Leading the multicultural school: Some insights from dedicated school leaders

Introduction

The murder of Lassana Sisse Souleymane, a Gambian migrant, is believed to be Malta’s first racially motivated slaying. His murder sparked deep-seated concern and shock not only among the migrant community but also the Maltese general public. The hit-and-run murder has sparkled the attention of social media and led to the arrest of two young Armed Forces of Malta soldiers. Investigators quoted in an influential daily newspaper stated that one of the accused admitted to targeting migrants ‘just because they were black’ (Carabott, 2019). In a tweet, ex Maltese prime minster, Dr Joseph Muscat stressed the need to ‘understand each other and integrate each other’ (Carabott, 2019), and that there were dire consequences for such ‘ill placed sentiments’ (Carabott, 2019). A blogger from the same newspaper blamed a ‘failed educational system’ as one of the determinants which has contributed to this murder (Grech, 2019).

A year later, in the United States, the death of George Floyd, under the hands of white police, triggered widespread protests from the public demanding that justice prevails. During a prayer vigil, George Floyd’s brother was quoted as saying ‘Educate yourself’ (NBC, 2020) – a quote which has prompted me, as a school leader, to question the leadership processes necessary to ensure the enactment of social justice between school walls and beyond, thus securing the safety of the future generation in an increasingly globalised world. As demographic changes in the small island state of Malta continue to stir social, economic, moral and geographical debates, prevalent discourses in the education arena are questioning whether current educational approaches are actually serving to fragment rather than unite the Maltese population (Vassallo, 2016a).

The EU-Maltese context

Racism, which until a few years ago was given lip service in the discourse concerning oppression, has now become a hot and contentious issue dominating the social media (Trindade, 2019). Deriving from distorted cultural mythology, the Maltese have been nurtured to associate ‘the other’ with hostility and oppression. Popular myths surrounding Count Roger who liberated Malta from the Arabs and later the Knights of Malta who annihilated all historical artefacts of our Arab culture and Islamic religion depict an image based on stereotypical assumptions that Arabs are aggressive, fierce, untrustworthy and totally dissonant with our religious values and therefore constitute the ‘other’, of whom we must be constantly vigilant (Borg and Mayo, 2001).

For the past 20 years Malta, a tiny island state in the middle of the Mediterranean, has experienced an uprise in social mobility characterised by opportunities arising from the increased social interactions of different cultures, languages, races and religions. The new realities emerging from multiple social contexts have evoked mixed feelings among the Maltese general population. For some, they have developed into a sense of curiosity and embracement of opportunities while in others they have transformed into fearful and at times violent behaviours towards diverse communities (Bezzina and Vassallo, 2019). Our sandy shores which, in the past, saw hundreds of Maltese people emigrating to distant countries are now witnessing large scale irregular immigration much to the concern of locals (Vassallo, 2012). This multiplicity of students coming from different cultures permeating our school walls have prompted school leaders to develop leadership practices aimed at promoting healthy instructional environments intended to effectively include all children under their care.

The Maltese National Curriculum Framework (MEDE, 2012: 4) acknowledged this reality and in the past years has focused its efforts towards the provision of Maltese and English Language teaching as the instruments for effective multicultural inclusion affirming that ‘Malta has become a multicultural society and that all schools should be in a position to provide children and their parents with language support in Maltese and English so that they achieve a basic working knowledge of these languages at the earliest possible in order to allow them to integrate quickly’.

This has been the springboard for school leaders to engage in reflective processes aimed at strengthening the use of languages of instruction, develop teaching methodologies, examine student interactions and survey learning resources. All this with the clear intent of including multiple perspectives and voices within the learning environment and providing spaces for mutual learning experiences benefiting both the host and minority cultures. This would encourage students to cultivate a thorough understanding of global issues and help them understand the need for living together (MEDE, 2012). These initiatives, though noble in their intent do not seem to have reached their desired outcomes.

In fact, the EU and OECD social index (Hellmann et al., 2019) ranked Malta in the 23rd place out of a total of 41 tested countries with the major contributor being the equitable education dimension which ranked 34th. Moreover, the European Commission’s (2019: 4) country specific recommendations for Malta clearly state that although ‘…Malta invests relatively high amounts in education…this is not yet reflected in better outcomes for all’ and further advice that an ‘investment strategy would benefit from further focus on correcting social disadvantage, to be in line with the Social Pillar principle on quality and inclusive education’. The same document also points out to ‘increased risks in poverty and social exclusion [for] non-EU migrants…putting pressure on the provision of educational services’ (European Commission, 2019: 5). This shows that a significant segment of our student population, particularly those from minority cultures continue to experience challenges arising from lack of access to quality education which is yet to come to grips with the concept of educational inclusivity and in particular with the principles of multicultural education. This was corroborated by yet another report from the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ERCI, 2018: 19) who, quoting Maltese psychologists, expressed serious concern over the prevalence of racist behaviour in the Maltese Islands. It stated that the emergence of right-wing groups with xenophobic agendas have the potential to cause upheaval in the Maltese community, especially when directly targeting those whose ‘…status, culture and identity differs from that of the mainstream group’.

Developing critical cultural competences

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, 2013) strongly advocated the promotion of Intercultural Competences as a set of skills which enables navigation through complex environments characterised by increased diversity, cultures and lifestyles in order to function ‘effectively and appropriately when interacting with others who are linguistically and culturally different from oneself’ (Fantini and Tirmizi, 2006: 12). Undoubtedly, schools are in an enviable position to cultivate such skills and abilities. Various scholars (Vassallo, 2016a) place emphasis on the improvement of school leadership practices as a vital step for such aims to find the space to develop and bear fruition.

Due to the increased plurality of cultures, permeating our school walls, Maltese school leaders are now facing new challenges towards working with children and parents coming from cultures different from the mainstream. These challenges are shaped by the multiple contexts in which they occur. Bush and Middlewood (2013: 8) assert that ‘It is also unwise to assume that educational problems are the same within countries let alone between them’, suggesting that a range of contextual factors affect schools such as their vision and mission, leadership structure, latent curricula, staff competency skills, demographic shifts in student population, parental relationships and school culture, have an impact on school leadership processes.

The discourse on the relationship between leadership and multiculturalism is a two-pronged conceptualisation. On one side there is the prevailing discourse on managing multiculturalism and diversity, pushing a discourse hovering around individual and group achievement (Alsubaie, 2015) while on the other hand lies the dominant discourse on social justice issues (Pittman, 2009) which emphasises critical transformative pedagogies being placed at the very heart of educational leadership processes. Drawing from the work of Freire (1970), Furman (2012) emphasises the importance of engaging in social activism after a period of intellectually informed reflections emanating from garnered knowledge of the impact that social, political and economic forces have on oppressed individuals and groups. By working intrinsically and sharing good leadership praxis with others, school leaders will become more equipped to engage towards ‘critical self-reflection…[and]…knowing and understanding systemic social justice issues, reflecting on these issues, and taking action to address them’ (Furman, 2012: 203).

Social justice leadership

Social justice leadership is the practice of leadership that is guided by a set of moral principles which include issues of equity, equality, fairness, diversity and inclusiveness (Bogotch, 2000). Inherent to this definition is the desire to counteract marginalisation, fight prejudice and discrimination an empower minority individuals and groups who have not enjoyed the power and privilege accrued by white, middle-class students in our schools.

All social arrangements benefit some groups at the expense of others and the challenge resides in reconstructing social arrangements that are more responsive to the human and social rights of all the citizens and to enable them to voice out their concerns in reaction to the consequences arising from such arrangements. It is widely accepted that school leaders are most influential within a school system which is supposed to spur teachers into effective teaching and learning processes conducive to student’s achievement (Gomendio, 2017).

School leaders often argue that their actions are constrained by state laws and departmental policies, but believe there is opportunity for in-house policy advancement that minimises adverse effects on particular student groups. It is for such reason that the last 10 years has seen numerous attempts by educational researchers to link social justice with school leadership, using Critical Race Theory, gender and post-structuralist feminist theories, postcolonial narratives but mostly Marxist thought as a framework guiding their thinking (Radd, 2008).

On similar lines, Charles et al. (2014) found that the best school leaders were those who eliminate all forms of oppression, prejudice, racism, poverty, homophobia, and sexism, among others. Other scholars (Lac and Baxley, 2018) focused on resistance (both physical and mental) encountered by school leaders in their efforts to propel an equity-oriented agenda in their schools. With a clear focus on designing heterogeneous learning environments, social justice leaders restructured their schools to better serve all students. They eliminated systematic tracking systems (streaming), pull-out programmes for disenfranchised students and transformed them into communities of practice. Similarly, Darling-Hammond et al. (2020) note that several successful school leaders emphasised the mutual influence of school and community through shared decision making, advocacy and strengthening of relationships. Other school leaders emphasised collective action as a vital step towards the enhancement of social identity (Hytten and Bettez, 2011), while others targeted professional development sessions with a strong multicultural component for their staff to bring about meaningful change in their schools (Szelei et al., 2019).

Critical multiculturalism

Critical multiculturalism challenges existing social inequalities and mitigates against fossilised social assumptions, while engaging in critical discourses on power relations which exist between and among groups. Emphasis is placed on challenging structural imbalances inherently present in society, with school leaders being the catalysts for the promulgation of equity practices. Leaders who champion a critical view of multicultural education are protagonists of organisational and societal change. They promote anti-racist pedagogy within their schools and work towards the promotion of social justice and equity (Gooden and Dantley, 2012; Horsford, 2011; Khalifa, 2012; Mansfield, 2014; Nunez et al., 2010; Santamaría, 2014; Santamaría and Santamaría, 2012; Santamaría et al., 2014), thus enabling equitable outcomes for all learners in contexts where inequalities are present.

Oliveira-Formosinho and Barros Araújo (2011) highlighted the unpreparedness of teachers to teach children from diverse cultural backgrounds, often relying on their own dominant cultural assumptions to guide practices, assuming their universality. This narrow approach suggests we need to specifically prepare future educators to challenge stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination (Vassallo, 2016a, 2016b). Educators need to be equipped with the knowledge required to counteract negative attitudes towards minority cultures (Collett, 2013). Freire’s (1970) philosophy proposes strong collaborative processes between educators and students to strengthen the latter’s ability to generate situated knowledge and critical consciousness (conscientizacao), thus ‘cultivating identities and humanity [become] central to everyday life in classrooms’ (Oliveira-Formosinho and Barros Araújo, 2011: 228).

Current research study

Research was based in three primary schools in the southern part of Malta, known for hosting within them a large number (more than 50%) of students coming from different cultures. All three participant school leaders (SL1, SL2 and SL3) were female and of a white middleclass background known for their strong adherence to the principles of multicultural education and who had been in a leadership position for more than 4 years.

Discussion

Leaders who promote social justice principles but lack to enact change that reflects such principles are not yet social justice leaders. School leaders who demonstrate willingness to change the practices of their schools need to possess a clear ethical sense of why such work is needed. Moreover, leaders who simply ‘reform’ schools in response to pressures to raise achievement will continue to adopt flawed practices, further pushing students in the peripheries of the educational system. The results from the interviews have shown that even the most committed of school leasers will face dilemmas when it comes to meeting the needs of different cultural groups and when resources are scarce.

The research focused on three dedicated school leaders, known for their commitment towards social justice and multicultural education, but we cannot solely rely on the few. There needs to be a capacity building exercise which promotes leadership preparation programmes and equips current and future leaders to embrace a social justice perspective (Furman, 2012) and to suggest sound advice on how to enact these beliefs effectively. The main goal of such programmes would be to heighten the consciousness (Freire, 1970, 2002) and expertise of school leaders as they recognise inequities within the school systems (Furman, 2012).

As Capper and Young (2014: 162) put it ‘To move social justice forward requires a combination of superhero/ collaborative leadership’ School leaders need to transform their views of the world, become more critically aware of students’ needs and help cultivate high levels of understanding in their school staff. Although school leaders spoke about constraints in the form of high-stakes testing, and narrowly construed notions of achievement, the desire for social justice and more inclusive curricula remain high on their agenda. Leaders for social justice embrace the notion that the ultimate purpose of education is to be able to transform society. Despite the political rhetoric, community involvement within school leadership process is still far-fetched. It is certainly not sufficient to invite the various communities to participate in critical dialogues, they must be given a real ‘say’ in the decision-making board room. Carefully targeted capacity building exercises are effective ways for transformative leaders to stimulate the necessary critical dialogues to build a school community that truly meets the needs of the community they serve.

Conclusion

Learning is no longer restricted to what goes on within the school walls. The study makes a strong case in favour of learning outside the surrounding walls of the school, if it is to be inclusive and effective. Globalisation has brought about profound economic and social restructuring, and it is the school leader’s role to be alert to the changing needs of the constantly changing school demographics. This research has shown that terms ‘school’ and ‘community’ are no longer distinct but need to be redefined to fulfil innovative multi-service requirements which take into account the multicultural influxes Malta is currently experiencing. The study provides an intersection between leadership practices, multicultural education and social justice and equity issues. As a final note, it must be reiterated that the three school leaders are by no means a representative of the whole population of Maltese school leaders, but they are a selected small group of dedicated school leaders committed to the mammoth task of ensuring social justice in their school. The three participants in the study were not diverse in terms of gender, race and socio-economic background, and this could have presented a bias to the study. Notwithstanding its limitations, the author was not inhibited at highlighting positive and effective practices which may resonate well in other schools. School leaders need spaces to continue develop critical multicultural approaches supported by able social justice leadership. It is hoped that the study provided scholarship to fellow researchers who have this research area particularly at heart.