Melanie C. Brooks

• Ph.D. Educational Leadership
• Associate Professor and Associate Dean Research at Edith Cowan University (Australia)

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore how leaders in an Islamic school in the United States engaged in culturally relevant leadership (CRL) within a diverse school community to develop students' critical social consciousness. Research Design: Data were collected over 4 years at an Islamic K-8 school in the United States and included the...

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how socio-religious dynamics influence (and are influenced by) principals in Islamic schools. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative case study took place in Semarang, Indonesia. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with school leaders along with school site observations. To...

The purpose of this study was to better understand how an Islamic school leader’s critical spirituality informed and shaped leadership practice. This qualitative case study explored the role of critical spirituality as it relates to social justice, gender justice, and pluralism in a progressive American Islamic school. Data were collected via semi-...

The purpose of this qualitative cross-cultural case study was to better understand how Muslim students living in Australia, Ireland, and the United States navigated racism so as to identify ways in which school leaders and teachers can better address the structural, historical, and socioeconomic roots of racial injustice, discrimination, and ongoin...

It is urgent that education scholars explore how Islamic values shape (and are shaped by) Muslim school leader beliefs, given the heightened anti-Muslim sentiment present in western contexts. Yet, there is a lack of scholarship on non-western approaches to leading schools. To address this gap, we drew from extant Islamic and educational leadership...

The article advances an emergent framework for conceptualizing the relationship between principal leadership and education policy implementation. Based on a qualitative study of school principals and policy implementation in Region X of the Philippines, findings suggested that the way in which policies were interpreted and implemented at the school...

Islam, Education and Freedom explores six key areas of freedom, identity, pedagogy, diversity, conflict, trust and love, showing their import in Islam. Based on a qualitative case study of a progressive Islamic school in Southern California, North Star Academy, the book illustrates through the voices of the participants how each particular freedom...

Great Muslim Leaders presents Islamic-informed alternatives to Eurocentric Christian understandings of education and educational leadership. It does so by interrupting and displacing the West’s centuries long dismissive stance and monolithic gaze on Islam by showcasing outstanding diverse Muslim leaders across space and time. Each chapter focuses o...

This special issue is dedicated to Dr. Michael E. Dantley in recognition of his pioneering scholarship on critical spirituality in the field of educational leadership. Dr. Dantley published Faith-Based Leadership: Ancient Rhythms or New Management in QSE in January 2005. One could say that this special issue comes full circle, as each article is ro...

This literature review responds to global concerns regarding the state of Islamic schools and their leadership. A socio-religious conceptual framework guided the inquiry and informed the analysis. The review offers a counternarrative to hegemonic discourses, provides meaning to the complex work of Islamic school leaders in varying contexts, and inf...

This study investigated the ways that principal leadership practice is shaped by religion and spirituality, both in terms of how beliefs inform their work and in relation to how religion and spirituality are manifest in school and community. Data were collected over a 6-month period from public school principals working in mixed Catholic-Muslim com...

This study examined the representations of jihad in graphic novels to ascertain how its depictions may inform the development of religious literacy in secondary classrooms. Hegemonic constructions of jihad in the West are commonly reduced to false binaries that shape non-Muslims’ extant beliefs and perceptions of Islam and Muslims. This raises conc...

This volume builds upon emergent understandings about educational leadership around the globe to continue to develop and refine our understanding of what effective leadership means in the context of ever-changing transnational school contexts.

Education and Muslim Identity During a Time of Tension explores life inside an Islamic Center and school in present-day America. Melanie Brooks’ work draws on in-depth discussions with community and school leaders, teachers, parents and students to present thoughtful and contemporary perspectives on many issues central to American-Muslim identitie...

Culturally relevant school leaders help establish and nurture school cultures that support the academic and social success of all students. Yet, some school leaders are not culturally responsive and make uncritical or intentional decisions that disadvantage certain students. This has implications for students marginalized by the dominant culture, e...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how school principals in Southern Philippines approached issues related to religious diversity because of its long history of ethno-religious conflict. Religion has particular importance in the field of education, since how and in what ways religion is included in formal and non-formal curricula can h...

Background/Context Current estimates show 2,500 Islamic State (IS) jihadists are from the United States, Australia, and Western Europe. How and in what ways formal schooling influences the radicalization process and the development of extremist worldviews is yet to be fully understood. There is little research that explores how religious schooling...

This study explored how principals in Southern Thailand lead schools in areas of violent conflict. In order to better understand principals’ perspectives on working in such a con- text, the study was guided by Lynn Davies’ Drivers of Fragility Framework, which identi- fies five ‘drivers’ of conflict in communities: (1) problems of governance; (2) l...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: to discuss methodological challenges facing US scholars when conducting international research; and to present personal reflections as educational leadership faculty in the USA conducting and publishing on research undertaken in Haiti and Thailand. Design/methodology/approach – This study drew from e...

This case study reports one Texas suburban school district’s efforts to promote cultural proficiency after leadership trainings and explores how and in what ways this may or may not have improved school leaders’ understanding of Islam. Terrell and Lindsey’s (2009) conceptual framework of Leadership and the Cultural Proficiency Continuum guided the...

A volume in Educational Leadership for Social Justice Series Editor Jeffrey S. Brooks, Monash University, Denise E. Armstrong, Brock University; Ira Bogotch, Florida Atlantic University; Sandra Harris, Lamar University; Whitney H. Sherman, Virginia Commonwealth University; George Theoharis, Syracuse University The chapters in Urban Educational Lead...

In this chapter, we relate themes derived from an analysis of literature related to international collaboration and cross-cultural communication. Our analysis helped identify five critical areas that present challenges and opportunities for improvement: (1) communication and language; (2) cultural differences; (3) funding and time; (4) co-authorshi...

A volume in New Directions in Educational Leadership: Innovations in Research, Teaching, and Learning Series Editors Noelle Witherspoon-Arnold While nation engages in debates concerning central issues of religion and religious diversity in education, the historic saliency of religion and spirituality in the Black community and in the education of i...

This comparative case study explored a Muslim teacher's experience in 2 different types of schools: a public school and an Islamic private school. A conceptual framework guided the inquiry, which was comprised of constructs such as school culture, workplace relationships, and professional fit. Data was gathered through in-depth interviews and obser...

This article reports findings from a case study of school principals in Southern Thailand who work in areas targeted by Muslim separatist groups. Data were gathered and analyzed using a conceptual framework that conceived of trust as five interrelated constructs: benevolence, honesty, openness, reliability, and competence. This study builds on prio...

This chapter reports findings from a qualitative case study of principals and assistant school principals in southern Thailand who work in areas targeted by Muslim separatist groups. Principals and assistant school principals discussed the pressures they experienced working in an area of conflict and the requirements placed upon them by the Thai Mi...

Background/Context In-school racial segregation, also called second-generation segregation, is a social dynamic that is manifest in different and complicated ways in schoolhouses across the United States. This study sought to investigate how building-level leadership facilitates or impedes the practice of racial equity in an urban high school, from...

Background/Context: In-school racial segregation, also called second-generation segre- gation, is a social dynamic that is manifest in different and complicated ways in schoolhous- es across the United States. This study sought to investigate how building-level leadership facilitates or impedes the practice of racial equity in an urban high school,...

This single-subject case study explored one teacher’s religious conversion to Islam and her workplace relationships in the United States and Egypt. Key findings of the study suggested that social context of schools influenced workplace relationships. As a Muslim-American teacher working in the American public schools, she was uncomfortable revealin...

This article reports findings from a two-year case study of teachers in a single public high school. Data were gathered and analyzed using a conceptual framework that conceived of alienation as a set of five sub-constructs: powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation, and estrangement. Findings suggested that teachers experienced each o...

Little research has focused specifically on gender, social class, and interpersonal relationships in cross-cultural contexts. To help shed light on these issues, this case study focused on the work of an American teacher who converted to Islam and relocated to Cairo, Egypt. While at first this may seem atypical, this study provides insight into the...