Toward inclusive leadership in meeting linguistic and cultural diversity in language education policy: “not giving up on parents and children”

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study explores the practices of inclusive educational leadership of local policy makers in a city with a high level of linguistic and cultural diversity (LCD), during a process of policy change. The LCD of the city poses many challenges to managing preschool education. To rethink language ideology toward welcoming LCD, the city’s policymakers adopted an inclusive leadership framework and initiated an inclusive forum comprising policymakers from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds. The study focused on the change process, from an ethnographic perspective, with triangulation of data sources. It involved focus-group discussions, individual interviews with policymakers and classroom observations. The analysis revealed that collective agency enactment was characterized by critical reflections on past professional and personal experience; planning of changes in language education policy; high level of commitment to preschool pedagogical staffs and LCD families; practical steps in facing challenges of LCD classrooms; and future visions and long-term expectations from engagement in the stream of change. The study’s significance is in theoretical and practical understanding of policymakers’ collective agency and their role in creating an inclusive community.