Multicultural Education Review

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmer20

A systematic review on multiculturalism and

educational leadership: similarities and contrasts
in knowledge production across societies

Carolina Cuéllar , Juan Pablo Queupil , Catalina Cuenca & Javiera Ravest

To cite this article: Carolina Cuéllar , Juan Pablo Queupil , Catalina Cuenca & Javiera Ravest
(2020): A systematic review on multiculturalism and educational leadership: similarities and
contrasts in knowledge production across societies, Multicultural Education Review, DOI:
10.1080/2005615X.2020.1842655

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/2005615X.2020.1842655

Published online: 02 Nov 2020.

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MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION REVIEW
https://doi.org/10.1080/2005615X.2020.1842655

REVIEW ARTICLE

A systematic review on multiculturalism and educational

leadership: similarities and contrasts in knowledge
production across societies
Carolina Cuéllar , Juan Pablo Queupil , Catalina Cuenca and Javiera Ravest
Facultad de Educación, Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez, Santiago, Chile

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The intersection of multiculturalism and educational leadership, Received 29 March 2020
under a Social Justice (SJ) framework to understand diversity and Accepted 29 June 2020
equity issues, has received major attention in the academic world KEYWORDS
internationally. However, few is known about commonalities and Multiculturalism; educational
differences between societies within this intersection. To address leadership; social justice;
this gap, we reviewed 215 indexed articles from main databases, systematic review
following PRISMA procedures. Results detected most research con­
ceptualises multiculturality as indigenism, ethnicity or race, and less
often as gender, religion, and disabilities. Also, the understanding
of leadership generally focuses on principals and empowered tea­
chers within formal K-12 settings. Furthermore, we found the hege­
mony of Anglo-Saxon publications, even among non-English
speaking countries, giving insights of academic colonialism. We
concluded the relevance of the relationship of educational leader­
ship with multiculturalism as a research+development agenda. To
reach equity and develop SJ inside of several diversity understand­
ings, educational leaders need to address broad communities by
a culturally sensitive leadership.

The field of educational leadership has long been concerned with its role in enhancing
learning for all students with the aim of closing the gap between advantaged and
disadvantaged learners, understanding that it will also lead to school or organisational
improvement (Leithwood et al., 2008; McKenzie et al., 2008). In recent years, however,
critical scholars have questioned this stance, pointing it out as reductionist in light of
multicultural societies and diversified educational systems, which have been triggering to
a social justice leadership approach that goes beyond managing multiculturalism (Miled,
2019; Zembylas & Iasonos, 2015; Zufiaurre & Wilkinson, 2014).
In order to respond to this growing demand, there are still some research challenges
that need to be addressed. A significant one is the study of leadership issues in relation to
multiculturalism as a way to foster social justice, in times of unprecedented changes in the
composition of educational institutions. However, few about this is known in global
literature (Arar et al., 2017; Miled, 2019; Oplatka, 2014). Then, as a first step, it becomes
critical to provide insights into this intersection that may serve to articulate the academic

CONTACT Carolina Cuéllar cuellar.carolina@gmail.com Facultad de Educación, Universidad Católica Silva

Henríquez, Santiago, Chile
© 2020 Korean Association for Multicultural Education
2 C. CUÉLLAR ET AL.

production among these areas. This paper aims to analyse relevant research in the field to
conceptualise multiculturalism and identify educational leaders involved in the docu­
ments reviewed, mapping similarities and contrasts across worldwide settings. The ques­
tions pursued by this systematic review were:

1. What are the different approaches to multiculturalism and the notions of social
justice in studies on educational leadership?
2. Who are being conceived as educational leaders in studies on multiculturalism?
3. Are there any trends regarding educational settings and geographical locations
where educational leadership and multiculturalism are being studied?

Literature on multiculturalism shows there is a wide range of understandings around

this concept. In fact, multiculturalism takes many assertions mainly because it is con­
figured by historical, social, cultural and political circumstances and contexts, within
and across societies (Ginges & Cairns, 2000; Grant & Portera, 2010; Guilherme & Dietz,
2015). Accordingly, the different theoretical perspectives from where the issue of multi­
culturalism has been analysed, going from conservative to critical frameworks
(Zembylas & Iasonos, 2015), also contribute to its various and somehow contested
interpretations. Despite the extent of this divergence among academic works, it
seems that the prevailing notion of multiculturalism is strongly associated with the
idea of diversity, regarded as ethnicity, race, religion, social class, migration, language
and gender issues, among others (El-Khawas & Associates, 2003; Gay, 2010; Gewirtz,
1998; Li, 2005).
In the educational sphere, the recognition of culturally diverse groups has probably
become the most deeply rooted way of understanding multiculturalism. In fact, multi­
cultural education, as it is commonly understood and practiced, tried to address the
‘other’ students (Keddie, 2012; Talib et al., 2009). In a positive way, the construction of this
‘otherness’ involves the ability to be aware and appreciative of other cultures (Connerley
& Pedersen, 2005; Edwards, 2015). However, the concept of ‘otherness’ could likewise be
blurring or hiding some serious situations. For instance, ignoring power relations and
structural inequalities that underlie the concept of diversity, homogenising cultural
groups perceived as disadvantaged, and excluding certain social and educational actors
(Jeevanantham, 2001; Mengstie, 2011; Parthenis & Fragoulis, 2016; Zembylas & Iasonos,
2015).
The implications for education behind the complexity of multiculturalism as a concept
have claimed the need to move towards a social justice-oriented education (Ladson-
Billings & Tate, 2006; Zilliacus et al., 2017) which is able to support cultural diversity, while
uncovering and challenging inequalities. As such, multicultural education has not been
politically impartial about the normative principles of equality, equity, civic and human
rights, and so on (Grant, 1992, 2016; Osler, 2015). Grant (2016) argues that for multicultural
education to be fruitful, educational policies and practices should embed the principles of
social justice, thus boosting a systemic change in those terms. At a macro level, it implies
systemic reforms targeting redistribution of resources, whilst at the micro level, it involves
rethinking dominant curricular and pedagogical aspects of education (Banks & McGee,
2020; Sleeter, 2010).
 MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION REVIEW 3

Nevertheless, the issue of social justice seems to come out once again when discussing
educational leadership in multicultural societies. The still limited but growing critical
research in the area of social justice leadership shows consensus in building this approach
upon two central notions: advocacy and transformation. Accordingly, these leaders ‘act as
advocates of traditionally marginalized and poorly serviced students and are dedicated to
the restoration of just structures in the economy, culture and power’ (Zembylas & Iasonos,
2015, p. 5). It is important to note that social justice leadership is conceived as a deliberate
transformative action that stems from a moral purpose (Giles & Cuéllar, 2016), however,
changing systemic hegemonic structures which have historically contributed to injustices
is not an easy task. Actually, it is probably one of the reasons why this approach has been
considered somewhat unrealistic (Zembylas & Iasonos, 2010).
Beyond this critique, students’ academic performance (and its success) is bound to
systemic hegemonic structures and the injustices contextualizing their daily realities, prior
knowledge and abilities. The fact that leadership is contextually grounded, makes social
justice an irreplaceable lens for leaders working towards the attainment of institutional
and academic goals: ‘if leaders wish their schools to be excellent, they will also need to be
socially just’ (Shields, 2014, p. 325). Here relies the importance of the intersection between
social justice and educational leadership. As it happens, some studies have found some
central leadership practices could challenge hegemonic structures, some which have
been systematised by DeMatthews (2015) as follows:
(a) interrogating school policies, cultures, and community expectations; (b) identifying
oppressive and unjust practices; (c) employing democratic processes to engage marginalized
communities, faculty, and staff; and (d) substituting unjust practices with equitable and
culturally appropriate ones. (p. 145)

Additionally, a couple of recent theoretical efforts has suggested frameworks to examine

the expression of social justice leadership in context, focusing on the scenarios where it
operates; its multiple dimensions; the way it is enacted; and its implications for prepara­
tion. However, empirical evidence around these analytical tools is scarce (Sarid, 2019).
In that way, it is important to know the recent scientific developments in this area, by
comparative studies that analyse and enrich the conceptualisation of multiculturalism
(Arar et al., 2017) and the identification of educational leaders involved, recognising
similarities and divergences across the world.

Material and Methods

This systematic review followed the guidelines and reporting procedures of PRISMA
Statement (Moher et al., 2015). Publications reviewed were selected from Scopus,
SciELO, and WOS databases because of their quality and impact within scientific and
scholarly research, by using the following criteria: ‘Education’ ‘School’ and ‘Leader’,
together with ‘Multicultural’ or ‘Intercultural’ or ‘Diversity’. The words were added to
provide a broader perspective, because a preliminary review showed that, usually, these
terms are used as synonyms (Khalifa et al., 2018).
Each combination was then refined by adding keywords accounting for educational
levels: ‘Primary’ or ‘Secondary’ or ‘Higher Education’ or ‘Early Childhood’. This search
provided for a total of 858 entries; 718 without duplicates. The screening process
4 C. CUÉLLAR ET AL.

narrowed the number of entries by discarding documents without a focus on multi­

culturalism in education. This was firstly done by skimming article titles, abstracts and
journal focus, which reduced the number of entries to 503, and later by analysing
abstracts in depth, which narrowed the sample to 215 entries disclosed between 1994
and 2019. This stage was focused on select articles within the disciplinary fields of
education, with the explicit reference to multiculturalism, diversity or inclusion.
Examples of the excluded entries are studies with multicultural populations on clinical/
medical settings, historical narratives of multicultural groups, academic programmes of
leadership without multicultural/educational scope, ethnic or racial groups experiences
with superficial entailment to leadership and education.
The reference to ‘leadership’ was also required, but not always explicit: the screening
process evidenced that this concept was not always included in the objectives of the
study; however, leadership roles were discussed in the form of leaders who participated in
the study or who could be affected by its implications. Therefore, the review broadened
the criteria to account not only the presence of leadership issues in the objectives of the
study but also in the methods (e.g. sample of leaders in studies with other purposes), or
implications/discussions (i.e. studies results in multicultural settings that could inform and
affect leaders’ actions and influences).
The review was organised by following the steps of Figure 1. Each stage included in-
depth reading, analysis, categorisation and cross-reviews among four team members.
A total of 200 of these entries were listed as articles (including 3 in early access and 1
proceeding paper), while the remaining 15 were divided into 8 reviews, 4 book chapters
and 3 conference papers. Finally, abstracts were analysed considering five categories: (1)
mentions to the concepts ‘multicultural’ or ‘intercultural’; (2) what did the authors under­
stand by multiculturalism; (3) the setting where multiculturalism and leadership were
being studied; (4) who was being considered as leader; and (5) the education levels where
leaders worked or studied. Other categories considered for this analysis were: country of
publication or where the study was conducted (based on the first author’s country and
specified in the correspondence); national language; paper language; year of publication,
and; keywords. To deepen the analysis of geographic areas, countries were aggregated
into the following major geographic units, as designated by the Sustainable Development
Goals Indicators of the United Nations (UNSTATS, 2017), to find trends on thematic areas
across regional research.

● Sub-Saharan Africa

Figure 1. Flow of information for systematic review. Source: Own elaboration following PRISMA (2015)
orientations.
 MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION REVIEW 5

● Northern Africa and Western Asia

● Central and Southern Asia
● Eastern and South-Eastern Asia
● Latin America and the Caribbean
● Oceania
● Europe
● Northern America1

Results
Approaches Given to Multiculturalism in Studies Involving Educational Leadership
and the Prominence of Social Justice
Although the 215 records assessed discussed leadership and multiculturalism,2 75% of
them did not explicitly mention the words ‘multicultural’ or ‘intercultural’ neither in their
title nor their abstract. A text mining of keywords showed that ‘Social Justice’ was only
present in 19 entries, behind the concepts of ‘Education’, ‘Diversity’ and ‘Students’ and
followed by ‘Race’ and ‘Teachers’ (Figure 2). Among the 19 documents (8.8%) explicitly
mentioning Social Justice as keyword of their research, only 15 also consider a form of
educational leadership and only six explicitly mention ‘Social Justice Leadership’. This
revealed that leadership did not seem to be emphasized as a way of promoting multi­
culturalism from a social justice stance or that this perspective was not as central to their
works to be included as a keyword.
As shown in Table 1, the papers have different focuses for what they understood as
multiculturalism, with a predominance of discussions on indigenous cultures (22.3%), race
(19.5%), gender (11.6%) or others identified in a lesser degree, such as ethnic origin,
language, migration/refugees, religion, socioeconomic status or disability. There were
also some articles that discussed the intersection of some of these approaches to multi­
culturality by use of the conceptualization of multiculturalism as ‘diversity’ (20%). Only
three reviewed articles discussed more specific and less commonly used approaches to
multiculturalism (categorized as Other in Table 1), such as the development of emotional
intelligence in multicultural schools, culturally competent leaders, or transformative

Figure 2. Most frequent keywords.

6 C. CUÉLLAR ET AL.

Table 1. Objects of study.

Objects of study Frequency
Indigenous cultures 48 (22.3%)
Diversity 43 (20.0%)
Race 42 (19.5%)
Gender 25 (11.6%)
Ethnic origin 20 (9.3%)
Nation/Migration/Refugees 10 (4.7%)
Language 8 (3.7%)
Religion 7 (3.3%)
Disability 5 (2.3%)
Socioeconomic status 4 (1.9%)
Other 3 (1.4%)
TOTAL 215 (100.0%)

Table 2. Entries with intersectional focus.

First object
Secondary object Frequency
Race 10 (50%)
Ethnic origin 4
Gender 4
Religion 1
Socioeconomic status 1
Ethnic origin 4 (20%)
Race 4
Indigenous 2 (10%)
Disability 1
Gender 1
Disability 1 (5%)
Nation/Migration/Refugees 1
Diversity 1 (5%)
Ethnic origin 1
Gender 1 (5%)
Diversity 1
Religion 1 (5%)
Ethnic origin 1
TOTAL 20 (100.0%)

pedagogies for training leaders with a social justice stance. As shown in Table 2, 20 articles
discussed a combination of specific topics, with eight publications focusing on ethnic
origin and race, while the rest encompassed an intersection with or between some of the
other categories listed above.

Actors Considered as Educational Leaders in Studies on Multiculturalism

As shown in Table 3, the analysed articles discussed leadership as an attribute held by
different actors, mostly principals or vice principals (35.3%), raising awareness of multi­
cultural issues inside K-12 contexts and how to support teachers in dealing with these
issues in their practice. To a lesser degree, studies also accounted for student leaders
(17.2%). Of the 37 studies in this latter category, 29 were either undergraduate students or
various disciplines; undergraduate teacher candidates and teachers pursuing graduate
degrees; or teachers pursuing principal positions. The remaining eight documents are
about K-12 student leaders among their peers or advocates with a social justice stance.
 MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION REVIEW 7

Table 3. Leaders involved.

Leadership role Frequency
Principals 76 (35.3%)
Students 37 (17.2%)
Teachers 27 (12.6%)
Community leaders 20 (9.3%)
Macro-school administration 14 (6.5%)
Academics 12 (5.6%)
Various 29 (13.5%)
TOTAL 215 (100,0%)
‘Various’ category includes two or more of the actors
from the other categories and/or others.

Other studies also considered leadership roles held by multiple actors (13.5%), teachers
(12.6%), community leaders (9.3%) – mostly from indigenous communities – macro-
school administrators (6.5%) and faculty members (5.6%).

Trends Regarding Educational Settings and Geographical Locations Where

Educational Leadership and Multiculturalism are Being Studied
Table 4 exposes that most of the studies analysed the intersection of leadership and
multiculturalism inside formal practice settings, such as schools or universities (87.9%),
followed by 19 examining education policies, their implementation or implications for
leaders’ practices in multicultural contexts. A total of seven articles studied the role of
community leaders or activist leadership in informal education contexts for the promo­
tion of native or minority languages, indigenous culture, history or race activism. It is
worth mentioning that most of the 37 studies pertaining leadership and indigenous
communities in formal practice setting focus on school-indigenous community partner­
ships and the role of community leaders or elders in the contextualization of mainstream
education for indigenous children. Some of these studies also dealt with university or
school and indigenous community partnerships for teacher leaders/principal training.
Following Table 5, 136 of the 215 publications focus on K-12 education (63.3%), while
the remaining focus on postsecondary settings; either the teaching of a specific discipline
(23.7%) and teacher education and training (9.3%) in universities; or community college

Table 4. Study settings.

Study settings Frequency
Formal 189 (87.9%)
Policy 19 (8.8%)
Informal 7 (3.3%)
TOTAL 215 (100.0%)

Table 5. Educational levels included on the studies.

Educational levels included on the studies Frequency
K-12 136 (63.3%)
Postsecondary education (other disciplines) 51 (23.7%)
Postsecondary education (education as discipline of study) 20 (9.3%)
Community college 8 (3.7%)
TOTAL 215 (10.,0%)
8 C. CUÉLLAR ET AL.

Table 6. Country of studies.

Country of studies Frequency
USA 115 (53.5%)
Australia 20 (9.3%)
New Zealand 12 (5.6%)
Canada 11 (5.1%)
England 11 (5.1%)
South Africa 6 (2.8%)
Brazil 4 (1.9%)
Cyprus 4 (1.9%)
Spain 3 (1.4%)
Kenya 2 (0.9%)
Philippines 2 (0.9%)
Chile 2 (0.9%)
Turkey 2 (0.9%)

education (4%). There were two types of settings for teacher education and training
studies. On the one hand, some publications studied multicultural approaches and
leadership development leading to an undergraduate or graduate education degree.
On the other hand, other settings included courses for teachers, principals and other
education community members (or practitioner inquiry communities) focused on the
development of leadership skills and/or the discussion of multicultural issues in education
contexts.
Regarding geographical locations where educational leadership and multiculturalism
are being studied, Table 6 only shows countries with two or more documents. Countries
with only one publication each add a total of 20 documents (9.3%). A total of 17 of them
are English-written publications, although English is not the mother tongue in 15 of these
20 countries. They are Argentina, Bangladesh, Belgium, Ecuador, Iceland, Ireland,
Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Sweden, Taiwan,
Thailand and Uganda.
As a matter of fact, the great majority of the 215 records are written in English (96%)
while only nine are written in other languages (six in Spanish and three in Portuguese
specifically). Nevertheless, a thorough country-based analysis has shown that 22 entries of
the 206 English-written publications were either written by authors from, or produced in,
countries where English is not the spoked language3 (mostly Northern Africa, Asian, Latin-
American as well as some European countries) and 13 where it is not the predominant
language, such as Sub-Saharan Africa major geographic unit and Philippines. Although
the remaining 171 publications were linked to predominantly English-speaking countries
(USA, Canada, England – including Scotland and Ireland – New Zealand and Australia), at
least 37 focused on indigenous cultures, 36 on diversity, 14 on ethnicity and seven on
migration/refugees.
Among major geographic units of academic production on multiculturalism and
leadership, the biggest one is North America (59% in total, 54% in USA and 5% in
Canada), which main research focuses are race (39 of 130 documents), diversity (25) and
indigenous (20). Almost one-sixth of documents are from ‘Oceania’ (15%), 10% from
Europe, and 6% from Latin America and Caribbean. ‘Indigenous’ topics are the most
recurrent at the ‘Oceania’ area (17 of 36 articles) and Latin America and Caribbean (9 of
10). On the other hand, at the other four geographical groupings, the main research
 MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION REVIEW 9

focuses are diversity and ethnicity (4 of each out of 18, respectively) followed by studies
on disabilities (3).

Discussion
The present work has found different emphasis and perspectives across articles from
diverse contexts and settings, but at the same time, it has identified some commonalities.
Firstly, and connecting with educational leadership, multiculturalism or interculturalism
are being emphasised in only 25% of the keywords, titles or abstracts of the analysed
documents. This implies a latent prominence of leadership to address educational multi­
culturality under a social justice framework, even though diversity itself appears as an
object of study in most documents, and as well as in terms of indigenous people, race, or
gender, among others. This implies several foundations, meanings and representations of
multiculturalism in dynamic socio-educational contexts and debates around the world
(Banks, 2015; Ginges & Cairns, 2000; Grant & Portera, 2010; Guilherme & Dietz, 2015; Nieto,
2015).
Secondly, superficial forms of multiculturalism have been detected, such as indigen­
ous, ethnic, and racial issues. Thus, it seems that educational leadership to reach equity
is being addressed within groups of people with a shared background; either students,
teachers, principals or administrators. In addition, more critical and transformational
dimensions of multiculturalism have been undermined by superficial dimensions.
Adding intersectional perspectives – including issues of gender, religion or other
diversity – might configure subordination, hierarchy and power settings that are cultu­
rally different and more dynamic for research around the world. In other words, not
taking into account power issues and pluralistic perspectives will tend to persistently
emphasize ethnic, racial, or superficial differences under the standpoint of the hege­
monic majority (Jay, 2003), even for the design of research in the field (Marshall &
Batten, 2004).
More interestingly, few publications contemplate the intersectional focus among two
or more aspects of cultural diversity, underscoring the intersection between race and
ethnic origin (e.g.: Garcia et al., 2019; Nivet, 2010; Ogden, 2017; Pololi et al., 2010; Russell
et al., 2019; Seago & Spetz, 2005), and race and gender (e.g.: Fuller et al., 2019; Gregory,
2013; Thornton, 2017), where the mentioned dimensions are either the primary or
secondary object of study. In this regard, and considering this analysis, it is important to
note a persistent discussion of hegemonic concepts strongly associated with social
discrimination that permeate education – especially in the US and other Anglo-Saxon
societies (Farkas, 2003) and postcolonial issues – mostly in non-English speaker countries
(Osler, 2015; Takayama et al., 2017).
Thirdly, in terms of educational leadership, most analysed documents (116 of them)
put their focus on formal K-12 practice settings, where principals and vice principals,
followed by teachers who are pursuing a principal position, are seen as main leaders (e.g.:
Cardno et al., 2018; DeWitt, 2018; Gardiner & Enomoto, 2006; Kitchen et al., 2016; Strachan,
1999; Timothy & Agbenyega, 2018). In this regard, it is becoming relevant to analyse the
development of leadership skills for multicultural issues in educational contexts. It is not
clear whether principal and teacher training programmes are considering multicultural­
ism as a major approach, and by extension, whether principals and teachers are indeed
10 C. CUÉLLAR ET AL.

prepared at all for to practice in these settings under a social justice framework. This,
especially taking into account that policies and practices in social and educational
dimensions are putting their attentions on human relations and underscoring diversity
as a major aspect within and across nations (Gay, 2010; Gewirtz, 1998), areas where
educational leaders should be able to dominate this skill and value cultural differences.
Finally, most research has focused on multiculturality based on indigenous, ethnicity
and race. Nevertheless, language usage as well as researched location and countries of
publication indicate there is a hegemonic presence of Anglo-Saxon studies (96% of the
entries), mainly from the USA (54%). Considering the different countries in the analysis,
the great percentage of English-written articles could respond to most journals’ demand
for authors to publish in this language, and the subjection of local epistemological and
cultural characteristics to the ‘academic colonialism’ (Shih, 2010). Even though English
seems to be the predominant language in research (Wankhede & Kamble, 2014), and
a global way to get prominence in important indexed journals around the world (Garfield,
1989), the paradox for multiculturalism is evident, as specific mother-tongue of countries
where scholars are publishing have been minimized by global research status – also
known as ‘publish or perish’ (De Rond & Miller, 2005) – in the academic sphere.
For non-English speaking countries, this is a challenge by itself when social justice and
multiculturalism are addressed, as it diminishes their chances to participate in the discus­
sion in an increasingly global and multilingual world (Crystal, 1997). Furthermore, the
problem of cultural representation through language could be challenged even among
publications written in other most commonly accepted languages, such as Spanish and
Portuguese, for example, when focusing on multicultural issues such as indigenous
populations. This issue disregards cultural and contextual sensitivity, so far it indicates
that non-English speaking populations could not be having access to knowledge pro­
duced about their culture due to language barriers. Even more, publications in native
languages may be developed in some contexts, highlighting this aspect of
multiculturalism.
Through the development of intercultural and contextual sensitivity, leaders can con­
sciously bring their positionality into their work and engage in their practice from a social
justice stance. Accordingly, there are several implications for styles of leadership for multi­
cultural education (Zembylas & Iasonos, 2010), practices and training of educational leaders
(Constantine et al., 2007), and a better understanding and awareness of multiculturalism
and social justice in education (Shields et al., 2002), among others. In addition, by gaining
intercultural sensitivity leaders can expand from their ‘ethnocentrism’ and delve into the
subtle cultural differences, helping them build more sophisticated educational and social
experiences that best suit students from other cultures (Bennett, 2004).
Even when there is an emphasis on physiognomies or narrow understandings of
multicultural contexts – such as ethnic, race, migrant and gender issues, among others –
further studies may consider deeper analysis and methodologies, examining policies and
practices that are avoiding marginalisation, hostility, and discrimination in educational
and social areas and introducing a social justice viewpoint that involves all students and
socio-educational actors.
To summarise, this systematic review has shown that the relationship and intersection
between educational leadership and multiculturalism has been positioned as a line of
research and development in international literature. This is a relevant fact considering
 MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION REVIEW 11

multiculturalism and cultural diversity have a foremost role in the development of present
educational and social policies (Rizvi, 2009), at the same time the practice of interculturally
competent leaders is increasingly needed in educational institutions (Bennett, 2004).
However, the analysis also reveals that this connection seems to be less emphasised when
focusing on leadership from a social justice perspective in multicultural contexts. In effect,
realising policies, practices and ways to develop both dimensions across several settings
appears to be a challenge for many actors, such as those involved in educational research.
Hence, this work provides some recommendations for further research, inviting scholars,
practitioners and policymakers to consider the role of broad communities and a more holistic
approach to diversity – considering all and not only some type of students and educational
actors as well as including an intersection among multiple cultural aspects, in order to develop
social justice by an effective leadership. This implies relevant multidisciplinary discussion and
important learnings for regions, such as Latin America, where social movements demand
a deeper commitment with social justice and equity at the socio-educational level.

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Carolina Cuéllar is a faculty member of the Graduate School of Education at Universidad Católica
Silva Henríquez, and a researcher of the Research Centre for Socio-Educational Transformation. Her
research focuses on school leadership, educational policy and principals and teachers’ professional
development.
Juan Pablo Queupil is a faculty member of the Graduate School of Education at Universidad Católica
Silva Henríquez, and a researcher of the Research Centre for Socio-Educational Transformation. His
research focuses on the social and network configuration of educational management, leadership,
policies, and knowledge.
Catalina Cuenca is a research assistant of the Graduate School of Education at Universidad Católica
Silva Henríquez. Her research focuses on literacy, practitioner research and teacher education for
social justice.
Javiera Ravest is a research assistant of the Graduate School of Education at Universidad Católica
Silva Henríquez. Her research focuses on equity and inclusion in Higher Education Institutions.

ORCID
Carolina Cuéllar http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0298-1995
Juan Pablo Queupil http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7324-9275
Catalina Cuenca http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3914-0548
Javiera Ravest http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1279-0113

Geolocation Information
Santiago - Valparaíso, Chile
12 C. CUÉLLAR ET AL.

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Notes
1. The UN classification of Europe and Northern America in one group was separated for a more
accurate analysis concerning the vastly different number of publications in each group.
2. Discussions on word usage for multiculturalism reflect the search for the words multicultural
and intercultural.
3. Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Bengali, Malay, Thai, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, Icelandic,
Norwegian, French, Catalan, Swedish and Dutch.