Title: Disrupting the Digital Norm in the New Digital Divide
Description: The purpose of this three-article dissertation is to explore the intersection of educational leadership, instructional technology, and culturally responsive education in pursuit of a new leadership framework called technology leadership for social justice. This dissertation employs three emerging methodologies, namely three-step latent class analysis (LCA), multilevel latent class analysis (MLCA), and meta-narrative review, to examine typologies of teachers and their perceptions of technology use and technology leadership with large-scale, quantitative data and to offer a conceptual framework of school and district technology leadership through a culturally responsive lens. The first study utilized latent class analysis (LCA) with the NCES Fast Response Survey System Teachers’ Use of Educational Technology in U.S. Public Schools, 2009 (FRSS 95) dataset (n=2,764) to identify four different types of technology-using teachers: Dexterous, Presenters, Assessors, and Evaders. I also found that teachers in low-income schools are more likely to be in the teacher subgroups that use technology in less impactful ways in the classroom.

The second study used multilevel latent class analysis (MLCA) with the 2011-12 Texas School Technology and Readiness (STaR) Charts (n=6,935 schools in n=910 districts) to find three subgroups of teacher perceptions of technology leadership at the school level, High STaR Schools, Moderate STaR Schools, and Low STaR Schools, and four subgroups of teacher perceptions of technology leadership at the district level, Model STaR Districts, High STaR Districts, Moderate STaR Districts, and Low STaR Districts. I found that the Texas teachers in the school and district level subgroups with the lowest perceptions of technology leadership had the lowest student achievement outcomes and were more likely to serve students from historically minoritized backgrounds. The third study employed a systematic, meta-narrative review of the research literature exploring the intersection of technology, leadership, and culturally responsive education, integrating the findings from sixty studies into a conceptual framework of technology leadership for social justice.

Each of the three dissertation articles explores the implications for the development of a more evidence-based, sociocultural conception of school and district technology leadership in research, policy, and practice.