Abstract
University leaders play an important transformative role as they carry out policies and practices that support socially just education for all students. This study examines the knowledge that vice chancellors have about the social justice issues of inequality and exclusion impacting the institutions they serve, how this knowledge relates to social justice leadership practices, and how their background factors influence those practices. A quantitative survey sampled vice chancellors and executive managers in the universities in the Western Cape to explore correlations between these variables. Ten in-depth interviews investigated these issues to understand more deeply the social justice leadership practices. The main question that guided the research was: How do Vice Chancellors interpret and enact social justice in their leadership practices in higher education institutions? Critical Race Theory provides a framework for influencing the development of critical, self-reflective social justice leadership practices and for challenging the concept of the achievement gap.
Data were collected through structured and open-ended, interviews and various higher education legislations and institutional strategic plan documents. The findings reveal unique characteristics and dispositions that influenced and guided the participants’ work. The leadership actions they took to achieve the goals were creating a climate of belonging for staff and students, nurturing a climate of growth, and creating the container for social justice. These socially just leaders strove to influence their university community in pursuit of their vision and goals.
The findings add to the understanding of social justice issues in relation to the apartheid legacy, transformation at universities and include medium to high positive correlations between accuracy of knowledge of social justice issues impacting students and the valuing of social justice practices. The findings further suggest a deeper understanding of what social justice strategies look like through visibility and intentionality (including critical consciousness, action, responsibility, empowerment, and the naming of structures of inequality).