Knowledge Standard #3

Equity issues in career and technical education including occupational stereotypes and strategies to break down barriers to opportunities for male and female students in non-traditional occupations

Evidence 1: PLC Meeting Agenda and link to example of associated materials

Description: As a PLC leader at PAHCC, I was responsible for helping to facilitate workshops and group conversations dealing with equity and bias in education. Attached is a link to ¨A Guide to Equity and Antiracism for Educators," one of the resources used during the workshops (which spanned several weeks).

Analysis: The theatre industry is not immune from equity issues, despite its seemingly accepting attitudes regarding gender, race, and sexual orientation. In recent years, and much more so this past year, the issue of equity in regards to BIPOC minorities has been especially prevalent. During the fall of 2020, I, along others at PAHCC, undertook a series of workshops facilitated by the leader of the Windham County NAACP and a founder of Brattleboro´s Community Equity Collaborative. Acting programs tend to draw more female than male students, while technical theatre programs tend to attract more males- but in either case, Caucasian students are far more likely to enroll than minority students, especially in Vermont. The need to discuss strategies to bring in more minority students and to better address the contributions to theatre by BIPOC actors, writers, designers, and technicians helps correct oversights in curricula across CTE concentrations.

Evidence 2: Certificate of completion, Gender Equity training at pre-service 2018

Description: Two days of the in-service work before the start of the 2018-2019 academic year focused on issues of gender equity and CTE.

Analysis: Issues regarding gender issues have been part of a larger national discussion for the past few years, and we in CTE are taking steps to address the issues that have historically skewed CTE opportunities more toward male students. The recent movement to recognize gender issues unaddressed by previous generations has also led us to recognize that many of the systems, including the terms we use, may be problematic, as they may exclude students we seek to make parts of our programs. Most interesting to me was the issue of language. and how gender bias in built into some of the way we address topics and groups. For example, the use of the term "guys" to mean a large group, regardless of the actual gender breakdown of the group, may very well be problematic to some. (I did find it funny, as a native southerner, when someone suggested the neutral "y'all" as a substitute for some collective nouns.)

Although many aspects of the theatre industry seem very equitable and respectful of gender, recent events such as the #MeToo movement have illustrated the fundamental inequities historically found in the industry. Change may be slow in coming, but I believe that focusing attention on it now, in the early stages of students' training, will pay dividends in the future. The message and lessons of such training will allow us to prepare our students for a diverse workplace, and habituate them to the respect all should be afforded regardless of gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation.