, as research by Shields (1999) in Navajo schools has shown,
educators may know very little about their students and their home cultures
and base many decisions on bias and inaccurate assumptions. Some
possibilities for processes aimed at knowing, understanding, and valuing
individuals, their home cultures, and the communities in which they live would
be deep or intentional listening, “getting-to-know-you” projects in schools, and
place-based education.
Deep or intentional listening. Deep or intentional listening involves inviting
others to tell their stories of who they are, what their lives are like, and what
they hope for, and then fully attending as these stories are told. Deep listening
also involves suspending one’s own assumptions, judgments and emotional
reactions. As Isaacs (1999, p. 98, emphasis in the original) states, “Often when
we listen to others we may discover that we are listening from disturbance; in
other words, we are listening from an emotional memory rather than from the
present moment”. Deep listening is a skill that needs to be learned. Isaacs (1999)
suggests a process for learning to listen from the perspective of dialogue
theory, and Schultz (2003) offers ideas for deeper listening between teachers
and students in classrooms.
“Getting to know you” projects. A variety of school-wide and
classroom-based activities can be promoted to help educators and students
get to know and appreciate each other. These activities fit naturally into the
regular curriculum, and many familiar teaching activities can simply be
adapted to promote knowing, understanding and valuing. The Child
Development Project’s (1994) publication, At Home in Our Schools, offers
many ideas for these adaptations of school-wide and classroom-based projects
and activities. For example, a “welcoming newcomers” project might involve
setting up “welcoming committees” in classrooms to introduce newcomers to
the school and designing “getting to know you” bulletin boards featuring
photographs, artwork, and other information about new students and teachers.
Many of these school-based activities can be extended beyond the school walls
to include people in the community. Multiple creative ideas for projects such as
these can be generated by educators and students within their local school
context. However, a few of these activities implemented in isolation in specific
classrooms will have little impact on knowing, understanding, and valuing
others throughout the school community. What is needed is a commitment
throughout the school to the need to know, understand, and value others, and to
the creative development of projects that address this need.
Place-based education. A recent development in curriculum theory,
place-based education offers curricular strategies for developing a deeper
knowledge of the community, its history, and its cultural and natural
environment. In essence, place-based education is an umbrella term for
approaches that self-consciously try to connect pedagogy to local place, that is, to
engage students in “reinhabitation” (Gruenewald, 2003) of their local
environments. Gruenewald (2003, in press), Sobel (1996) and others are
contributing to a growing literature base on place-based education, and the
Rural School and Community Trust has published the Place-based Learning
Portfolio Workbook (see http://ruraledu.org/rtportfolio/index.htm), which
provides a detailed “rubric” for documenting and assessing place-based
pedagogies. Specific “methodologies” associated with place-based education
that can contribute to knowing, understanding, and valuing include cultural
journalism and natural history (Furman and Gruenewald, in press). Cultural
journalism, or local history, aims to create connections between teachers,
students, and the cultural life of their communities by engaging students in
interviewing community members, gathering stories about local traditions,
producing knowledge about local cultural life, and publishing articles, journals,
and books. The primary benefit of doing local histories is the process of learning
about and caring more deeply for one’s home community and the local “places”
beyond the confines of the classroom. Similarly, natural history methods provide
The ethic of
community
225
JEA
42,2
226
firsthand experience with the living world outside the classroom, that is, they
involve students in studying the natural environment of their local community
through regular excursions “into the field” (Knapp, 1992; Sobel, 1996).
Communal processes for full participation and inquiry
A second set of communal processes are those aimed at full participation and
open inquiry. Clearly, a prerequisite for participation and inquiry in any school
setting is the opportunity for participation, in other words, the creation of
“spaces” with the school structure and schedule for dialogue and deliberation.
The range of possible configurations for these spaces is almost limitless, from
small focus groups within classrooms to open town meetings involving all
members of the community; each school community needs to develop a
configuration that is appropriate for and responsive to the local culture and
needs. Given the existence of such “spaces,” however, the methodology of
communication and deliberation is critical. How can full and constructive
participation and inquiry be promoted and sustained?
One promising approach is dialogue, or “the art of thinking together”
(Isaacs, 1999). Sometimes used as a proxy for “conversations,” the term
“dialogue” actually refers to a specific theoretical approach or paradigm for
talking together that holds promise for building understandings and
generating creative, synergistic responses to problems, particularly in
settings characterized by differences in cultural perspectives and values.
Isaacs (1999, p. 9, emphasis in original) defines dialogue as “a living experience
of inquiry within and between people” or “a conversation in which people think
together in relationship . . . and listen to the possibilities” (Isaacs, 1999, p. 19).
He states:
Dialogue, as I define it, is a conversation with a center, not sides. It is a way of taking the
energy of our differences and channeling it toward something that has never been created
before. It lifts us out of polarization and into a greater common sense, and is thereby a means
for accessing the intelligence and coordinated power of groups of people (Isaacs, 1999, p. 19,
emphasis in the original).
Most writers on dialogue agree that there is no “recipe or algorithm” (Burbulus,
1993, p. ix) for dialogue. Rather, it involves sets of predispositions or
understandings that form a “container” for talking and thinking together, along
with some practices that need to be learned – listening, respecting, suspending,
and voicing (Isaacs, 1999). While a fuller treatment of dialogue is not possible
here[2], it is important to include it in a discussion of communal processes since
“talking together” skills are critical to the ethic of community and are so
conspicuously neglected in most discussions of school community.
Communal processes for working toward the common good
A third set of communal processes would be aimed at working toward the
common good of the community. Of course, all of the foregoing processes
for knowing, understanding, and valuing, and for full participation and
inquiry, serve the interests of working toward the common good. For
example, a specific premise of dialogue theory is that conceptions of the
common good and ideas for action can be constructed within and emerge
from dialogic interactions. However, to complement and extend these other
processes, action research is a method that can bridge from the ideas and
understandings generated by dialogue to specific projects and actions.
The typical understanding of “action research” in education is rather
narrow – that it is research conducted by educators, for themselves, in
order to solve specific problems of classroom practice (Mills, 2000; Stringer,
2004). Here I use a broader definition: action research is problem-solving
research, which is typically conducted in local contexts by those who have
a vested interest in solving the problem. Using this definition,
school-sponsored action research can be a powerful mechanism for
involving students in the study of, and service toward, their own schools
and communities. The significance of action research as a communal
process aimed at working toward the common good is its potential to
engage educators and students as change agents as they investigate and
gather data on their community, its cultures, and its problems, and then
plan and implement some sort of action. Action research “texts” (Mills,
2000; Stringer, 2004) are excellent sources of ideas for the methods of
action research, while a more comprehensive discussion of the role of
action research in democratic education can be found in Hart (1997).
To reiterate, the foregoing suggestions for communal processes are merely a
sample of the possibilities for communal leadership practices; however, they
hopefully serve as an entry point for thinking about the ethic of community as
the basis for leadership practice in schools. The next section turns to the third
and final question, why is it important to commit to these communal processes
in schools?
The ethic of community and social justice
To explore the importance of an ethic of community in today’s schools, I return
to a point made earlier in this article, that the moral purposes of schooling and
school leadership are becoming a central focus of the field. In other words, what
is most important to address in the study of leadership in the twenty-first
century is how leadership can help achieve valued outcomes such as social
justice, racial equity, and learning for all children in schools. The claim here is
that leadership practice must be grounded in an ethic of community in order to
achieve these moral purposes. In other words, the ethic of community is a
vehicle for leadership practice aimed at these valued ends-in-view. This section
looks more closely at this relationship, using the example of social justice as a
moral purpose or valued end of schooling.
The ethic of
community
227
JEA
42,2
228
Social justice has recently acquired a new intensity and urgency in education
for several reasons, including the increasing diversity of school populations
(Goldring and Greenfield, 2002), the growing awareness of the achievement and
economic gaps between mainstream and minoritized children (Coleman, 1990;
Bowles and Gintis, 1976; Valenzuela, 1999), and the increasingly sophisticated
analyses of social injustice as played out in schools, including the injustices
that may arise from the current policy environment of high-stakes assessment
and accountability (Larson and Ovando, 2001; Macedo, 1995; McNeil, 2000;
Rapp, 2002). While there is no static, agreed-on definition for social justice,
Bogotch (2002) reminds us that constructs such as social justice acquire a
shared, though imprecise, meaning during certain periods of time. In education,
the current shared meanings about social justice include its critical stance, that
is, its critique of current educational arrangements that are “rife with inequity
. . . and lead to inequitable outcomes” for children (Pounder et al., 2002, p. 270);
its call for radical change to address these inequities (Bogotch, 2002; Grogan,
2002); and its general goal of improving the “education and life chances of poor
and minority children” (Larson and Murtadha, 2002, p. 150) through changes in
schooling. Taken together, these shared meanings of social justice suggest that
working for social justice requires a deliberate intervention that challenges
fundamental inequities and works toward better educational and economic
outcomes for marginalized children.
However, the specific nature of this deliberate intervention remains vague.
Larson and Murtadha (2002, p. 157), for example, provide a fine review of the
background theories and arguments related to social justice, but conclude that
“there is a vagueness . . . as to what all of this means to researchers and
practitioners”. However, a recent analysis by Bogotch (2002) provides a helpful
distinction between “social justice from a community perspective” and social
justice related to a “quasi-heroic discourse based on ‘individualistic’ notions” of
leadership (Bogotch, 2002, p. 144). From a community perspective, working for
social justice involves an openness to the participation of all community
members in “constructing” visions of social justice that are appropriate and
meaningful within the local context; further, this work is “continuous and
recursive,” because when local conditions change, “the only recourse is to begin
again” to reconstruct social justice (Bogotch, 2002, pp. 146-7). In contrast, from
the individualistic perspective, working for social justice is based in “heroic”
action. As Bogotch (2002, p. 148) states, “Heroic individuals often have a
single-mindedness to pursue their own vision tenaciously and apart from
others who may not share their particular vision. Such visions, or notions of
social justice begin and end as a discrete, yet coherent belief system that
separates nonbelievers from true believers”. Rather than “constructing” the
meaning of social justice locally and communally, from diverse views, and
engaging the community in working toward it, heroic leaders struggle
valiantly, often against great odds, to achieve a particular vision of social
justice. Although Bogotch says that both the communal and individualistic
approaches are important, he also concludes that “all social justice/educational
reform efforts must be deliberately and continuously reinvented and critiqued”
(Bogotch, 2002,p. 154), a process he clearly links with the communal view of
social justice. Thus, Bogotch’s analysis strongly suggests the importance of a
communal perspective when working for social justice in schools.
Taking this communal perspective of social justice a step further, Furman
and Shields (2003) argue that the concepts of democratic community and social
justice are inextricably connected. They state:
Social justice is not possible without deep democracy; neither is deep democracy possible
without social justice. Indeed, there is an essential and dynamic interplay both within and
between these concepts that provides a sort of check and balance... Insofar as deep democratic
processes permit a construction of what social justice means, we cannot attend to issues of
power without deep democratic processes. Our concept of social justice, on the other hand,
suggests some essential underlying values and offers a construction of moral purpose that
provides the compass for the common good (Furman and Shields, 2003, p. 18).
In other words, meanings of social justice as well as decisions on the “deliberate
interventions” required to work for social justice are constructed by the
community through the processes of deep democracy – open inquiry and
critique – with a broad scope of participation across community members,
while social justice, in turn, provides the moral compass for the processes of
democratic community.
Essentially, these arguments for a democratic communal approach to social
justice are saying that social justice cannot be realized given the status quo of
hierachical relationships in schools, assumptions that moral leadership is the
purview of “heroic” leaders in administrative positions, and the dearth of
opportunities for “full participation and open inquiry” (Furman and Shields,
2003). Communal processes, as captured in the proposal for an ethic of
community, are necessary. In other words, an ethic of community, when
adopted as a basis for leadership practice, is a vehicle for working toward
social justice because it centers in leadership practice the communal processes
of democratic community, which are necessary aspects of striving for social
justice in schools. When school “leaders” – meaning anyone and everyone who
cares about what happens in schools – internalize the ethic of community as a
guide to practice, they turn away from “heroic” and often futile notions of moral
leadership toward communal notions; they recognize that working toward
moral purposes like social justice is a communal responsibility rather than the
purview of a “transformational” leader with “vision”; they become open to the
possibilities of constructing concepts of social justice that are appropriate in the
unique contexts in which they work and learn; and they develop the capacity to
reconstruct social justice continually through communal work. Thus, an ethic
of community centers the communal over the individual as the primary locus of
moral leadership and agency in schools.
The ethic of
community
229
JEA
42,2
230
Figure 2.
Links between ethics,
leadership practice, and
social justice in schools
Conclusion
As I think about the importance of the ethic of community as a guide for
leadership practice, I am reminded of analyses that are unfolding in regard to
other issues in education. For example, there is a major thrust to identify the
links between leadership practice and student learning outcomes; as with the
work on social justice and democratic community, this endeavor often has
suffered from the assumption that the individual “heroic” leader can act as a
primary agent in improving student learning. [And, of course, the current
national and state-level policy environment tends to reify this notion by, for
example, holding school principals accountable for increasing achievement test
scores in their schools.] New analyses, however, are acknowledging the
complexity of the links between leadership and learning; they are creating new
scaffolds for thinking about the multi-layered, complex relationships among
various dimensions of schooling that have an impact on learning. For example,
Spillane and Louis (2002) “backward map” from student learning through a
complex series of links among classroom instruction, classroom community,
school-wide professional community, organizational learning, and leadership
practices. While their analysis suggests a sort of “intervening variable” or
causal-chain model in regard to the relationship between leadership and
learning, at the same time it clearly highlights the importance of the communal
in working toward improved student learning. They state, for example, that
without the development of social trust, time to meet and talk, strong teacher
voice in decisions, and reduced school size and complexity, professional
community – a critical component for improved student learning – will not be
possible.
I see this analysis in regard to ethic of community in a similar way. If we
“backward map” from the moral purpose of creating social justice in schools, as
presented here, we discover that democratic communal processes are at the
heart of working toward this valued end. And we see that leadership practice
means participating in, promoting, and supporting these communal processes.
The ethic of community captures the centrality of this need for communal
processes in a way that the ethics of justice, critique, care (Starratt, 1994) and
the profession (Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2001) do not. Thus, the ethic of
community is a missing link in thinking about the relationships among ethics,
leadership practice, and the moral purposes of schooling. Figure 2 illustrates
these relationships.
In short, I believe that the commitment to the ethic of community is the
foundation for moral leadership practice in twenty-first century schools.
The ethic of
community
Notes
1. Of course, many other questions for analysis, research, and practice are generated by this
argument, but it is beyond the scope of this article to catalogue or respond to these questions
fully.
2. The reader is referred to Burbulus (1993), Isaacs (1999), Shields (1999), and Sidorkin (1999)
for fuller theoretical discussions and details on the practices associated with dialogue.
231
References
Apple, M.W. and Beane, J.A. (Eds) (1995), Democratic Schools, Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development, Alexandria, VA.
Beck, L.G. (1994), Reclaiming Educational Administration as a Caring Profession, Teachers
College Press, Columbia University, New York, NY.
Beck, L.G. (2002), “The complexity and coherence of educational communities: an analysis of the
images that reflect and influence scholarship and practice”, in Furman, G.C. (Ed.), School
as Community: From Promise to Practice, SUNY Press, Albany, NY, pp. 23-49.
Beck, L.G. and Murphy, J. (1994), Ethics in Educational Leadership Programs: An Expanding
Role, Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Beck, L.G. and Murphy, J. (1996), The Four Imperatives of a Successful School, Corwin Press,
Thousand Oaks, CA.
Beck, L.G. and Murphy, J. (1997), Ethics in Educational Leadership Programs: Emerging Models,
University Council for Educational Administration, Columbia, MO.
Begley, P.T. (1999), Values and Educational Leadership, SUNY Press, Albany, NY.
Bogotch, I.E. (2002), “Educational leadership and social justice: practice into theory”, Journal of
School Leadership, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 138-56.
Bowles, S. and Gintis, H. (1976), Schooling in Capitalist America, Basic Books, New York, NY.
Bryk, A.S. and Driscoll, M.E. (1988), The High School as Community: Contextual Influences and
Consequences for Students and Teachers, Wisconsin Center for Education Research,
National Center on Effective Secondary Schools, Madison, WI.
Burbulus, N.C. (1993), Dialogue in Teaching, Teachers College Press, Columbia University,
New York, NY.
Child Development Project (1994), At Home in Our Schools, Developmental Studies Center,
Oakland, CA.
Coleman, J.S. (1990), Equality and Achievement in Education, Westview, San Francisco, CA.
Crow, G.M. and Slater, R.O. (1996), Educating Democracy: The Role of Systemic Leadership,
National Policy Board for Educational Administration, Fairfax, VA.
Cunningham, L.L. and Mitchell, B. (1990), Educational Leadership and Changing Contexts in
Families, Communities, and Schools. 89th Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of
Education, National Society for the Study of Education, Chicago, IL.
Dantley, M.E. (2003), “Principled, pragmatic, and purposive leadership: reimagining educational
leadership through prophetic spirituality”, Journal of School Leadership, Vol. 13 No. 2,
pp. 181-98.
Dewey, J. (1916), Democracy and Education, Free Press, New York, NY.
JEA
42,2
232
Dewey, J. (1922), Human Nature and Conduct, Random House, New York, NY.
Dillard, C.B. (1995), “Leading with her life: an African-American feminist (re)interpretation of
leadership for an urban high school principal”, Educational Administration Quarterly,
Vol. 31, pp. 539-63.
Enomoto, E.K. (1997), “Negotiating the ethics of care and justice”, Educational Administration
Quarterly, Vol. 33, pp. 351-70.
Foster, W. (1986), Paradigms and Promises: New Approaches to Educational Administration,
Prometheus, Buffalo, NY.
Furman, G.C. (Ed.) (2002), School as Community: From Promise to Practice, SUNY Press, Albany,
NY.
Furman, G.C. (2003), “The 2002 UCEA presidential address: toward a ‘new’ scholarship of
educational leadership”, UCEA Review, Vol. 45 No. 1, pp. 1-6.
Furman, G.C. and Gruenewald, D.A. (in press), “Expanding the landscape of social justice: a
critical ecological analysis”, Educational Administration Quarterly.
Furman, G.C. and Shields, C.M. (2003), “How can educational leaders promote and support social
justice and democratic community in schools?”, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of
the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL, 21-25 April.
Furman, G.C. and Starratt, R.J. (2002), “Leadership for democratic community in schools”, in
Murphy, J. (Ed.), The Educational Leadership Challenge: Redefining Leadership for the 21st
Century. 101st Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, National
Society for the Study of Education, Chicago, IL, pp. 105-33.
Gilligan, C. (1982), In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Giroux, H.A. (Ed.) (1991), Postmodernism, Feminism, and Cultural Politics: Redrawing
Educational Boundaries, SUNY Press, Albany, NY.
Goldring, E. and Greenfield, W. (2002), “Understanding the evolving concept of leadership in
education: roles, expectations, and dilemmas”, in Murphy, J. (Ed.), The Educational
Leadership Challenge: Redefining Leadership for the 21st Century. 101st Yearbook of the
National Society for the Study of Education, National Society for the Study of Education,
Chicago, IL, pp. 1-19.
Green, J.M. (1999), Deep Democracy: Community, Diversity, and Transformation, Rowman &
Littlefield, Lanham, MD.
Greenfield, T.B. (1979), “Ideas versus data: how can the data speak for themselves?”, in
Immegart, G.L. and Boyd, W.L. (Eds), Problem Finding in Educational Administration:
Trends in Research and Theory, D.C. Heath & Co., Lexington, MA, pp. 167-90.
Greenfield, W.D. (1991), “The micropolitics of leadership in an urban elementary school”, in
Blasé, J. (Ed.), The Politics of Life in Schools: Power, Conflict, and Cooperation, Sage,
Newbury Park, CA, pp. 161-84.
Greenfield, W.D. (1999), “Moral leadership in schools: fact or fancy?”, paper presented at the
Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, 19-23 April.
Grogan, M. (2002), “Guest editor’s introduction: leadership for social justice”, Journal of School
Leadership, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 112-15.
Gruenewald, D. (2003), “The best of both worlds: a critical pedagogy of place”, Educational
Researcher, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 3-12.
Gruenewald, D. (in press), “Foundations of place: a multidisciplinary framework for
place-conscious education”, American Educational Research Journal.
Gutmann, A. (1987), Democratic Education, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Hart, R. (1997), Children’s Participation: The Theory and Practice of Involving Young Citizens in
Community Development and Environmental Care, Earthscan, London.
Heifetz, R.A. (1994), Leadership without Easy Answers, Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
MA.
Hodgkinson, C. (1991), Educational Leadership: The Moral Art, SUNY Press, Albany, NY.
Hodgkinson, C. (1995), “Towards an axiology of leadership”, Organizational Theory Dialogue,
Spring, pp. 2-8.
Hoy, W.K. (Ed.) (1994), The UCEA Document Base, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (1996), Standards for School Leaders, Council of
Chief State School Officers, Washington, DC.
Isaacs, W. (1999), Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together, Currency, New York, NY.
Kahne, J. (1996), Reframing Educational Policy: Democracy, Community, and the Individual,
Teachers College Press, Columbia University, New York, NY.
Kasten, K.L. and Ashbaugh, C.R. (1991), “The place of values in superintendents’ work”, Journal
of Educational Administration, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 54-66.
Katz, M.S., Noddings, N. and Strike, K.A. (Eds) (1999), Justice and Caring: The Search for
Common Ground in Education, Teachers College Press, Columbia University, New York,
NY.
Kelly, G.E. and Bredeson, P.V. (1991), “Measures of meaning in a public and in a parochial school:
principals as symbol managers”, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 29 No. 3,
pp. 6-22.
Keyes, M.W., Hanley-Maxwell, C. and Capper, C.A. (1999), “’Spirituality? It’s the core of my
leadership’: empowering leadership in an inclusive elementary school”, Educational
Administration Quarterly, Vol. 35, pp. 203-37.
Kidder, R.M. (1995), How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical
Living, Fireside, New York, NY.
Knapp, C. (1992), Lasting Lessons: A Teacher’s Guide to Reflecting on Experience, ERIC Press,
Charleston, VA.
Larson, C.L. and Murtadha, K. (2002), “Leadership for social justice”, in Murphy, J. (Ed.), The
Educational Leadership Challenge: Redefining Leadership for the 21st Century. 101st
Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, National Society for the Study
of Education, Chicago, IL, pp. 134-61.
Larson, C. and Ovando, C. (2001), The Color of Bureaucracy: The Politics of Equity in
Multicultural School Communities, Wadsworth, Belmont, CA.
Leithwood, K. and Duke, D.L. (1998), “Mapping the conceptual terrain of leadership: a critical
point of departure for cross-cultural studies”, Peabody Journal of Education, Vol. 73 No. 2,
pp. 31-50.
Louis, K.S. and Kruse, S.D. (1995), Professionalism and Community: Perspectives on Reforming
Urban Schools, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
McNeil, L.M. (2000), Contradictions of School Reform: Educational Costs of Standardized Testing,
Routledge, New York, NY.
Macedo, D. (1995), “Power and education: who decides the forms schools have taken, and who
should decide?”, in Kincheloe, J.L. and Steinberg, S.R. (Eds), Thirteen Questions, 2nd ed.,
Peter Lang, New York, NY.
The ethic of
community
233
JEA
42,2
234
Marshall, C., Patterson, J.A., Rogers, D.L. and Steele, J.R. (1996), “Caring as career: an alternative
perspective for educational administration”, Educational Administration Quarterly, Vol. 32,
pp. 271-94.
Maxcy, S.J. (1995), Democracy, Chaos, and the New School Order, Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks,
CA.
Mills, G.E. (2000), Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher Researcher, Merrill, Upper Saddle
River, NJ.
Murphy, J. (1999), The Quest for a Center: Notes on the State of the Profession of Educational
Leadership, University Council for Educational Administration, Columbia, MO.
Noddings, N. (1984), Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, University of
California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Noddings, N. (1999), “Care, justice, and equity”, in Katz, M.S., Noddings, N. and Strike, K.A. (Eds),
Justice and Caring: The Search for Common Ground in Education, Teachers College Press,
Columbia University, New York, NY, pp. 7-20.
Pounder, D., Reitzug, U. and Young, M.D. (2002), “Preparing school leaders for school
improvement, social justice, and community”, in Murphy, J. (Ed.), The Educational
Leadership Challenge: Redefining Leadership for the 21st Century. 101st Yearbook of the
National Society for the Study of Education, National Society for the Study of Education,
Chicago, IL, pp. 261-88.
Rapp, D. (2002), “Social justice and the importance of rebellious, oppositional imaginations”,
Journal of School Leadership, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 226-45.
Reitzug, U.C. and O’Hair, M.J. (2002), “Tensions and struggles in moving toward a democratic
school community”, in Furman, G.C. (Ed.), School as Community: From Promise to
Practice, SUNY Press, Albany, NY, pp. 119-41.
Reitzug, U.C. and Reeves, J.E. (1992), “‘Miss Lincoln doesn’t teach here’: a descriptive narrative
and conceptual analysis of a principal’s symbolic leadership behavior”, Educational
Administration Quarterly, Vol. 28, pp. 185-219.
Schultz, K. (2003), Listening: A Framework for Teaching across Differences, Teachers College
Press, Columbia University, New York, NY.
Sergiovanni, T.J. (1992), Moral Leadership: Getting to the Heart of School Improvement,
Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
Sergiovanni, T.J. (1994), “Organizations or communities? Changing the metaphor changes the
theory”, Educational Administration Quarterly, Vol. 30, pp. 214-26.
Sergiovanni, T.J. (1996), Leadership for the Schoolhouse: How Is It Different? Why Is It
Important?, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
Shapiro, H.S. and Purpel, E.E. (Eds) (1993), Critical Social Issues in American Education: Toward
the 21st Century, Longman, New York, NY.
Shapiro, J.P. and Stefkovich, J.A. (2001), Ethical Leadership and Decision Making in Education:
Applying Theoretical Perspectives to Complex Dilemmas, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
Mahwah, NJ.
Shields, C.M. (1999), “Learning from students about representation, identity, and community”,
Educational Administration Quarterly, Vol. 35, pp. 1, 6, 129.
Shouse, R.C. (1996), “Academic press and sense of community: conflict, congruence, and
implications for student achievement”, Social Psychology of Education, Vol. 1, pp. 47-68.
Sidorkin, A.M. (1999), Beyond Discourse: Education, the Self, and Dialogue, SUNY Press, Albany,
NY.
Sobel, D. (1996), Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education, The Orion Society
and The Myrin Institute, Great Barrington, MA.
Spillane, J.P. and Louis, K.S. (2002), “School improvement processes and practices: professional
learning for building instructional capacity”, in Murphy, J. (Ed.), The Educational
Leadership Challenge: Redefining Leadership for the 21st Century. 101st Yearbook of the
National Society for the Study of Education, National Society for the Study of Education,
Chicago, IL, pp. 83-104.
Starratt, R.J. (1994), Building an Ethical School: A Practical Response to the Moral Crisis in
Schools, Falmer Press, Washington, DC.
Starratt, R.J. (1996), Transforming Educational Administration: Meaning, Community, and
Excellence, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
Starratt, R.J. (2003), Centering Educational Administration: Cultivating Meaning, Community,
Responsibility, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ.
Strike, K.A., Haller, E.J. and Soltis, J.F. (1998), The Ethics of School Administration, 2nd ed.,
Teachers College Press, Columbia University, New York, NY.
Stringer, E. (2004), Action Research in Education, Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Valenzuela, A. (1999), Subtractive Schooling, SUNY Press, Albany, NY.
Wenger, E. (1998), Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, Cambridge
University Press, New York, NY.
Willower, D.J. and Licata, J.W. (1997), Values and Valuation in the Practice of Educational
Administration, Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks, CA.
The ethic of
community
235