The Inclusion Leadership Research Interest Group (RIG) hosted an event on Friday 22nd May 2026, entitled ‘Intersectionality and Leading Social Change in Education: Professional Learning to Transform Self, Others, and the Field’.
We were joined by guest speakers, Aubrey Wang, Professor of Educational Leadership, Saint Joseph’s University, and Margaret Grogan, Professor Emerita of Education, Donna Ford Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, who discussed their award-winning book: ‘Intersectionality and Leading Social Change in Education’.
This book explores a social change and transformational approach to leadership. As educational leaders are increasingly serving a changing demographic of students and also addressing persistent challenges and heightened tensions around race, equity, and inclusivity, it is becoming necessary for educators to approach leadership in new and radically different ways to ensure full inclusivity.
Designed for aspiring and current leaders, this book highlights stories of courageous educational leaders with intersectional identities who interrogate and reflect on how their intersectionality shaped their leadership. In turn, these stories help readers explore how lived experiences and deeply held values can shape and inform their own leadership. Chapters conclude with a reader’s guide, prompting reflection upon the nuances of each leader’s journey, and thus, facilitating the discourse of marginalized experiences in educational leadership.
This new approach to professional learning helps today’s aspiring principals, aspiring superintendents, and practicing administrators learn how intersectional leadership can help them navigate multiple marginalized spaces and codify new notions of power and success. This volume generates a collection of compelling counter narratives that the field needs to hear.
In case you missed the event or would like a recap, you can now watch it in full below.
Our huge thanks to the RIG’s Co-Convenors for organising the event, to our speakers, Aubrey Wang and Margaret Grogan, for the insightful overview of their book, and to everyone who joined us.
Professor Aubrey Wang
Aubrey H. Wang, Ph.D., Professor of Educational Leadership, Director of Teaching and Learning, Saint Joseph’s University
Originally from Taiwan, Dr. Aubrey Wang is an award-winning Professor of Educational Leadership at Saint Joseph’s University, Pennsylvania. She has served as a teacher, program director, college council chair, and past president of a research association during her career. Her passion is to help leaders find the genuine in themselves and become the leaders of their own lives. She publishes frequently with her students and enjoys bridging research and practice.
Professor Margaret Grogan
Margaret Grogan, Ph.D. Professor Emerita, Chapman University
Originally from Australia, Dr. Margaret Grogan is Professor Emerita of Education Leadership at Chapman University, California. She has served as teacher, department chair and college dean during her career. She researches and writes about women and under-represented groups and leadership. She is Chief Editor for the journal, Frontiers in Education.
