Equal Rights to the Curriculum: Many Languages, One Message is all about transforming knowledge into action. It provides parents with the research-based information necessary to envision their children's full potential as human beings – who they can become and what they are capable of achieving – together with the tools to collaborate on an equal basis with their children's teachers to bring this vision closer to realisation. Likewise, for educators, this book opens up identity spaces – it provides an opportunity to reflect on the kinds of interactions we orchestrate in our classrooms, the messages we convey to students about their past and their future, and the extent to which we are expanding rather than constricting our students' identity options. It challenges us to rethink why we have become educators and what we are capable of achieving as educators. Eithne Gallagher invites us to reclaim agency – the power to act – in our professional lives, by advocating for the kinds of change that will transform our schools into everything implied by the term international – environments that promote vigorous intellectual inquiry and that cultivate equitable and respectful communication across languages, cultures and religions.

This book is also about authority . The noun gives rise to two very different adjectives – authoritarian and authoritative . We use the term 'authoritarian' to describe leaders who demand obedience and submission regardless of the veracity or legitimacy of their decisions; policy and practice are determined by ideology – preformed ideas-rather than by research; this style of leadership has little use for dialogue and collaboration. The term 'authoritative', on the other hand, refers to individuals whose perspectives or claims generate respect because they are the result of thoughtful inquiry and are backed up by convincing evidence. The pages of human history, as well as the history of educational institutions, are filled with examples of both kinds of leadership.