EDUC 709 / Cohort 8 / Eyad Alfattal

Five Principles for Leadership, Equity,

and Social Justice in Education

I.

The Five Principles

In my opinion, the most important five principles for leadership, equity and social justice in
education are: (1) opportunity and success, (2) positive and safe environment, (3) guidance and
advocacy, (4) diversity and involvement, and (5) freedom and democracy. These are illustrated in
Figure [1] below and explained briefly afterwards. Finally, a discussion of feedback I received as
I shared these principles through social media is presented.

Democracy &
Freedom

Positive &
Safe
Environment

Opportunity
& Success

Education

Guidance &
Advocatacy

Diversity &
Involvement

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EDUC 709 / Cohort 8 / Eyad Alfattal

Figure [1]: Five Principles for Leadership, Equity, and Social Justice in Education

1. Equitable Education Opportunities and Success are Accessible to All Students.

This principle suggests that (a) equal core services are offered by schools and universities to all
students, and (b) additional services, including remedial instruction and academic guidance, is
offered to less advantaged students. Attainment of similar knowledge volumes and skill sets, and
achieving success must be possible for all learners across schools and universities; learners must
be supported to achieve their learning goals, including target qualifications, at the end of
programs.
2. Teaching and Learning Takes Place in a Positive and Safe Environment.
A positive and safe educational environment is that in which participants believe in and practice
acceptance, respect and tolerance of others who have different backgrounds. Diversity, in all its
forms including gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and religion, must be allowed as part and
parcel of the social fabric. Diversity must be celebrated with the objective of empowering,
confidence building, and encouraging underrepresented and minority students to engage in
education. In such environment, motivation increases for all as collaborative and supportive
relationships, student-student, student-faculty, student- staff, and faculty-staff, are established.
3. Administrators, Faculty and Staff of Schools and Universities Guide and Advocate
for All Students.
Trust between students on one hand and faculty and staff on the other must be created. In
addition to access to quality information and guidance in relation to programs and career
progression, students must have access to relevant, effective support on personal issues. With
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EDUC 709 / Cohort 8 / Eyad Alfattal

students success as an objective, faculty and staff must invest additional efforts to advocate for
less advantaged, minority and underrepresented students. There must be a good diagnosis of, and
provision for, individual learning needs for these populations.
4. Schools and Universities Involve Diverse Populations That Reflect the Diversity of
the Communities They Serve.
The population of schools and universities, including their students, staff and faculty, must be
diverse with ratios that are relevant to the communities they serve and the overall society.
Institutions need to relate to and engage underrepresented groups in the purpose of promoting
diverse admissions and graduation rates that support the equal redistribution of knowledge and
human capital in society. It needs to be stressed that the mission of educational institutions is not
only to enroll and graduate students from all backgrounds but also to involve them in all aspects
of the educational experience. This principle also includes scholarly research activity that has to
be conducted by diverse populations with the responsibility of redefining truth, epistemological
grounds, approaches and methods for social justice and equity.
5. Democracy and Freedom Are Education Means and Objectives.
Educational institutions must operate democratically where leadership involves all stakeholders
in policy making, governance and monitoring of education. The principles of freedom and
democracy must be incorporated to pedagogy and methodology where students are central in
shaping their learning experiences. It is an objective to educate students on democracy and
freedom as they will be the next generation that will reproduce the ethics of the nation.

II.

Feedback and Reflection

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EDUC 709 / Cohort 8 / Eyad Alfattal

To receive feedback and opinions, I shared the five principles proposed here for leadership,
equity and social justice in education in social media through two platforms namely Facebook
and LinkedIn. I published the principles through Update Status in Facebook and Share an
Update spaces in my personal accounts. I posted only the graph in Figure [1] rather than the full
titles of the 5 principles and the explanation I provide. I added the following heading to the post
in both social media platforms: I have just developed a five-principle framework for equitable
education summarized in the figure below. Please tell me what you think of each of these
principles. I appreciate your helpful feedback. The objective of the heading and only sharing the
graph was not to limit feedback to any narrow framework that I may unknowingly be imposing
on the principles; I encouraged ideas and arguments in all directions.
Feedback in Facebook where I have more personal relationship with my network was more
intense than that in LinkedIn. Below is a summary and a discussion of the ideas shared in the two
social media platforms.

1. Feedback from Facebook

My post in Facebook received a total of 14 likes. Only 5 Friends provided feedback. The
pseudonyms that I use for them here are Linda, Hilda, Tom, Simon and Anna.
Linda and Hilda provided three comments all of which argue that the principles suggested are
fictitious, utopic since they are not achievable in real life. Their argument is that neither the
policy nor the popular culture in their context, Turkey and Syria respectively, support the
achievement of equality and social justice.

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EDUC 709 / Cohort 8 / Eyad Alfattal

Tom is an education specialist and lives in the United States of America. He believes that
although the principles suggested here are difficult to achieve, they must remain the objectives
towards which we need to work. He recognized Linas and Hildas arguments and stated that the
principles might be more relevant to Education in the West although it can be adapted and
applied to other ecological and cultural settings. Tom centered his discussion around the
principle of Opportunity and Success and argued that there might be efforts to recruit students
from underrepresented populations to higher education; however, very little is done to support
these populations success and involvement. He gave examples where lower income students can
be taking a degree program yet have to work to provide for themselves or their families;
consequently, these students do not have resources to live all the dimensions of the college
experience. Tom further clarified that separate and different types of college experiences are
lived by different segments of the society especially if we compare the lives of students studying
in commuter campuses, mainly populated by lower income and underrepresented populations, to
those in residential ones. Finally, Tom stressed the role of research for the achievement of the
objectives of the principles in different settings. He believes that the validity of our claims of
what equity and social justice are at the first place and the application and monitoring of the
measures we set is the role of research into society and education.
Simons feedback on the five principles suggested here was that these principles are
interdependent on one another for creating a meaningful educational experience. He believed
that in his context, United Arab Emirates, not enough is done with the principle of Guidance
and Advocacy as teachers and educational counselors are focus only on the academic,
particularly instructional, aspects of the educational process. Finally, Simon invited me to think

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EDUC 709 / Cohort 8 / Eyad Alfattal

of education and the consequent knowledge generation as human activities and that in my
principle of Diversity and Involvement, I need to accommodate such global perspective.
Anna had international experience as an educator and was the most to provide feedback and
engage with others who commented on the post. She was very critical and thought that my 5
principles are missing some pieces. In response to Lindas and Hildas arguments that the
principles were utopic, Anna suggested that I cascade each of the principles to smart initiatives
or drivers as integrated milestones on the way to achieve the objective of framework. She
believes that justice is an achievable goal once societies make the decision to challenge, engage
and act. Anna, nonetheless, thought that my principles were missing the integration of quality
as a central goal. I agreed that quality in education is important and I suggested that a special
framework can be developed for it. A reference to such framework can be made in the equity and
social justice principles model; Opportunity and Success principle can accommodate that
quality education is a right for all. Anna also thought that innovation and creativity were absent
from my 5-principle model. I encouraged her to elaborate more on how this would relate to
equity and social justice, and she argued that elite schools, for example, may employ resources
and methodology that can provide more opportunities that foster critical thinking and creativity.
In turn, this results in societies that have different segments of the population with different and
potentially inequitable skill sets. I thought that Annas arguments were interesting. I revised my
model and tried to integrate some of her concepts into my principle of Opportunity and
Success.

2. Feedback from LinkedIn

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EDUC 709 / Cohort 8 / Eyad Alfattal

My 5-principle model for leadership, equity and social justice in education received a total of 51
likes in LinkedIn. Several of my connections on this social media platform commended the
model and only two engaged in content-related comments. Their pseudonyms here are Rami and
Haya.
Rami thought that the model suggested here is missing relationships. In my model, I
incorporate relationships into the principle of Positive and Safe Environment.
Finally, similar to Hilda and Linda in Facebook, Haya thought that although the principles were
interesting they are difficult to achieve in practice. She further argued that there are political and
social forces that protect the status quo of ignorance and inequality in societies so that certain
interest relationships are maintained. She suggested replacing the principle of Democracy and
Freedom in my model by a less provocative one. In Hayas context, the Middle East, these
words are regarded as unacceptable by the ruling oppressive governments. People are arrested if
they pursued or even discussed such concepts. She believe that true education is forbidden in
many contexts.

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