Culturally Proficient Leadership
The Personal Journey Begins Within
- Raymond D. Terrell - Miami University, (OH)
- Eloise K. Terrell
- Randall B. Lindsey - California State University Los Angeles, USA
- Delores B. Lindsey - California State University, San Marcos, USA
Foreword by Dan Alpert
Becoming a culturally proficient leader requires the kind of courage, clarity, and insight that can only come from looking inward first. It’s a personal learning journey of will and skill, and if you’re up to the challenge, one that will change how you see your school, your students, and yourself as you build your own cultural competence. Consider this second edition of Culturally Proficient Leadershipyour personal road map for navigating that journey.
Each chapter of Culturally Proficient Leadership invites you to put your experiences up front and challenges you to reframe your story based on multiple viewpoints—now, notably, with the addition of new coauthors Delores Lindsey and Eloise Kemp Terrell, who have their own remarkable stories and insight to share. Overall, all four authors will help you answer the critical question “Is what we say what we do?” utilizing the tools of Cultural Proficiency to
- engage in Reflections and Cultural Interviews to explore what you learn about those who are culturally different from you
- develop a Cultural Autobiography to provide a picture of the cultural memberships that have influenced who you are as a person
- use the Cultural Proficiency Continuum to examine your progress as a leader in serving your students and communities
- prepare an intentional Leadership Plan that summarizes your journey from Cultural Precompetence to Cultural Proficiency
The central “inside-out” premise of Cultural Proficiency is that engaging in deep introspection around one’s personal beliefs, values, and behaviors in response to human differences is the first step toward systemic educational reform. We invite you to embark on this journey of self-awareness, of moral courage, and of the life-affirming power of human diversity.
“I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together—unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and may not come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction: toward a better future for our children and our grandchildren.”
—Barack Obama, Los Angeles Times, 2008
"We’re so pleased to see the newest edition of Culturally Proficient Leadership is coming out soon! We have used the first edition of this valuable book for the last several years as one of the core texts for our course, “Educational Leadership for Diverse Learners,” and look forward to using the new edition. The very personal and interactive nature of the book provides our students, who are preparing to be school principals, both a model of what a deeply self-reflective journey looks like and a structure for engaging in such a journey for themselves. Through this work, we have seen dozens of future school leaders move into a process of personal development in a manner that both celebrates their journey and challenges their thinking. This most recent edition is updated to include references to the most recent version of ESSA and includes the voices of women by adding the perspectives and stories of the original authors’ life partners to the mix. These additions are timely and important as more and more women seek roles in educational leadership. It’s about time."
"The Lindseys and Terrells continue to empower educators by sharing the tools of cultural proficiency. The guiding principles presented here are uniquely designed to ensure that, within our nation's beautifully diverse schools, every student knows adults who will help them thrive."
"Culturally Proficient Leadership has served as a reflective tool in assisting our school site principals through their personal journeys as culturally proficient leaders. As they reflect on their own experiences, our principals gain better understanding in order to respond to those day to day questions, concerns, and issues that arise on school campuses, which often times hold cultural underpinnings. Through the content in Chapters 1-4 and the accompanying reflective writing practices, our site leaders have begun to construct their own cultural autobiographies. Most effective have been the candid conversations principals have started having with each other about their own upbringing, as well as their noticings, wonderings, and increased self-awareness of their culture. More importantly, this self-awareness is building increased effectiveness in cross-cultural settings. These guided learnings continue to build those skills needed in supporting our community."
