3: Latinas/ os and School Leadership Research

In the introductory chapters of this volume, we examined the landscape in which Latinas/os are part of in the United States. We also examined the highly complex concept of Latina/ o identity. The way Latina/ o leaders identify carries significance for where they choose to work, how they interact with the school community, and the relationships they develop. The most interesting discovery we made in developing this work is that the majority of research on Latina/ o school leaders is published in doctoral dissertations. We found many dissertations reflecting the work of Latina/ o school leaders and focusing on Latina/ o leadership. A search in a dissertation database lands in over 46,000 dissertations related to Latino school leaders (excluding any noneducation-focused items), and 54,000 dissertations focusing on Latino school leadership (ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text, 2015). A similar search in Google Scholar lands in 197,000 articles and books related to Latino school Leaders and 182,000 studies focused on Latino leadership. In order to learn more about the relationship between Latina/ o leadership and the success of the Latina/ o community, we considered raising issues of identity, organizational structures, and cultural conditions in which Latina/ o leaders operate. That is how the National Latina/ o Leadership Project (NLLP) began.