The where, who, and what of poverty in schools: Re-framing the concept from a leadership perspective

It is widely agreed that the relationship between poverty and education is bi-directional: poor people lack access to a decent education, and without the latter people are often constrained to a life of poverty (Van der Berg, 2008). Poverty as a “lifetime, and life-wide status” thus develops into a self-fulfilling prophecy that is difficult to emerge from. We acknowledge the interplay between the notions of “poverty,” and “disadvantage,” especially in the wide context of education, and school leadership more specifically, as the focus of this conceptual paper, and thus use them interchangeably in order to advocate for full, and equal opportunities in life as a matter of equity, and fairness. Moreover, we firmly regard education as a direct social justice contributor both in the provision of equal life opportunities, and in imparting students with the responsibility for the perpetration of such opportunities (Waite and Arar, 2020). In this conceptual commentary, we stretch this scholarship of social justice further by troubling the notion of poverty from a social justice lens, and redefining it as a type of “under-privilege” in order to engage scholars, policymakers, and stakeholders in meaning-making, and action. We seek to provide our contextual, inclusive, and problematized re-definition of poverty in relation to schooling, and education by portraying students to be considered at risk at any point in time. We ultimately ask ourselves, and our readers to reflect upon this quintessential question: “What is the purpose of education epitomized by?”