Social Justice within an American Perspective

Over the past few years, there was been a notable increase in scholarly presentations and publications involving the role of social justice in educational leadership. The diversity of social justice issues represents one aspect of the impact of globalization on schools and its leaders. In addition, internationally, schools and its leaders are grappling with social justice issues as a once vast world becomes ever small through technology and cross-cultural interactions (via economics, war, exchanges, etc.). Yet, while this is going on, social justice issues are often marginalized within educational leadership degree and certification programs. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the United States of America. Viewed as soft in comparison to other traditional mainstream topics such as organizational theory, principalship, school law and finance, this phenomenon is representative of a historical event from 1932 when George Counts delivered an infamous speech to the Progressive Education Association entitled, Dare the School build a New Social Order? Given this backdrop, the focus of this special issue revolves around the theme of Dare Professors of Educational Administration Build a New Social Order: Social Justice within an American Perspective.