2024 Fall Journal of Scholarship and Practice

In the Fall 2024 issue of the AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice, editor Ken Mitchell focuses on articles where he states in his editorial, “It is the work of today’s school leader that can move community members from their separate eco-systems to an acknowledgment that there are points of convergence to benefit all. Such a movement is not a concession or an abandonment of one’s beliefs; it is an acceptance that those with diverse perspectives about life and society can indeed find common ground to benefit all of us.”

In “Fostering Stronger Superintendent-School Board Relations” authors Dorothy Rohde-Collins and J. Cameron Anglum provide readers with suggestions on how to build relationships and reduce conflict. Interest convergence related to a district’s mission, vision, and student needs has the potential to be a unifying force across a community’s constituent “eco-systems.” (The piece is also loaded with statistics about the changing state of the superintendency, that  reflect the rapidly emerging diversity across the nation’s schools.) 

In “Voices of Influence: How Verbal Persuasion Shapes Latinx Superintendent’s Careers,” Ligia Alberto and Amber Lassiter explore the role of self-efficacy in the motivation to aspire to and ultimately attain leadership positions. Finding leaders from diverse backgrounds who are culturally attuned to the needs of students is another form of leading for convergence.

In their commentary, “Connecting the Courtroom to the Classroom: How Educators Can Claim Their Agency through Legal Literacy,” Christopher Thomas and Jamie Kudlats decry a lack of legal literacy by educators and develop a comprehensive and practical set of suggestions for promoting legal literacy.