154 PREPARATION OF SCHOOL LEADERS
opportunities for aspiring administrators to critique the curriculums, pedagogy, assessments,
teacher attitudes toward diverse learners and families, and how schools and families should
interact takes on new importance and can lead to expanded interpretations about practices
(Bogotch, 2002; Furman, 2002). The need to bring together constituents from multiple
contexts—families, schools, communities—to examine critical instructional and curricular
matters in the schools is critical to building a shared vision and comprehensive plan for
meeting the needs of diverse learners and families.
Moving Into Action
According to Lyman and Villani, (2002), it is important for students of leadership to study
the “social fabric within which the school lives” (p. 256). Thus, case study and action
research drawn from the communities they serve represents additional important strategies to
provide future leaders with opportunities to confront the complexities of potentially
controversial and confusing beliefs about family and community involvement in schools (p.
256). In recognizing the importance of community to leadership development, such learning
experiences ought to be community centered and provide for ongoing inquiry and dialogue
among aspiring school leaders and their communities. Such projects can promote new forms
of family and community collaboration that foster new school cultures that embrace and
support family involvement. Through these projects, new leaders begin to better understand
the “embeddedness of schools, both within the neighborhoods and communities in which they
are located and within the networks or organizations and institutions through which students
move” (Riehl, p. 65). They also come to appreciate the assets and positive resources offered
by families and communities that support students and educators in the schools (p. 66).
MAKING REAL-LIFE CONNECTIONS WITH FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES
Academic course work, case study, inquiry, action research based learning experiences
are important; however, a recent study in which aspiring principals participated in family
internships suggested that more intensive internships that are family and or community-based
helped to “make real life connections with families with diverse needs” (Alonzo, Bushey,
Gardner, Hasazi Johnstone, & Miller, 2006). In one study, students participating in the
internships spent 25 hours in one family's home over a week's period. Each of the families
who hosted an intern had at least one child with a disability, and many had children from
diverse cultural backgrounds. The families were also diverse with respect to their
composition, with some having a single head of household and others having two same sex
parents. During internships, students engaged with parents and their children in the daily
activities of the family. The interns reported a variety of benefits associated with the
internship, including opportunities for both the interns and family members to learn about one
another and to grow in their understanding of each other’s worlds. They described the
“humanizing effect” of gaining “an insider perspective” regarding what it means to have a
child from a diverse background in terms of ability, socioeconomic status, and/or cultural
background (Alonzo et al., p. 135). A parent offered her perspective on the need to provide
similar experiences for future principals, noting:
We need to prepare educational leaders for their role of leading not only formal
education, but also to be responsible for initiating open dialogue with families.