Collective Visioning for Equity: Centering Youth, Family, and Community Leaders in Schoolwide Visioning Processes

The importance of schoolwide visions is widely accepted and emphasized across the educational-leadership literature. The visioning process and resulting written vision and mission statements can have consequential impacts on the daily life of schools, particularly decisions related to instruction, curriculum, budget, and other key issues. For educators and researchers committed to advancing educational equity, questions about whose perspectives and voices are included in this process matter. Yet, we know little about the extent to which youth, families, and community members, particularly from communities of color and low-income backgrounds, are included in schoolwide visioning processes. To explore the potential role of youth, family, and community stakeholders in schoolwide visioning, we engage in a dual analytical approach informed by critical race theory. First, we critically examine leadership literature concerning visioning and research on youth, family, and community organizing. Second, we share two critical race counternarratives documenting youth and parent attempts to engage and impact schoolwide visions and equitable reforms. Through our analysis, we advance a concept of “collective visioning,” which emphasizes the potential role of a broad, diverse base of school and community stakeholders in the schoolwide visioning process, particularly seeking to center the voices and expertise of marginalized youth, families, and communities.