Proactive leaders achieve harmony

Leadership, March, 2001

School leaders are making a positive difference in the area of race relations at their schools, and researchers now know how they're doing it.

According to the Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence at UC Santa Cruz, school leaders who are proactive in addressing racial tensions and encouraging positive interethnic relations have achieved:

* increased academic achievement,

* improved student behavior,

* increased staff collaboration and awareness of interethnic relations,

* increased involvement of diverse parents, and

* improved race relations.

But these changes don't come about if school leaders "operate from the assumption that overt kinds of conflict are the only ones to be concerned about."

Rather, the proactive leaders in the 21 schools examined in the three-year study "tended to reframe the problem, recognizing overt conflict as a `symptom,' and underlying tensions and root causes as the `illness.' By staying tuned to the more subtle tensions ... these leaders were able to identify problems more accurately and develop activities to build a stronger interethnic community."

The research brief (June 2000) is available online at www.crede.ucsc.edu. under products & publications.