How to Order.vp

54 INVITED CHAPTERS

• The second significant concept from the Guiding Principles is that of Dominant
  Group. It used to be that I got a lot of resistance to this concept, but the advent of
  NCLB and the exposure of the achievement gap have made those challenges all but
  disappear.

By the way, if you have not yet read Gloria Ladson-Billings’ 2005 book, Beyond the Big

House: African American Educators on Teacher Education, I highly recommend it to all

education faculty members. Her description of the status levels of Colleges and Schools of

Education serve as a metaphor for us to recognize the concept of dominant group within

university structures. She described the experiences of African-American faculty members in

many of our schools and colleges in such vivid terms that help us understand our challenges

in attracting and retaining a diverse faculty.

The Guiding Principles serve as core values for our work, and provide a means for us to

commit to serving all demographic groups equitably.

The Continuum

For our work as Educational Administration faculty, as well as our work with our P-12

colleagues, the Continuum is the 2 nd tool and is used to diagnose our own values and

behaviors as well as our institutions’ policies and practices. Table 2 represents the continuum

and provides brief descriptions of each point of the continuum.

Table 2. Leadership and the Cultural Proficiency Continuum.

Cultural Destructiveness Cultural Blindness Cultural Competence
♦ _____ ♦ __ ♦ ♦ ____ ♦ ♦
Cultural Incapacity Cultural Precompetence Cultural Proficiency

• Cultural Destructiveness – Leading in a manner that you seek to eliminate the cultures of others in all aspects
  of the school and in relationship with the community served.


• Cultural Incapacity – Leading in a way that you trivialize other cultures and seek to make the culture of others
  appear to be wrong.


• Cultural Blindness – Leading where you don’t see or acknowledge the culture of others and you choose to ignore
  the discrepant experiences of cultures within the school.


• Cultural Precompetence – Leading with an increasing awareness of what you and the school don’t know about
  working in diverse settings. At this level of development you and the school can move in positive, constructive
  direction or you can falter, stop and possibly regress.


• Cultural Competence – Leading with your personal values and behaviors and the school’s policies and practices
  being aligned in a manner that is inclusive with cultures that are new or different from you and the school.


• Cultural Proficiency – Leading as an advocate for life-long learning for the purpose of being increasingly effective
  in serving the educational needs of cultural groups. Holding the vision that you and the school are instruments for
  creating a socially just democracy.