Dark educational leadership trajectories: unpacking the invisible and weightless knapsack of manufactured ‘white privilege’

Abstract

ABSTRACT The issue of social justice has become increasingly more important to the field of educational leadership. Recently, arising from the broad field of social justice and ‘anti-racism’ is the new paradigm of ‘white privilege’ which has fundamentally, and contentiously, challenged traditional assumptions and understandings of racial discrimination and oppression. This new and radical paradigm has been incorporated into educational leadership, management, and pedagogy without serious critique or question irrespective of its utility, validity, or even veracity. In this paper, it will be argued that this new direction in educational leadership constitutes dark leadership and undermines the credibility of the field by fundamentally endorsing the very discriminatory principles it claims to oppose: through the normalization of racism.