ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Mannheim’s notion of generational consciousness is used to interpret the leadership responses to individual and institutional racism of 11 pioneer UK Black and South Asian, or Minority Ethnic (BAME) headteachers. Through the analysis of life history interviews and archival data, BAME school leaders from the 1970s and 1980s emerge as community leaders and race equality activists. Mannheim’s generational framework emphasises how the policy discourses and community activism of Black and South Asian communities in the 1970s and 1980s provided both the incentive and the means for BAME headteachers to develop a community-based approach to leadership aimed at educational change.
