Date of Submission

9-3-2024

Document Type

DiP

Degree

Doctor of Education

Department

Education

Keywords

WickEd leadership, STEM education, EDI, Africentric values, wicked problem, liberation

Abstract

STEM Company Inc. (SC; a pseudonym) is an educational services company located in Canada. Over the past 4 years, the organization has worked on an international project portfolio that has reflected a niche area of education that is currently underserviced in the traditional and private educational landscape. SC’s clients have engaged in procuring curriculum, resources, and programming at the intersection of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). This focus has caused an organizational challenge as SC’s initial operational framework and business practices were broadly based on human capital development. My intersectional identity as the author of this Dissertation-in-Practice (DiP), the president of SC, a Black woman, and a STEM education expert speaks truth to power through lived experience. It serves as a driving force to address the wicked problem of inequity in the global education landscape by reframing the organization’s mission, vision, and business practices to democratize access to STEM education for underrepresented groups. To do this, SC is embarking on an organizational change initiative to transform itself into a social enterprise by utilizing a WickEd leadership framework to elevate equity and provide high-quality, culturally responsive and representative STEM education opportunities for underrepresented groups. The ethics of liberation and Africentric values, specifically ubuntu (interconnectedness) and umoja (unity) guide the centering of diverse perspectives and the elevation of community-centric values throughout the organizational change implementation. This work also uses the awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement (ADKAR) and appreciative inquiry (AI) frameworks to delineate a structured change process.

Keywords: WickEd leadership, STEM education, EDI, Africentric values, wicked problem, liberation

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