Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership for Justice

The Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership degree at California State University Dominguez Hills is designed to ensure critically conscious equity focused leaders are ready to lead in all executive settings in the field of education by bridging the divide between educational practice and the rigorous acquisition and application of theory. These leaders apply knowledge and skills to transform and improve the quality of P-16 education in South-Central Los Angeles and the South Bay region of Los Angeles County and beyond. The Ed.D. in Educational Leadership for Justice prepares candidates to assume executive leadership positions in P-16 educational settings and related agencies such as County Offices of Education, K-12 District Offices, Charter School Boards, and educational non-profits. The program is a high quality, high touch, academically rigorous doctoral program addressing the following mission:

Mission Statement

The mission of the Doctor of Education, Educational Leadership for Justice is to equip educational leaders to champion justice and equity in all educational settings. We facilitate the development of the leaders’ mindsets, moves and skills needed to:

1. examine their transformative potential and transformative actions
2. interrogate, dismantle, and re-imagine historically oppressive systems
3. create spaces that center on community wealth, cultural capital, and voice
4. ground their practice in the CSUDH Liberatory Leadership Framework
5. design creative solutions to existing, and new, challenges in the field of education

Vision Statement

We create space for actualizing liberatory leadership that is humanizing, critically conscious and transformative. Through the use of identity, community collaboration, criticality and system interrogation dynamic, equitable and just systems emerge.

Critical Features of The Program Include:

• Collaboration: Developing collaboration skills to address problems of practice and to create collaborative cultures that provide actions to solve problems of practice.
• Trust: Relationship building that establishes trust and a common language among students, faculty, and school partners.
• Support: Research Support Seminars that embed the development and support for research proposals for the dissertation throughout the program.
• Advising/Mentoring: Advising relationship with Core Faculty. Applied laboratories facilitating collaborations amongst and between candidate, faculty, and practicing educational leaders.
• International Leadership Component: Candidates in the program participate in an international leadership experience designed to broaden their understanding of leading for student success. They visit international educational systems to inquire and learn about best practices and pedagogical approaches that support liberatory leadership.
• Systemic Change: Candidates and doctoral faculty conduct research and policy analyses implementing small and large-scale interventions in selected schools. Their work contributes to advances in the field of urban educational leadership. The systematic inquiry and practices undertaken are expected to affect schools, educational support services, and educational policy.