Antiracist Pedagogy
Introduction
Professor and author Dr. Ibram X. Kendi defines an antiracist as "one who supports antiracist policy through their actions or expressing antiracist ideas" (2019, p. 13). Kyoko Kishimoto defines antiracist pedagogy as "an intentional and strategic organizing effort in which we incorporate anti-racist approaches into our teaching as well as apply anti-racist values into our various spheres of influence" (2018, p. 551). Antiracist pedagogy is an action-oriented teaching strategy that goes beyond classroom inclusivity and incorporating social justice content into courses, curriculum, and/or library instruction. Depending on an individual educator's level of power and privilege within an institution, classroom, or society at large, striving to become an antiracist educator will look different to everyone. The first inevitable step for those wanting to become an antiracist educator is to examine your own privilege.
From a library instruction perspective, acknowledging how the library has acted (and still acts) as a white supremacist and white privileged institution and how that affects the students of color in a library classroom should be the first step to becoming an antiracist teaching librarian. Thinking about how the creation, sale, and dissemination of information affects groups differently is important in thinking about how we teach about information literacy in the classroom. We hope the resources below will assist you on your journey to becoming an antiracist educator.
"'Racist' and 'antiracist are like peelable name tags that are placed and replaced on what someone is doing or not doing, supporting or expressing in each moment. These are not permanent tattoos. No one becomes a racist or antiracist. We can only strive to be one or the other. We can unknowingly strive to be a racist. We can knowingly strive to be an antiracist. Like fighting an addiction, being an antiracist requires persistent self-awareness, constant self-criticism, and regular self-examination." (Kendi, 2019, p. 23)
Kendi, I.X. (2019). How to Be an Antiracist. Penguin Random House, New York.
Kishimoto, K. (2018) Anti-racist pedagogy: from faculty’s self-reflection to organizing within and beyond the classroom, Race Ethnicity and Education, 21:4, 540-554, DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2016.1248824
This toolkit is organized by the amount of time you have to commit to the source or the level of engagement you would like to have with the material: Little Time (Get Started), Medium Time (Learn More), Lots of Time (Take Action) and alphabetically by resource title within those categories.
Little Time (Get Started)
Critlib is short for “critical librarianship,” a movement of library workers dedicated to bringing social justice principles into our work in libraries. Critlib is an informal gathering—discussion happens wherever interested library workers come together! The primary discussions have taken place on Twitter and at conferences.
6 Ways to be an Antiracist Educator | Dena Simmons (2m 54s)
Educator Dena Simmons on engaging in antiracist work in the classroom.
How I'm fighting bias in algorithms | Joy Buolamwini (8m 44s)
YouTube video about AI facial recognition software, structural racism in computer programming example. Quick watch, good intro for students.
How biased are our algorithms? | Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble (16m 48s)
What do our algorithms say about our society? In this talk, social scientist Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble investigates the bias revealed in search engine results and argues why we have to be skeptical of the algorithms we rely upon every day.
How to be an anti-racist teacher in a mostly white school | Taryn Coe (8m 59s)
It is essential that white educators in majority white schools ensure that their students and colleagues are educated about racism. Educator Taryn Coe believes that unless parents and teachers actively choose to discuss race and racism with the young people, students will grow up with a woefully incomplete understanding of the subject - leaving them both uninformed and unable to tackle the obstacles racism has put in place. In this talk, Taryn shares some concrete steps she's taken to become a more actively anti-racist educator.
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh, Ph.D. (Article)
A foundational work on white privilege from Peggy McIntosh, who taught at Trinity Washington University, the University of Durham, and the University of Denver and founded the National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum to help create multicultural, gender-fair, and inclusive classroom environments. Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack has been commonly cited as an influence on modern social justice movements and social justice activists.
Medium Time (Learn More)
Anti-racist pedagogy: from faculty’s self-reflection to organizing within and beyond the classroom by Kyoko Kishimoto in Race Ethnicity & Education (Article)
Foundational article about antiracist pedagogy in higher education.
Abstract: This article is a synthesis of my own work as well as a critical reading of the key literature in anti-racist pedagogy. Its purpose is to define anti-racist pedagogy and what applying this to courses and the fullness of our professional lives entails. I argue that faculty need to be aware of their social position, but more importantly, to begin and continue critical self-reflection in order to effectively implement anti-racist pedagogy, which has three components: (1) incorporating the topics of race and inequality into course content, (2) teaching from an anti-racist pedagogical approach, and (3) anti-racist organizing within the campus and linking our efforts to the surrounding community. In other words, anti-racist pedagogy is an organizing effort for institutional and social change that is much broader than teaching in the classroom.
Critical Pedagogy, Critical Conversations: Expanding Dialogue about Critical Library Instruction through the Lens of Composition & Rhetoric by Andrea Baer in In the Library with the Lead Pipe (Article)
As interest among academic librarians in critical pedagogy has grown, discussions about this concept and its implications for librarianship have been richly expanding our ways of conceiving of library instruction and of our (librarians’) instructional roles. At the same time, this concept is still a relatively new one for our field. We may thus benefit from further exploring debates about critical pedagogy that have occurred outside of librarianship. In this article I explore salient themes in debates about and critiques of critical pedagogy– particularly those evident in the field of composition and rhetoric–as a means of opening further inquiry into and dialogue about the possibilities and the challenges of critical pedagogy and, more specifically, critical information literacy instruction. With an appreciation of the value of inquiry and problem posing, I view my goal with this writing as not to suggest definitive answers about how librarians do or ought to teach, but rather to invite further thought, questions, and dialogue about how we teach and how we relate to students and fellow educators within our unique instructional contexts.
Decentralizing Anti-Racist Content in LibGuides (Katie Foran-Mulcahy and Madeleine Gaiser, ALAO Conference 2021; 29m 25s)
Like never before, systemic and institutional racism has become a topic of national conversation. Academic libraries have responded in a variety of ways, including utilizing LibGuides to curate centralized, high-quality resources on anti-racism, diversity, and the Black Lives Matter movement. When considering a centralized LibGuide, two librarians began to contemplate their own subject-based LibGuides. Why not take an integrated, disciplinary approach to anti-racism resources instead? Beginning with an audit, the librarians developed a rubric to analyze anti-racism resources within each subject guide. The rubric examined guides for quantity of anti-racism resources, variety of resources, authority of resources, resources relevant in a disciplinary context, and resources relevant in professional context.
Introducing Critical Librarianship to Information Professionals: Using Critical Pedagogy and Critical Information Literacy in an LIS Graduate Course by Marcia Rapchak in Communications in Information Literacy (Article)
Critical librarianship, which critiques the role of libraries and information professionals in maintaining systems of oppression, has been growing in popularity in the profession, and instructors in Library and Information Science (LIS) have begun to address critical librarianship in their coursework. While critical pedagogy and critical librarianship have influenced approaches to LIS education, the intersection of these two has not been as thoroughly addressed. Additionally, the literature on critical information literacy focuses largely on library instruction. This case study explores a critical pedagogy approach in a critical librarianship class that prepares students for critical information literacy instruction. The instructor implemented student-led presentations and discussions, self-grading, and collaboratively setting course expectations. Student responses were overwhelmingly positive, and student performance in the course indicated the approach and content of the course were effective.
Mindful Leadership: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion in the Academic Library Instruction Program ACLR Instruction Section Webinar (Toni Anaya, Anastasia Collins, Ione Damasco, Charlene Maxey-Harris, 2019; 60m)
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are not just politically correct buzzwords; they are complex ideas that should be addressed by leaders of instruction programs. Mindful leadership involves the thoughtful reflection about and integration of practices that support DEI in our work as instructional librarians. This webinar offers a panel discussion and question-and-answer session examining DEI through the lens of management and leadership.
Speaking to Diversity through Information Literacy (Jennifer Joe, ALAO Conference 2020; 35m 37s)
Based on the presenter's experience teaching both a credit bearing information literacy class and one-shot library instruction for the departments of Anthropology and Sociology and Women's and Gender Studies, this presentation will explore the ways that information literacy can be used to support higher education's mission to foster and support diversity. It will include class-tested examples of how to speak to students about diversity while also imparting important information literacy skills. These examples are grounded in the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy and have been used in classroom instruction for over a year.
That Which Cannot Be Named: The Absence of Race in the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education by Marcia Rapchak in The Journal of Radical Librarianship (Article)
This article examines how information literacy is situated in a history of white supremacy in academia and academic libraries and provides an overview of some of the historical critiques of information literacy, to which the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education is ostensibly responding. Using Critical Race Theory, I provide a close reading of the Framework, highlighting the ways in which issues of race and racism are elided and white academia is centered. This article also examines critiques of information literacy and how critical information literacy has responded to the Framework. I then propose some ways to emphasize antiracist pedagogy in the information literacy classroom.
Lots of Time (Take Action)
Inclusive Pedagogy for Library Instruction (Sewanee University) (LibGuide)
Academic institutions strive to cultivate more diverse and inclusive environments. Librarians are also participating in this pedagogical mission. Library instruction provides an opportunity for librarians to consider our own biases and utilize inclusive pedagogies to improve our learning environments for all. This project united librarians from across the Associated Colleges of the South to form an Inclusive Library Instruction Working Group. As a group we worked together to develop best practices and resources for inclusive pedagogy in the library classroom and developed an annotated bibliography to address the lack of library literature on this topic.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire (Book)
First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. Paulo Freire's work has helped to empower countless people throughout the world and has taken on special urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is ongoing.
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks (Book)
In Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks--writer, teacher, and insurgent black intellectual--writes about a new kind of education, education as the practice of freedom. Teaching students to transgress against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for hooks, the teacher's most important goal. bell hooks speaks to the heart of education today: how can we rethink teaching practices in the age of multiculturalism? What do we do about teachers who do not want to teach, and students who do not want to learn? How should we deal with racism and sexism in the classroom?