Race-Conscious Caring for Anti-racist Leadership: A Narrative Ethics for Cultivating Communal Responsibility

Abstract

Background -- Limited work has been done to integrate ethical leadership and anti-racist school leadership practice. Through narrative ethics, this paper links caring with race-consciousness to form a foundation for critical praxis. Purpose -- The authors address the limitations of caring leadership by arguing for a race-conscious narrative ethics that promotes communal responsibility for students, with specific attention to racialized and marginalized students. Research Design – This conceptual paper draws on caring theory, feminism, womanism, and culturally responsive leadership. The paper considers racism within a United States context, drawing from theory developed in additional contexts. Analysis – The paper builds from the limitations of caring theory and seeks alternative caring ethics from critiques and African-American historical struggles for sustainable and anti-racist praxis. Results -- The authors argue that predispositions toward caring among teachers and school leaders are insufficient for the project of anti-racist education because of uncritical assumptions of sameness, misplaced empathy, and the evasion of race and racism. The resulting impersonal caring reproduces racist power relations and reinforces standardized and competitive notions of responsibility for children, forestalling opportunities for collective action. Conclusions -- As an alternative to impersonal caring, the authors explore the possibilities of deepening leaders’ engagement in race-conscious caring through the significance of experience, the quality of caring relations, and the value of narrative ethics. A key implication is that race-conscious caring is necessary but insufficient for the work of anti-racism unless it informs changed practices, structures, and systems.