Lãnh đạo chuyển đổi: Phụ nữ Mỹ gốc Á trong quản lý cao đẳng cộng lập California - Nghiên cứu của Amy Leung

TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP: ASIAN AMERICAN WOMEN IN CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION Amy Leung B., University of California, Berkeley, 2006 M., University of California, Merced, 2009 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION in EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP at CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO SPRING 2020 Copyright © 2020 Amy Leung All rights reserved ii TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP: ASIAN AMERICAN WOMEN IN CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION A Dissertation by Amy Leung Approved by Dissertation Committee: _________________________________ Dr. Caroline Turner, Chair _________________________________ Dr. LeAnn Fong-Batkin _________________________________ Dr. Man Phan SPRING 2020 iii TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP: ASIAN AMERICAN WOMEN IN CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION Student: Amy Leung I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format manual, and this dissertation is suitable for electronic submission to the library and credit is to be awarded for the dissertation.

___________________________, Graduate Coordinator _________________ Dr. Rose Borunda Date iv DEDICATION To the all the community educators working to bring real change. We are the leaders we’ve been looking for. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I’d like to acknowledge my committee for all their positivity and support in helping me reach my full potential.

Caroline Turner, it’s been my pleasure working with you all these years and I am honored to be your student. You motivate me to strive higher as a researcher, educator, and leader. Your qualitative skills are, of course, unmatched. Thank you for inspiring my topic and my methodology.

LeAnn Fong-Batkin for reliably providing thoughtful guidance that strengthened me as an educational researcher and leader. Thank you for taking my phone calls and generously answering all my questions! To Dr. Man Phan for being a pillar of support and encouragement throughout my entire doctoral process. I am definitely standing on the shoulders of giants.

I could not have asked for a better committee. I’d like to thank all of my professors over the course of this program. Particularly, to Dr. Maiyoua Vang, for shaping my critical thinking.

To my cohort 11 colleagues, I have learned from each and every one of you, and as a result, I am a better human being. I am so grateful and proud to have grown up in this program with you all. To Patrick Hayashi, Nadia Wong, Regina Ip, and Frank Kobayashi for their thoughtful advice, help, and friendship throughout my dissertation process. Finally, I’d like to acknowledge my family for their love and support through this process.

I am particularly grateful for my parents for always being there as my number one cheerleaders. To Fa, thank you for being you every single day. To V, I hope this inspires you. I love you all very much.

vi CURRICULUM VITAE Education Ed. California State University Sacramento, Educational Leadership May 2020 M. University of California, Merced, Economics August 2009 B. University of California, Berkeley, Economics May 2006 Professional Employment Professor of Economics, Los Rios Community College District 2011-Present Graduate Research Assistant, Sacramento State College of Education 2018-Present Publications “Review of Transformative Leadership in Education by Shields, C.” 2019 Journal of Transformative Leadership and Policy Studies Fields of Study Community Colleges, Transformative Leadership, Stratification Economics, Cultural Political Economy, Critical Race Theory, Critical Race Feminism, Critical Pedagogy, Students of Color, Faculty of Color, Asian American Identity vii Abstract of TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP: ASIAN AMERICAN WOMEN IN CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION by Amy Leung This qualitative study uplifts the narratives of eight Asian American women in California community college administration who practice transformative leadership.

Through critical narrative inquiry, this study examines the lived experiences of these leaders as they (re)defined and mediated meaning as transformative leaders, or leaders guided by values of equity, democracy, social justice, and emancipatory education. The influence of individual background, significant life experiences, and the overlapping identities of race, gender, and class upon leadership style is especially explored. Critical race feminism (CRF) theory, intersectionality, and multiplicity are used in an interactive framework to ground the lived experiences of the leaders. By centralizing Asian American woman perspectives, experiences, and lives, this study prompts a more complex rethinking of their leadership formation, one that centers their standpoint, epistemology, and praxis.

This study specifically seeks to understand how the lived experiences of these leaders and transformative change co-exist within community college education. Through this process, this study identifies specific leadership tools and practices by listening to their narratives and uncovering any viii experiential knowledge Asian American women have contributed in their transformative leadership. Findings contribute toward a more complicated understanding of the Asian American woman identity, suggesting an evolving definition. The narrative data reveal a pioneering, politically activated, and intrepid spirit that is deeply embedded in who they are.

Findings also point to specific transformative leadership elements that are emphasized by the participants including strategic leading for social justice, community leading, activism, and authenticity. These findings produce new leadership epistemology through a humanistic, value-added, and expansive way to view educational leaders and diverse perspectives, which ultimately enriches the relationship between leadership theory and practice within community colleges. Keywords: community college, transformative leadership, diversity, equity, inclusion ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Dedication. vi Curriculum Vitae.

vii List of Tables. xiii List of Figures .4 Significance of the Study…………………………………………………………….9 Nature of the Study……………………………………………………………………. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE………………………………………………….24 Asian American Women.24 Racialization Through a Gendered Lens.24 Asian American Women in Higher Education.28 Overview of Community Colleges.44 Faculty and Administrator Diversity.46 x Encroachment of Neoliberalism……………………………………………………….49 Conceptual Framework…………………………………………………………………61 Transformative Leadership.61 Critical Race Feminism Theory.84 Role of Researcher…………………………………………………………………….87 Research Setting, Population, and Sample…………………………………………….89 Data Collection Process.90 Instrumentation and Data Analysis…………………………………………………….92 Protection of Participants……………………………………………………………….93 Validity and Trustworthiness………………………………………………………. ANALYSIS OF THE DATA……………………………………………………………….107 Pioneering the First Generation………………………………………………….107 (Re)defining the Asian American Woman Identity…………………………………….115 Pushing Back on Hegemonic Narratives……………………………………………….131 Transformative Leadership: Community, Social Justice, and Activism………….136 xi Strategic Leading for Social Justice…………………………………………………….161 Authentic Leading: I Am Who I Am………………………….……167 Advice for the Emerging Transformative Leader………………………………………171 5.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS……………………………………………………….182 Interpretation of the Findings…………………………….206 Recommendation for Future Research.207 Reflections of the Researcher………. APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………………212 Interview Guide/Protocol……………………………………………………………….213 Invitation Letter to Participants……………………………………………………….216 Informed Consent Form……………………………………………………………….221 xii LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Educational Administrators in the California Community Colleges. Overview of Transformative Leadership…….

Research Questions and Interview Questions……………………………………………. Interview Location and Duration…………………………………………………….91 xiii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. California Community College Student Profile………………………………………………42 2. California Community College Student Completion…………………………………………44 3.

California Community College System Data for the School Year, 2016-2017………………47 4. California Community College System Data for the School Year, 2016-2017………………49 5. Model of Transformative Leadership Theory………………………………. Conceptual Model of Theoretical Framework Informing Leadership Praxis.

Findings Model of Identity Themes and Leadership Themes……………….205 xiv 1 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION The imbrication of race and gender with class hierarchy in higher educational leadership scholarship is reifying what is known about leadership and how leadership is defined. Yet, the dominant scholarship still rests upon habits of positivist framing and the identification of outcomes that befall those in small numbers. Less recognized is the narrative that privileges Asian American women’s perspectives, experiences, and lives. A more complex rethinking of their leadership formation that centers their standpoint, epistemology, and praxis is often kept in the margins.

Further, not widely acknowledged or documented are Asian American women’s campaigns as transformative educational leaders: skilled activist educators who work tirelessly toward a true, liberatory education for all, and courageous human beings who unequivocally leave imprints upon their students and communities. This study addresses this missing piece in the literature by problematizing that little is known about the individual stories of these women. Underrepresentation is the master narrative in Asian American women educational leadership scholarship. Demographic data point to shortfall in college presidencies, administration, and faculty positions across the United States.

The American Council on Education (ACE) (2017), for example, reported that women of color, including Asian American women, were the most underrepresented group in the college presidency across the country at only 5%. 2 Hardship and burden also rule the master narrative of Asian American women educational leaders. In the face of underrepresentation, education scholars attempt to study workplace challenges, systemic discrimination, gender parity, and other factors that may explain the scarcity of Asian American women in these leadership positions. For their race and gender, they are “tokenized” at the workplace (Turner, 2002) and viewed as “strangers” (Li & Beckett, 2006) and “outsiders” (Hune, 1998) in their faculty and administrative positions.

As they attempt to climb the ranks in academe, they experience unique workplace discrimination that is classed, raced, gendered, and sexualized (Cho, 1997). It is recognized in educational research that the Asian American woman’s career journey through higher education has been a hazardous one, fraught with explicit and implicit discrimination and disproportionate numerical outcomes. While documenting workplace challenges holds value, this study moves the narrative forward to document the campaigns of Asian American women as they successfully lead their higher education institutions. Specifically, this study captures the narratives of those Asian American women who exercise transformative leadership at their community college campus.

Transformative leadership is guided by values of equity, democracy, and social justice, and engages with communities in emancipatory education, or education that aims to redress social and material inequities (Freire, 1970; Nevarez, Wood, & Penrose, 2013; Shields, 2010, 2018; Weiner, 2003). In her book Transformative Leadership in Education, Shields (2018) suggests that modern educational leadership faces the problem of fixating upon a singular person in leadership, “[a]nd for the most part, historically, that single person has been a White male” (p. 3 As a result, leadership scholarship tends to ignore more recent and collaborative approaches from, for instance, indigenous and non-Eurocentric leadership perspectives (Shields, 2018, p. This study attempts to search deeper for the next layer in the Asian American woman higher education leadership experience.

As leaders, who are they? Specifically, as those who bravely identify as leading their college with social transformation in mind, how did they get to this point? And, what have they accomplished in their leadership role? This study argues that the answers can only be unearthed by positioning the participants as narrators of their own explanation and their own story. In developing a theory of Asian American Pacific Islander feminist epistemology, or “culturally specific, gender-equity-seeking ways of knowing, feeling, being, and doing” (Yee, 2009, p. 49), Yee (2009) listened to the critical narratives of her participants. By doing so, she observed that acts of resistance against oppressive systems catalyzed critical consciousness in these women such that they rewrote the script “to alter how they engage in these ‘sites of interaction’ by seeking fairness in relationships and equality of treatment” (Yee, 2009, p.

A transformative educator herself, Yee presented justification for narrative exploration methodologies and encouraged research that recognized epistemology developed by these women. Therefore, it is with purposeful and careful intention that this study attempts to humanize through narrative inquiry these living Asian American women who are transformative leaders in higher education. Czarniawska (2004) stated that narrative stories pay special attention to an individual’s negotiation of meaning and within this is a 4 dialectical tension that “thrives on the contrast between the ordinary, what is ‘normal’, usual, and expected, and the ‘abnormal’, unusual, and unexpected” (p. Then, from this dialectical mode of discourse, dynamically moving from one factor to another, a bigger picture, a building comprehension, of the participant’s story can be woven.

In the process, this study specifically seeks to understand how critical leaders, provocative voices, lived experiences, and transformative change live and breathe within community college education. Problem Statement This study problematizes the dearth of narratives of Asian American women as transformative leaders in educational research. Who are these leaders? How do they lead? By centering their voices and exploring knowledge production by Asian American women transformative leaders in the California community college administration, this study challenges the deficit framework that views them as incompetent educational leaders. Instead, it uses critical narrative inquiry to determine how the constellation of individual backgrounds, significant life experiences, and overlapping identities influence their higher educational leadership styles as transformative leaders.

Their socially transformative visions, goals, and accomplishments will be documented in this study.