From Students to Co-Authors

Faculty and alumni collaborate on book about equity in K-12 school leadership

When School of Education Professor Michael Gunzenhauser began supervising the research of doctoral student Osly Flores (EdD ’17) in 2014, neither could have predicted their work would evolve into a decade-long collaboration resulting in a comprehensive new model for educational leadership ethics.

“Race-Conscious Caring in Educational Leadership: A Narrative Ethics,” published by Teachers College Press in October 2025, brings together Gunzenhauser’s expertise in caring ethics with the anti-racist leadership work of Flores and Michael Quigley (PhD ’13), both Pitt Education doctoral alums who are now faculty members at other universities. 

The book offers a unique approach to a persistent challenge: how to lead a school so it serves the needs and interests of all students.

A Natural Collaboration

The partnership began organically through Gunzenhauser’s mentorship. 

Quigley, who obtained his PhD in administrative and policy studies in education from the School of Education in 2013, had maintained a close relationship with his former advisor even after joining the faculty at Robert Morris University as associate professor of education and organizational leadership.

“Eventually, because of his care and compassion, he became a good friend,” Quigley said.

That mentorship extended to connecting multiple advisees with one another.

Gunzenhauser, who currently serves as senior associate dean of academic and faculty affairs, encouraged Flores to attend a presentation Quigley was attending at Pitt’s School of Social Work. At the time, Flores was working toward his EdD in Educational Leadership at Pitt Education. The two quickly developed a working relationship, with Flores joining Quigley in consulting work with school districts throughout southwestern Pennsylvania.

“It was kind of a natural fit for Dr. G to invite me into this work,” Quigley said about the book. “I don’t know that I would have had these opportunities otherwise.”

“The relationship really started because of Dr. G being his former advisor, and I thought, ‘We might as well collaborate,'” Flores said.

Building a New Model

The research at the book’s core emerged from Flores’s initial pre-dissertation project. 

He conducted interviews with 22 public school leaders in Allegheny County, initially focusing on how principals were using data to help students of color. What the team discovered was more nuanced than expected.

“We initially thought we would be focusing on urban school leaders,” Gunzenhauser said. “But a lot of them were suburban leaders, and they were interested in talking about equity.”

Through years of analysis, the researchers identified a phenomenon relevant to K-12 suburban schools. When there are only a few students of color in a well-resourced district, those students often get ignored, or leaders are unprepared when issues arise. But they also found some school leaders who excelled at this work, regardless of setting.

“I read about the literature [on the] opportunity gap (affecting students of color), and I just wanted to see if principals had that language,” Flores said. “What we found is that they didn’t.”

This led to their model of “race-conscious caring,” which combines the field’s long-standing commitment to caring leadership with anti-racist practice. The model goes beyond critiquing current approaches—it also provides a roadmap for improvement through narrative ethics, using stories and lived experiences to build leaders’ capacity.

“Kids don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” Quigley said. “When we think about caring—race conscious caring—we’re thinking about stories that people tell. We’re thinking about taking those stories and making meaning.”

Flores boiled it down to a misconception about being “neutral” on race: “What we found is when individuals try to avoid talking about race, it influences their practices,” he said. “That’s the main argument we’re making in the book. If you say you don’t recognize [race in] students, that you see everyone the same, you’re not creating practices that are culturally responsive. You’re not looking at equity gaps. You’re not looking at the data.”

A Synchronous Writing Process

Creating the book required coordination across three locations. 

While Gunzenhauser and Quigley remained in Pittsburgh, Flores moved to Boston and later to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he is now an assistant professor of education policy, organization and leadership. 

The team adapted, holding regular Zoom writing sessions that Gunzenhauser described as “basically writing meetings where we didn’t talk very much.”

“Dr. G would anchor meetings online, and we would read and we would write, and we would go silent while we’re writing, and then we’d take off the mute and then we would talk to each other,” Quigley recalled.

The project evolved significantly from its origins. What began as interviews conducted by Flores between 2014 and 2015 grew into multiple journal articles before the team realized they needed a book to fully articulate their model.

Nearly a decade later, including a pandemic that changed education, the book is out in the world.

Contributions and Impact

Each author brought distinct strengths to the project. 

Flores, whom Gunzenhauser praised as having “unparalleled” ability to get people to talk honestly, conducted all the interviews and led much of the analytical work. Flores’ fierce approach to equity work and extensive networks in the field earned him an early career award from the American Educational Research Association.

Flores credits Gunzenhauser’s encouragement along the way: “What I really liked with Dr. G was he allowed me to explore research on equity. He just said, ‘okay, if you have this interest, go ahead and do it.’”

Quigley contributed practical experience as a former Pittsburgh Public Schools teacher and consultant, along with his expertise as a critical race theorist and educational sociologist. His major contribution came in a chapter in the book examining the real-world challenges of implementing the model in professional development settings.

Gunzenhauser, who brought his background in caring ethics and philosophy of education, emphasized the value of their different perspectives.

“Having that kind of different orientation to the world, and then the fact that the three of us have different racial identities and different background experiences, no doubt contributes to this,” he said. “When you do qualitative analysis, you bring your full self into that analysis process.”