A Dialogue about Race and Ethnicity in Education: Struggling to Understand Issues in Cross-Cultural Leadership

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to prompt reflection on the complexity of leading diverse and multiethnic schools. Taking as a starting point some situations and attitudes common in schools, the article is presented in a dialogical format in which the authors engage in debate, raise issues, and challenge each other's assumptions. By struggling to make sense of conflicting perspectives, and by reflecting on their own dialogue, the authors hope to model the type of debate that might occur in schools to help educational leaders better understand how to create a sense of community in multicultural contexts.