Mobilizing, Advocating, and Organizing for Care in the School District Central Office
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21582013 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kate E Kennedy (0000-0003-0245-3719, University of Cincinnati, OH, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 231-271 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Educational Policy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0895-9048 • E-ISSN: 1552-3896 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/08959048251337453 |
| OpenAlex | W4410496872 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 119 |
This paper presents a case study of a caring school district located in a farmworker community composed largely of Latinx families. I examine how central office leaders create or maintain care supports under crisis conditions. Findings suggest that district-level care was multidimensional and distributed, involving mobilization of community leadership, improvisational structures, and novel leadership routines. District care was enacted through a collective vision of care, rooted in a love of place and focused on healing. This study offers an account of distributed leadership that centers families, community members, and community partners. Ultimately, I argue that caring is a form of institutional work. Types of work include creation, maintenance, expansion, and disruptive work. This study contributes to the empirical research base on organizational care and contributes theoretically through the application of a positive institutional work lens to the study of care in education
Pedagogy · Political science · Public relations · School district · Sociology · Educational Assessment and Improvement · Evaluation and Performance Assessment · Public Administration · Teacher Education and Leadership Studies
Care ethics and “caring” organizations
Inside Graduate Admissions
Care and Possibility
Institutions and Institutional Work
Institutional Work
Street-Level Bureaucracy Revisited
Culturally Responsive Schooling for Indigenous Youth
Toward a theory of culturally relevant critical teacher care
A Framework for Rethinking Educational Leadership in the Margins
Not the Color Purple
Institutional Work
Transformative Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)
On Doing Critical Policy Analysis
A Humanizing Pedagogy
Evidence, Interpretation, and Persuasion
From Family Engagement to Equitable Collaboration
Case Study Research
Tva and the Grass Roots
Tinkering toward Utopia
Working toward transformation
Latinx Immigrant Parents’ Cultural Communicative Resources
Community Schools as an Urban School Reform Strategy
How district leaders create caring organizations
School Leaders’ Use of Social-Emotional Learning to Disrupt Whiteness
“We Don’t Got Time for Grumbling”
Is Role Change Enough? District Organizational Supports for Principal Supervision
Multiple Logics of Curriculum Leadership
Maintaining Places of Social Inclusion
I’m Here for the Hard Re-Set
Critical Ethnography in Education
Public Goods, Private Goods
The role of positive emotions in positive psychology
Hmm … Hmmm … Excuse Me? A Case Study of Interruptive Caring in a Bilingual Classroom
Children's Counter‐narratives of Care
Social and emotional learning is hegemonic miseducation
Daring to care
Toward a theory of critical care in urban small school reform
We want to help our community”
Caring reflexivity
Changing the Grammar of Schooling
Going Off Script
Caring School Leadership
Duet or Duel? A Portrait of Two Logics of Reading Instruction in an Urban School District
Stability and Change of Mentoring Practices in a Capricious Policy Environment
Between Structure and Agency
Reforming the Grammar of Schooling Again and Again
PK–12 District Leadership for Equity
Institutional Logics in Los Angeles Schools
Well-Being and Equity
How Central Office Leaders Influence School Leaders’ Decision-Making
Choice, Competition, and Cognition
Birthing the Motherscholar and Motherscholarship
Combining Institutional and Distributed Frameworks in Studies of School Leadership
Thinking Ecologically in Educational Policy and Research
Interpersonal caring in the ?good? segregated schooling of African-American children
White on White
Tangles and Glimmers
Understanding caring in context
Cuz They Care About the People Who Goes There”
Humanizing Student–Teacher Relationships for Black Children
Latino Emergent Bilingual Youth in High Schools
Breaking Barriers
Teachers of Color & Self-Efficacy in Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)
Community Schools as Urban District Reform
Transformative Social and Emotional Learning
Reciprocal Love
Reading Erasures and Making the Familiar Strange
Crafting Coherence
Educational Policy and Practice From the Perspective of Institutional Theory
Deep play
Positive Affect and the Complex Dynamics of Human Flourishing
Systemic social and emotional learning
School Violence and Theoretically Atypical Schools
Are Homegrown Teachers Who Graduate From Urban Districts More Racially Diverse, More Effective, and Less Likely to Exit Teaching
Power and Caring
The Business of Teaching and Learning”
State Policy and the Non-Monolithic Nature of the Local School District
Constraints, Values, and Information
Will You Stand for Me? Authentic Cariño and Transformative Rites of Passage in an Urban High School
I’m a Teacher, I’m Gonna Always Protect You”
The “Grammar” of Schooling
Youth Leadership and Intersectionality
Seeking aMexicana/MestizaEthic of Care
Learner-Centered Teacher-Student Relationships Are Effective
The Role of Institutionalization in Cultural Persistence
Reflections on the Subtractive Underpinnings of Education Research and Policy
Creating conditions for social-emotional learning
Researcher, Analyze Thyself
Institutionalized Organizations
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |