Toward Decolonizing Our Scholarship and Discourses: Lessons From the Special Issue on Decoloniality for EAQ

Abstract

Members of the Educational Administration Quarterly (EAQ) internal editorial team took a critical look at the publication record of our journal with respect to epistemological plurality over the past 10 years. Our goal was to identify international publication trends and highlight how pluralized the research frames are within EAQ. Data overwhelmingly show that EAQ is a largely U.S.-centric publication, even when the topics explored touch on critical or epistemological concerns. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords

postcolonial self-assessment international publication trends

Introduction

Considering that Educational Administration Quarterly (EAQ) positions itself as the top-tier journal in educational leadership, we believe a wide variety of perspectives should be presented within its pages. We should not only be publishing scholarship that is on the proverbial cutting edge, but we should also be learning important lessons of/about the field from our international colleagues. In fact, our mission explicitly asserts that we aim “to honor expanded views and sources of educational leadership … and diverse analytical/theoretical lenses.” This special issue provides an ontological space to critically interrogate whether we are living up to an important part of this mission by looking at the international scope of the educational leadership research that has been published in EAQ in recent years.

To be certain, we are in no way suggesting that scholarship produced in international contexts is necessarily “decolonial” in nature. Nor are we suggesting that the mere inclusion of international scholarship absolves the journal from reproducing Colonialist logics. Our goals are certainly more modest. Our hope is to identify the blank spots and blind spots (Wagner, 1993) the journal has perpetuated through its review and publication practices. By “blank spots,” we mean those areas and research questions published in EAQ that have explored solely Eurocentric perspectives, where a different perspective could be used to further address existing research questions and areas. By “blind spots,” we mean phenomena and research areas that have not been explored at all because Western perspectives have dominated the area and have not made room for exploration of such phenomena (Wagner, 1993).

While our acknowledgment is necessary and deeply felt, it is important to us that we move beyond acknowledgment and into changed action. Acknowledging that our past and current practices have centered the voices of Western thought, EAQ hopes to move beyond Western perspectives and epistemologies. We want to include ways of knowing that are outside of the Eurocentric perspectives that have dominated our journal. A decolonization lens is a useful vehicle to analyze our current and past practices and push us toward this goal. We posit two results of this larger goal of including more ways of knowing in EAQ: the identification of research areas and topics previously not explored; and the inclusion of more authors.

We want authors from the global South to view EAQ as a viable space for their work. We acknowledge that our publishing record reveals a strong bias toward the United States and other Western-centered thought that dominates scholarly writing in our field. We want EAQ to be known for highlighting the work of scholars whose epistemologies are representative of indigenous cultures, the global South, and minoritized voices within the global North.

To this end, we begin with a review of the literature on coloniality and decolonization in educational research, especially focusing on school leadership. Next, we investigated which countries’ articles have been submitted and published in EAQ over the past decade, and how many studies have used a decolonial framework. Lastly, we synthesize findings and the major points of our study to discuss the implications as we move forward and fill the blank and blind spots previously left perpetuated by EAQ.

Guiding Perspectives: Coloniality in Educational Research

In his keynote at the 2020 University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) annual convention, Ramón Grosfoguel criticized colonial structures of knowledge that became the fundamentals of Westernized universities around the world. Based on a historical analysis of epistemic racism, sexism, and genocides of the 16th century (Grosfoguel, 2012), Grosfoguel argued that what is taught in Westernized universities around the world is essentially grounded in theories produced by five Western European countries: England, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. He added that these theories, developed within a particular geographical and epistemological tradition, have constituted the cannon of thoughts in the Humanities and the Social Sciences of the Westernized universities of today (de Sousa Santos, 2015; Grosfoguel, 2012).

Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2015) calls this phenomenon “epistemicide,” which refers to the extermination of knowledge and ways of knowing through the exclusion of knowledge produced by non-white and non-Western philosophical traditions and world views. Relatedly, critical scholars have raised concerns around coloniality rooted in modern capitalistic and imperial systems, which perpetuate the epistemicide in knowledge production and circulation by normalizing white, male, and Western-centered ways of knowing as being “superior” to the knowledge created from different epistemologies and geopolitical regions (Khalifa et al., 2019; Wright, this issue).

Acknowledging such critiques of coloniality residing in research and practices, many scholars in education have reflected on their own disciplines and have challenged the status quo by applying decolonizing approaches (e.g., Battiste, 2013; Khalifa et al., 2019; Lopez, 2020; Patel, 2015; Shahjahan et al., 2021; Takayama, 2016; Takayama et al., 2017; Tuck & Yang, 2021). As we look inward at our own shortcomings, we outline scholarly critiques of coloniality from the fields of comparative education and educational leadership to help us better understand how our own day-to-day practices may be contributing to these outcomes.

Postcolonial Approaches: Learning From Comparative and International Education Perspectives

Scholarly work in comparative and international education has been centered around celebrating knowledge about diversity, difference, and comparison, along with its legacy “to combat provincialism and ethnocentrism” (Phillips & Schweisfurth, 2008, p. 25). The field of comparative and international education was founded on relativist epistemology, recognizing the knowledge or the truth cannot be apart from particular conditions of knowing (Bray, 2003; Epstein, 1988; Epstein & Carroll, 2005). Building on this basis, the discipline has sought an “internationally inclusive approach” to conduct educational research with respect to different national values and logics, sociohistorical contexts, and educational systems (Takayama et al., 2017).

While the celebration of knowledge traditions from regionally and linguistically diverse societies around the globe is a distinct feature of this field (see Bray, 2003; Bray & Manzon, 2014), a few scholars have continued to challenge it, arguing that a celebration of “diversity” in itself does not mean there is no reproduction of coloniality at some level (e.g., Baker, 2012; Takayama et al., 2017; Tikly, 1999, 2004). One of the salient critiques can be found in the Comparative Education Review special issue on “Contesting Coloniality: Rethinking knowledge production and circulation in comparative and international education,” edited by Keita Takayama, Arathi Sriprakash, and Raewyn Connell in 2017.

In this issue, Takayama and his colleagues sought to reveal structural inequalities and uneven power relationships played in constructing the ideas of difference, engagement with an “Other,” and comparative knowledge. Takayama et al. (2017) argued that the field needed to move beyond approaches to “understanding differences,” recognizing that the concept of socio-cultural difference is itself grounded in the colonial division of the world. Furthermore, they called for careful attention to the geopolitics of knowledge in creating and adopting theories that are foundational to the discipline. That is, they believe it is important to understand that the development of “modern science” has a close tie to the imperial expansion of Western European nations throughout history.

European colonial expansion established a divided role between the colonizer and the colonized in knowledge construction as global peripheries served as “data mines” for the theory development in the global North (Takayama et al., 2017, p. S3). This history resulted in the “othering” of the body of knowledge excluded by the mainstream knowledge economy on a global scale (Alatas, 2006, 2014; Chen, 2010). In effect, theories produced within Western European contexts have been applied to non-Western societies without critical consideration, thus reifying their colonial legacy (Chen, 2010).

Such epistemicide within comparative education has manifested itself in multiple ways. A “world culture” theory, one of the most widely used in comparative education, is a prominent example. World-culture approaches draw on the Eurocentric grounds of Weberian sociology, which assumes “the West as a coherent, bounded entity that has given rise to special events, concepts, and paradigms that are now diffused throughout the world” (Takayama et al., 2017). Research findings using world-culture approaches tend to understand “difference” as a variation from the “core” culture that is expected to be circulated from the West (Takayama, 2016). In doing so, a Eurocentric view becomes a point of observation and categorization of the rest of the world—without the consideration of regional and national inflections of world culture (Baker, 2012).

Another example is the ways in which the English language has remained the dominant language within the field (Albach, 1991; Arnove, 2001; Kelly, 1982). Knowledge creation and its diffusion in the field of comparative education has been dominated by scholars in the English-speaking world, and the flagship journals of comparative education are all based in the United States and Britain. Furthermore, the field of comparative education's entanglement with Cold War geopolitics strengthened the colonial projects as comparativists played a role as the experts who can normalize and spread “the values of Western Enlightenment in the name of ‘progress’” (Silova, 2012, p. 235) in the “global peripheries” through the methods of educational borrowing. Indeed, the United States contracted 53 universities to establish “modern” education systems in 33 underdeveloped countries in the 1950s (Rappleye, 2017).

Reflecting on the coloniality embedded in the history of comparative education and accumulated knowledge within the field, contemporary scholars have made efforts to decenter the Western influence, the global North in knowledge creation, and to challenge the universalism in ontology and epistemology (Takayama et al., 2017). To further this postcolonial perspective, Takayama et al. (2017) suggested scholarships that build on indigenous knowledge (e.g., Hoppers, 2002; Mignolo, 2007), connected sociology (e.g., Alatas, 2006; Chen, 2010; de Sousa Santos, 2015; Quijano, 2000), and Southern theory (Amin, 1974; Hountondji, 1997 [1994]; Nandy, 1983; Saffioti, 1978 [1969]).

This critical examination of the field of comparative international education guides us to understand how education became colonial projects through the expansion of colonialism and imperialism in global contexts. It also suggests that this colonial approach in history is pertinent to contemporary education research and practices across the globe, given the discourses around globalization and internationalization combined with accumulated capital (both hard and soft) by the global North and Western European states. Given the critique that celebrating diversity and difference does not necessarily challenge the reproduction of coloniality, scholars also have to be cognizant about the possibility that the idea of difference itself can center a white Western-oriented view in understanding of “other” knowledge and ways of thinking.

Toward Decolonizing School Leadership

While there have been increasing amounts of critiques of coloniality in educational leadership research, it has been done by relatively few scholars and is considered as “an alternative perspective” to leadership (Khalifa et al., 2019). In the history of educational leadership, mainstream approaches to theorizing leadership have been normalized within white Western Eurocentric views (Khalifa et al., 2019; Lopez, 2020). The understanding of leaders’ attributes and skills in educational leadership is rooted in charismatic authority posited by a white male, German sociologist Max Weber, in the 1920s (Liu, 2020). This view on leadership was entangled with heroic discourses relying on the “Great Man Theory” which purports a charismatic, top-down leader can fix problems and bring about changes to whole organizations or societies (Liu, 2020; Lopez, 2020). This individualistic approach can be seen as a reflection of Western models that prioritize self-expression over collective thinking and decision making (Pheko & Linchwe, 2008).

Moreover, the field's reliance on systems theory and behavioral science as foundational theories has resulted in the understanding of educational leadership as the scientific management of “extracting the maximum efficiency from educational resources” (Bates, 2010, p. 724). As such, foundational thoughts and theories in the field have been predominantly driven by white Western, male-oriented approaches. In this sense, the history of the discipline of educational leadership has thus contributed to a colonial legacy by excluding concepts, theories, and different representations of school leadership that vary depending on language, country, culture, and educational systems (Lopez, 2020; Pont, 2020).

In educational leadership, coloniality manifests itself in various forms as part of policy discourses, organization of schools, disciplinary knowledge, and educational practice (Lopez, 2020). Bray and Koo (2004) have argued that colonial administrative practices remain in multiple forms: the dominance of white bodies in educational spaces, hierarchical structures, prioritization of knowledge from policy elites over communities, and a lack of understanding of teaching and learning grounded in the histories of students. The structural racism and white supremacy in educational leadership and practices are also reflections of colonialism (Lopez, 2020), which imposes deficit views of students and communities from Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities and their epistemologies. As “products” of coloniality, we—as educational leadership scholars and researchers—rarely recognize how our identities and ways of being are shaped by white Western thoughts and worldviews (Khalifa et al., 2019).

Recognizing the need to challenge this narrowly defined field, scholars have offered criticisms. Early on, reviews of educational leadership research criticized its reliance on narrowly defined constructs, theories, and epistemological standpoints that draw on positivistic and Western perspectives (Campbell, 1979, 1981; Dimmock & Walker, 2000; Hallinger & Leithwood, 2013; Pounder & Johnson, 2007). While these early critiques challenged the conventional approaches and called for diversified views to extend the knowledge base of educational leadership, other decolonizing scholarly critiques still found a missing link between these criticisms and BIPOC epistemologies (Wright, this issue). BIPOC scholars have contributed to the disruption of the field by offering alternative theories and/or bringing lenses, such as critical race theory (e.g., Alston, 2005; Capper, 2015; Dantley, 2005; López, 2003), culturally responsive leadership (e.g., Beachum, 2011; Lopez, 2016; Khalifa, 2018; Khalifa et al., 2016), indigenous frameworks (e.g., Battiste, 2013; Hohepa, 2013; Penetito, 2010; Smith, 2021), and thoughts and theories that emerge from the Global South (Regmi, 2022).

Nevertheless, decolonizing and indigenous perspectives are still marginalized in the field (Khalifa et al., 2019). In reviewing scholarly work on Indigenous leadership, Khalifa et al. (2019) lamented that educational leadership scholarship had not done enough to disentangle the colonial legacy prevalent in the field. Khalifa and his colleagues have examined the literature on non-Western, decolonizing, and Indigenous leadership, seeking non-Western forms of school leadership practices. Their findings showed three forms of colonizing approaches found in school leadership: remnants of settler colonialism; education as colonial, excluding Indigenous people and alternative epistemologies; and invisibilizing, normalizing, and othering mechanisms. Along with this dark side of colonial leadership, they also suggested five strands that emerged from Indigenous leadership literature: (1) prioritizing self-knowledge and self-reflection, (2) enacting self-determination for community empowerment, (3) centering community voices and values, (4) Serving through altruism and spirituality, and (5) prioritizing collectivism in communication. While Khalifa et al. (2019) were cautious about reducing diversity within Indigenous leadership into discrete categories, these themes found through some Indigenous cultures can challenge colonial forms of leadership and push the field to re-think about “alternative” perspectives on educational leadership.

Building on Khalifa et al.’s (2019) critique of coloniality in educational leadership research, we recognize that, as UCEA's flagship journal, EAQ has also contributed to the epistemicide of BIPOC knowledge and practices of educational leadership since its establishment in 1965. While EAQ has increased publications from non-U.S. authors and diversity in regional contexts and methodological approaches in recent years, we also see that EAQ publications are still dominated by theories and practices drawing on white, Western, English-speaking contexts, and U.S.-centered approaches.

Thus, our discussion builds on previous critiques of the field (Campbell, 1979, 1981; Khalifa et al., 2019; Pounder & Johnson, 2007) and an overarching argument from the current special issue of decolonizing school leadership. It is our hope that we push the field to reassess our own epistemological standpoints, concepts and theories, and norms and practice. As a critical “first step,” we posed the following questions to ourselves and our editorial team: (1) In what ways does EAQ accommodate or disregard epistemological plurality within its publications? (2) What is the geographical/regional share of EAQ publications? and (2) How pluralized are the analytical frames included within EAQ publications?

Self-Assessment Methods

Leveraging Grosfoguel's (2012) call for pluralizing epistemologies in education through transmodern frameworks, we engaged in a collective document analysis of accepted and rejected EAQ abstracts to determine the extent to which their content leveraged decolonial frameworks; and to also audit EAQ's internal decision-making processes. The submission range for selected abstracts spanned from 2011 to 2021.

To generate a dataset, we used EAQ's report generator software, where administrators are able to build custom reports. For this analysis, we built custom reports that include abstracts with a combination of keyword filters: patriarchal; feminist; black feminist; intersectionality; queer; colonial; colonization; coloniality; decolonial; decolonization; indigenous; capitalist; capitalism; marxist; marxism; racial capitalism; critical race; white supremacist; imperial; imperialism; militarism; military; empire. While we recognize that no set of monolingual search terms could distill the multiplicity of epistemological expression, we felt that these 23 keywords functioned as dynamic signals that may evince modes of epistemological flexibility within selected abstracts (Joseph et al., 2021).

In running custom reports, 825 data lines were generated. After further review, 153 unduplicated abstracts of submitted manuscripts were analyzed for the purposes of this study. The submission range for selected abstracts spanned from 2011 to 2021. Of the 153 manuscripts, 54 were assigned decisions as either “Accepted”; “Accepted Pending Minor”; “Major Revision”; or “Minor Revision.” Any manuscript with any of these designations was considered Accepted for the purposes of this study.¹ The remaining 99 manuscripts were assigned decisions that were either “Reject”; “Reject for Fit”; “Reject for Quality”; “Reject as Inappropriate”; “Reject for Substantial Contribution to EAQ site.” Any manuscript with any of these designations was considered Rejected for the purposes of this study.

Findings

Regarding geographical share, within the sample (n = 153), 72% of manuscripts were submitted by institutions situated in the United States; the remaining 28% of submitted manuscripts were shared among 23 countries/regions. They include Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Cyprus, Fiji, Germany, Hong Kong, Iran, Israel, Jamaica, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, and Turkey (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Geographical share of submitted manuscripts. Note. Percentages may not total to 100% due to rounding.

Outside of the United States, the countries/regions with the most submitted manuscripts were Canada, Israel, and Taiwan—each with 5 submissions. Next were Turkey with 4, and Singapore with 3 submitted manuscripts. Belgium, Germany, and Pakistan—each submitted 2 manuscripts. Bangladesh, Chile, China, Cyprus, Fiji, Hong Kong, Iran, Jamaica, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Philippines; Portugal, South Africa, and Thailand—each with 1 submitted manuscript (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Sample distribution of submitted manuscripts by country/region.

Of the Accepted manuscripts (n = 54), roughly 80% are from the United States. The remaining manuscripts are from Belgium, Canada, Israel, Jamaica, the Netherlands, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Sample Distribution of Manuscripts by Country/Region: Submitted, Accepted, and Rejected (2011–2021).

	Total submitted manuscripts (n = 153)		Accepted manuscripts (n = 54)			Rejected manuscripts (n = 99)
Country/ region	n	%	Country/ region	n	%	Country/ region	n	%

Bangladesh	1	1	Belgium	1	2	Bangladesh	1	1
Belgium	2	1	Canada	2	4	Belgium	1	1
Canada	5	3	Israel	2	4	Canada	3	3
Chile	1	1	Jamaica	1	2	Chile	1	1
China	1	1	the Netherlands	1	2	China	1	1
Cyprus	1	1	Philippines	1	2	Cyprus	1	1
Fiji	1	1	Singapore	1	2	Fiji	1	1
Germany	2	1	Taiwan	1	2	Germany	2	2
Hong Kong	1	1	Thailand	1	2	Hong Kong	1	1
Iran	1	1	United States	43	80	Iran	1	1
Israel	5	3				Israel	3	3
Jamaica	1	1				Malaysia	1	1
Malaysia	1	1				Nigeria	1	1
the Netherlands	1	1				Pakistan	2	2
Nigeria	1	1				Portugal	1	1
Pakistan	2	1				Singapore	2	2
Philippines	1	1				South Africa	1	1
Portugal	1	1				Taiwan	4	4
Singapore	3	2				Turkey	4	4
South Africa	1	1				United States	67	68
Taiwan	5	3
Thailand	1	1
Turkey	4	3
United States	110	72

Note. Percentages may not total 100% due to rounding.

Responding to EAQ's epistemological flexibility vis-à-vis its publications, our content analysis of manuscript abstracts found that within our sample (n = 153), 48 abstracts (31%) included explicit evidence that indicated potential modes of decolonial expression. Of the remaining 105 abstracts (69%), we did not find any explicit evidence based on our set of dynamic signals, thus any indication of decolonial expression was described as undetermined (for more details, see Table 2).

Table 2.

Sample Distribution of Epistemological Flexibility (2011–2021).

Total submitted manuscripts (n = 153)
Manuscripts with explicit evidence of dynamic signals found in abstracts (n = 48)			Manuscripts with undetermined evidence of dynamic signals found in abstracts (n = 105)
Accepted			Accepted
Country/region	n	%	Country/region	n	%
1. Canada	1	2	1. Belgium	1	1
2. Jamaica	1	2	2. Canada	1	1
3. United States	34	71	3. Israel	2	2
			4. the Netherlands	1	1
Rejected			5. Philippines	1	1
Country/region	n	%	6. Singapore	1	1
1. United States	12	25	7. Taiwan	1	1
			8. Thailand	1	1
			9. United States	9	9
			Rejected
			Country/region	n	%
			1. Bangladesh	1	1
			2. Belgium	1	1
			3. Canada	3	3
			4. Chile	1	1
			5. China	1	1
			6. Cyprus	1	1
			7. Fiji	1	1
			8. Germany	2	2
			9. Hong Kong	1	1
			10. Iran	1	1
			11. Israel	3	3
			12. Malaysia	1	1
			13. Nigeria	1	1
			14. Pakistan	2	2
			15. Portugal	1	1
			16. Singapore	2	2
			17. South Africa	1	1
			18. Taiwan	4	4
			19. Turkey	4	4
			20. United States	55	52

Note. Percentages may not total 100% due to rounding.

The Decision to Self-Assess

The stated purpose of the special issue is to critique the colonial nature of knowledge production and knowledge proliferation in educational leadership. This goal is approached in the pages of this special issue through several pieces that critically and thoughtfully engage with coloniality in theory and praxis while offering solutions that push the field to move forward and engage in work that centers indigenous/ancestral epistemologies, critical theories/perspectives of race, class, and gender, and other decolonial perspectives.

The opportunity to host a special issue on “Coloniality” in the pages of EAQ is uniquely providential, as we could accommodate pieces that help contribute to the progression of the field of educational leadership toward a more decolonial, inclusive, and thoughtful reality. As an editorial team, we decided it would be disingenuous to put forth an issue of this magnitude without also situating our practices within the colonial research paradigm. This was a necessary endeavor, as it might highlight a weakness in our review process and support the need for the field to shift toward a more decolonial approach. The work represented in our methods is not an exhaustive exploration of this topic but serves as an important starting point for the discussion on our publishing habits. We hope that a demonstration of this shortcoming helps in articulating the essential nature of the work presented in this special issue. This section will discuss the findings of our analysis and contextualize those findings through some of the literature.

Emphasis on Location—Whose Ideas Are Valued?

One of the first steps of our analysis was examining 10 years of publication data to understand where our accepted publications were coming from. As stated earlier, we position EAQ as an international journal, so this approach helped in evaluating our commitment to that distinction. In the last 10 years, slightly over 50% of all submitted publications (N = 1,980) came from the United States, with the rest coming from over 70 different countries. However, when looking at accepted manuscripts within that same period (N = 249), the U.S. publications represented 80% of that total. Every other country examined had less than 10 accepted manuscripts, with Israel having the most (9). This means, as a publishing body, editorial team, and reviewing community, there is still a proclivity toward the privileging of work that is based in the United States. Before even discussing the content of manuscripts, this inclination to advance work or ideas from the United States has several implications related to coloniality.

On a baseline level, efforts to decolonize research can be articulated as a push to include the knowledge of communities historically marginalized by dominant Eurocentric discourses. Decolonial research is inclusive of the voices of the subaltern (Cannella & Manuelito, 2008; Ndimande, 2018; Tierney, 2018). Ndimande (2018) highlights the fact that many international scholars who do decolonial work have problematized research and are now advocating for a research paradigm that honors “other” epistemologies. While the preceding arguments are discussing research, it is clear to see how the production and distribution of research are also implicated in this process. As a journal within a U.S. university, we are, through history and context, ultimately a part of the settler-colonial project (Grande, 2018). Given this reality, our record of most of our publications coming from the United States indicates the “epistemicide” of knowledge mentioned earlier throughout this special issue. Even if every accepted manuscript from the United States was decolonial (which they are not), it would still be antithetical to the goal of including multiple voices, a variety of epistemologies, and our international label. Therefore, an analysis of manuscript location was important, as it helps show a flaw in our publishing approach and our inadvertent contribution to the maintenance of a settler-colonial status quo in research production. Our publication trends are an implicit signal of what is valued in educational administration research. This can be extrapolated to mean that without intending it, editorial team members, faculty reviewers, and other involved parties carry an inherent U.S. bias, stylistically, epistemologically, and so on, which is reflected knowing that is proliferated through our journal.

Emphasis on Content—What Ideas Are Valued?

The second level of analysis in this self-study was focused on the content in the abstracts of accepted publications. As stated before, there are no set of monolingual search terms that could distill the multiplicity of epistemological expression, but we did generate 23 dynamic signals that could evidence epistemological flexibility. These dynamic keywords or signals allowed us to see what manuscripts at least mentioned constructs included some decolonial research work. We did this examination of abstracts over the same 10-year period and found that about 153 submitted manuscripts fell within our designated category. Of that amount, only about 54 were eventually accepted for publication. This means that manuscripts with the potential to be considered decolonial only make up about 20% of all manuscripts during the designated period. This also means that manuscripts focused on these topics are slightly more likely to be rejected than accepted. As with the emphasis on location, examining content provides some insight into our role in the field.

Speaking solely about our publication record, the rate at which certain publications are accepted can say a lot. At a surface level, the takeaway could be that according to our publishing record, research that explicitly emphasizes race, class, culture, and gender or problematizes hegemonic structures is not valued in the editing and review process. On a deeper level, this may be indicative of a systemic issue in the way we approach knowledge as a concept. For example, the low number of decolonial submissions could potentially speak to what prospective scholars think of our journal, that EAQ might not be a space that is typically accepting of that type of work. The acceptance rate could speak to preconceived notions of quality and rigor both at the editorial and review stages. One could assume that there are other types of research that adhere to Eurocentric standards, that are viewed as more acceptable or worthy of publication. All in all, the trends in publishing are indicative of a systematic problem, and engaging in a self-analysis of this nature has helped in emphasizing why this special issue is so important.

Changing the Paradigm: What Needs to Happen?

As stated before, we, as an editorial team, did not want to present a special issue on the topic of coloniality without also speaking to the role our journal played in this system. As such, we believe this essay is a start to theorizing around changing the paradigm for educational administration research. The work presented here helps push the boundaries of current research and honor a multitude of epistemologies and experiences. For the journal, this represents a starting point, as more steps would need to be taken for us to truly move toward a goal of incorporating the voices, narratives, and research of the subaltern.

As a group, we have spent many conversations discussing the tensions of becoming more inclusive and highlighting the voices of others. We have had a significant discussion around ways to incorporate more publications from different countries and from different epistemological traditions. For example, we have talked about the need to bring on international “regional” assistant editors to help with evaluating work from different countries. One tension that came up in our conversations was the fact that many manuscripts from other countries may have been roughly translated into English, which could greatly affect the meaning or spirit of words, phrases, and even sentiments. Given our U.S.-centered training and editorial board, it could be easy to erroneously dismiss some of these manuscripts as lacking “clarity.” Another conversation centered around creating some sort of role that is responsible for stewarding international manuscripts, or articles that discuss topics related to decoloniality as a means of strengthening work that would fit well in EAQ.

All of this, however, requires the commitment of members of the field to alter their perspectives on what constitutes “good” research. It requires an openness to letting go of European or U.S.-centered logic and research paradigms. This special issue provides a compelling snapshot of the possibilities of research when we choose to wrestle with the settler-colonial underpinnings of our field. We hope that the contributions here, and our transparency help advance the growing effort to decolonize education research.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Talgat Bainazarov is a PhD candidate in the K-12 Educational Administration program at Michigan State University. His research interest centers on systems and factors that support school leaders' learning and professional growth. He works as a graduate student for UCEA and serves on the internal editorial team of EAQ. He was a former schoolteacher and school administrator in Kazakhstan. He is the recipient of the Jackson Scholar Fellowship and is currently working on his dissertation proposal.

Alounso A. Gilzene is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Florida State University. His research examines urban school leader sensemaking around funding and policy, Black principals' engagement with communities, and the racialized nature of school discipline reform. These interests stem from his experiences as a mentor, reading interventionist, and restorative justice facilitator in urban school contexts.

Taeyeon Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Administration at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Her research focuses on the intersections of policy and leadership practices that promote equitable and humanizing practices. Drawing on policy enactment, sociocultural learning theories, and transnational/comparative perspectives, her research aims to reimagine concepts and theories around policy and leadership by centering the voices of educational leaders who advocate for equity and social justice.

Gerardo R. López is a professor at Michigan State University and Editor-in-Chief of EAQ. His research interests are in home/school/community relations and the educational trajectories of undocumented students.

Lawrence Louis is a doctoral candidate in K-12 Educational Administration at Michigan State University. His research interests are broadly concerned with racial literacy, culturally responsive school leadership, meaning making, social and emotional learning, antiracism, and policy. Prior to doctoral study, he was a middle school teacher then worked at Harlem and Brooklyn based community-based organizations leading comprehensive college access and success programming.

Soon-young Oh is a doctoral student in K-12 Educational Administration at Michigan State University. Her research interests surround culture and technology leadership in schools and principals' responsiveness to the needs of minority children across international contexts. She is a graduate assistant at UCEA and also assists on the internal editorial team of EAQ. She worked as an elementary school teacher in South Korea for more than five years and is currently working on a research proposal to study culturally responsive school leadership in immigrant-impacted schools in Korea.

Emma K. Taylor is a doctoral student in K-12 Educational Administration at Michigan State University. Before her time in East Lansing, she spent 7 years as a middle school math and ESL teacher in New Jersey. Her research interests include school leader preparation, school and community partnerships, and bilingual/ESL program implementation. She is a graduate assistant for UCEA and EAQ, and also sits on the AERA Graduate Student Council for Division-A.

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