Using Transformational Leadership to Create Brave Space in Teaching Multicultural Education

Abstract

The study explores how multicultural education instructors use transformational leadership to establish “brave space” as a foundation for critical conversations about identity. Establishing brave space within education courses is essential to facilitating pre-service teachers’ understanding of social justice; yet, little research exists regarding the use of transformational classroom leadership to achieve this. This qualitative study is comprised of semi-structured interviews with three instructors through a lens of transformational classroom leadership. Our findings suggest that transformational leadership practices such as modelling the way, challenging the process, encouraging the heart, etc. facilitate students’ understanding of identity, relational trust, and their tacit values.