Abusive School Leadership Practices and Teacher Dissenting Voices: Analysis through Nancy Fraser and Miranda Fricker

Abstract

Research notes a significant rise in varied practices of abusive supervision within the schooling context. Abusive leadership is a social justice dilemma which needs sustained confrontation. This qualitative conceptual study provides a philosophical exploration of the practices of abusive school leadership towards teachers with dissenting voices. This paper takes a conceptual methodological approach and deploys dominant social justice theories espoused by Miranda Fricker and Nancy Fraser as underpinning lenses. Extant and established scholarly literature on abusive supervision was identified and critically analysed. In its examination, the guiding research question was: what are the attributes of abusive school leadership and how do such leadership react to voices that are dissenting? This study is significant because there seem to be inadequate scholarly and empirical contributions on abusive school leadership practices towards teacher dissenting voices.

Keywords

• leadership practices
• school
• teacher dissenting voices
• abusive supervision
• social justice