Multicultural education professional development of principals: Its impact on performances of school leadership

This study examined how and to what extent multicultural professional training affects principals' perception and leadership capacity to satisfy the needs of students, faculty and staff in culturally pluralistic high schools. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of three high school principals' concerning multicultural education and their real-world experiences infusing the main goals of multicultural education (tolerance to diversity, educational equity and empowerment) in to the curriculum and educational activities in diverse schools. The professional service of qualified educators is essential to ensure an effective educational program that ensures maximum student achievement and success for all students. It is, therefore, fundamental that, principals, faculty and staff who are involved in the education of students receive the training necessary to prepare them to design, manage, implement, and evaluate multicultural education so that the outcome of this training may double the student achievement. A mixed research technique and case study methodology was employed to collect data. A total of 16 (100%) principals and assistant principals from the three sample high schools participated in this study. Data collection techniques such as face-to-face interviews, direct observation, document review, field notes, and a questionnaire developed by Washburn (1995), were used for this study. The questionnaire was modified to fit school code laws in Atlanta, Georgia. The collected data was analyzed and the findings were framed to answer the five research questions from multicultural perspectives. This analysis has reflected several perspectives of the respondents on a variety of topics related to school leadership.