What is girl-centered leadership?

We understand that leadership is a practice that can be learned rather than a fixed set of traits. But the expectations and skills we often associate with leadership are based on a long history of how adult men lead. A girl-centered leadership development supports the specific needs of girls and gender-expansive youth in the intersection of gender, age, race, class, abilities, and citizenship identities. Rather than teaching specific skills, we offer guided prompts, resources and opportunities of community-building among girls to learn and reframe what leadership looks like together. We use a unique learning framework that combines the Social Change Model (SCM) of Leadership Development (Astin et.al., 1996) with current research for gender-responsive leadership (learn more about the research behind this approach here).

Girls learning together, girls thriving together. Researchers of the Learning Sciences have been investigating for the past decades the learning environments that are more favorable for learners to develop creative knowledge, a kind of knowledge to approach new challenges, to think beyond the given information, and to find creative solutions to problems (Sawyer, 2019). Social interaction and collaboration play an important role in promoting this deep learning, especially when learners work together on finding solutions for complex real-world problems, share their ideas, search and exchange information, negotiate among possibilities, argue with each other, reflect on the process, and construct shared knowledge (Krajcik & Shin, 2014).

Líderes do Futuro is based on principles of collaborative learning and Knowledge Building pedagogy (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2014). We believe in learning environments that support a community of learners, where everyone is involved in a collective effort that can advance their community shared knowledge, and in that way, also support the individual learning process. In other words, we believe in providing the conditions so that girls can create knowledge and innovative solutions as relevant as “grown-up” policymakers, researchers and activists.

Girls can cultivate leadership competencies by learning about themselves and their passions, directing their learning towards their interests, and developing initiative. By taking part in various digital storytelling activities, they will make decisions based on a willingness or desire to act, and use both creative and analytical thinking skills. The self-reflection and creative journey allow them to not just demonstrate leadership skills, but to have confidence in themselves and their potential and, ultimately, write new possibilities for how leadership can be enacted and built based on their individual and group needs.