Critical Social Justice Leadership: Putting “Community” Back in Community College

Abstract

This article proposes that connecting to and understand-ing the experiences of the communities and students served must become a priority of community college work at all levels. Findings add to the understanding of social justice issues in relation to community colleges and include medium-high to high positive correlations between accuracy of knowledge of social justice issues impacting students and communities and the valuing of social justice practices. These strategies culminate in what the author calls a new model of leadership: Criti-cal Social Justice Leadership (CSJL). Recommendations include stronger social justice training for leaders in edu-cational leadership programs and Boards of Trustees, the incorporation of social justice understandings into accreditation standards, as well as the collection of broader and deeper data to more fully understand and address student outcomes. Through an examination of litera-ture and data from interviews with ten California com-munity college leaders, this article explores the rhetoric of achievement (and now student success) in relation to social justice realities and community college leadership. The article then shifts to exploring the Critical Social Jus-tice Leadership model as a way to illuminate the connec-tion between the systemic social justice realities impact-ing the communities served by community colleges and the kinds of leadership strategies that might more thor-oughly and effectively address issues relating to student success.