The purpose of this qualitative cycle of action research was to explore how urban educational leaders form and created justifications about the expectation levels for students that are categorized by the State of California as being high need. My previous cycles of action research have examined institutional, cultural, and individual aspects of my district and our schools that may diminish current student achievement. A problem of practice has emerged for further examination whereby students that are label high need are not thought of being able to achieve high levels of academic achievement. In this cycle, participants (n = 2) were urban educators in leadership positions from outside the context of origin of my problem of practice. This study purposefully engaged leaders from another context as a means of comparing and contrasting information gathered from my context that generated the problem of practice being explored.

Philosophical Background:

Critical inquiry in education is closely associated with Freire (Gutek, 2004; Crotty, 1998). My critical stance is rooted in the epistemology of Subjectivism. For the subjectivist, knowledge is formed in the mind (Crotty, 1998). Ontologically I am have taken the position of Idealism. This is the position that truth can be constructed (Gutek, 2004; Crotty, 1998) and therefore change is possible. However, it is important to this research, methods and findings, that I have adopted the position of both definitions of ontology, that of being and becoming (Gray, 2013). Action research is cyclical, reflective in practice, and requires an action to be taken and studied (Ivankova, 2015; Mertler, 2014; Mills, 2011). I view action research as a vehicle of praxis that spans the expanse between being and becoming. This is important to this cycle of research as I enter this cycle to focus on being and the challenges of educational leaders.

Systems and Change Theory:

My inquiry of this cycle is on the perceptions of students labeled high needs as it pertains to their academic achievement and our responsibility to them. I acknowledge that students are subject to a variety of factors outside of what they experience in schools (Anyon, 2014; Carter & Welner, 2013; Anyon, 2009). To examine the complexity of the systems we are subjected to I have adopted Bronfenbrenner’s (1994; 1977) Ecological Systems Theory (EST). As a model of child and human development, EST has been widely used in the learning environments of school (Burns, Warmbold, & Zaslofsky, 2015; Tynan, Somers, Gleason, Markman, & Yoon, 2015; Wicks & Warren, 2013; Brendtro, 2006; Bronfenbrenner, 1994). To navigate EST I have adopted the framework of Hope Theory (Snyder, 2002) whereby hope is operationalized as being a perceived capability that is triangulated within the constructs of goals, pathway, and agency.