Curriculum leadership in global context: a self-study of educational leadership teaching practices

Abstract

There is at best an emergent body of scholarship about the specific ways that the forces of globalization relate to the work of educators in the US, educational leadership programmes and their faculty. This research, structured with a four-tier model grounded in the self-study methodology, contributes to this body of literature. It explores our experiences teaching curriculum leadership courses in university-based preparation programmes, highlighting the intersection of globalization and our experiences in the educational leadership course room through the lenses of curriculum leadership and teaching practices. Our iterative analytic process draws on course syllabi, 75 pages of epistolary dialogue, 12 hours of teleconferences and 20 pages of meeting notes to make its assertions about the value of self-study research in educational leadership, the adaptive role of the leader educator in the twenty-first century, and the necessity of a glocalized, ideological course room in an era of globalization. Further, we submit that the reframing process inherent in self-study research surfaces awareness of the classroom as part of a larger global commons, thereby promoting empathy and counteracting the forces of isolation and dehumanization that can accompany globalization.