Examining the Foundations of Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining School Leadership: Towards a Democratic Project of Schooling in Dual Language Bilingual Education

Purpose: Building upon the positive findings from culturally sustaining pedagogical studies, this paper explores how culturally sustaining approaches might operate on an organizational level. Examined in the context of dual language bilingual education (DLBE), this paper proposes a conceptually and empirically-guided culturally and linguistically sustaining school leadership approach (CLSL) as one option for researchers and practitioners to reimagine schools to be more affirming and sustaining for Students of Color (SOC). Research Methods: This project employed a constant comparative analysis across case studies to describe and compare culturally and linguistically sustaining mindsets and practices of DLBE principals in the state of Utah ( Miles et al., 2014). Data collection involved participant methods and data analysis was completed through cycles of inductive and deductive qualitative coding. Findings and Implications: The study unveiled four leadership dimensions – cultivating critical consciousness for self and community, fostering a culturally and linguistically sustaining school climate, supporting culturally sustaining pedagogies, and enacting democratic structures—that operated in tandem to configure a culturally and linguistically sustaining school leadership. The themes bridge existing literature to define culturally sustaining tenets represented in the leadership role by describing ways principals reimagined schools to benefit SOC rather than solely responding to students’ identities and maintaining assimilative student outcomes.