Leadership for equality in education: 50 years marching forward or marching on the spot?

Abstract

This article examines how Educational Management, Administration and Leadership has embodied the values, concepts and practice of the field of educational leadership over 50 years and so played a part in challenging or sustaining inequality in education. The article explores selected key concepts, equal opportunities, diversity, and social justice, the disciplinary base and prevalent research methods underpinning work on inequality, the geographic location and characteristics of relevant published authors and the two areas which attract most attention, gender and ethnicity/race. All areas embody both a push for change and structural inhibitors that limit its extent. Omissions, silences and displacements are also examined, questioning why, for example, a focus on masculinity, white privilege, learner voice and lower status sectors of education hardly surfaces in half a century. The article concludes that despite the positive achievements of the journal in forwarding equality, there is an equality double bind whereby, like a Trojan virus, parameters limiting change are embedded in the very work that seeks to promote it. A number of positive suggestions for changes in the journal and field are made to encourage researchers and practitioners to detect and resist previous strategies of evasion and limitation.