Assessing Biases and Positionalities

Listed below you will see a set of questions for you to consider when looking critically at your own syllabus and your course more generally. But what should the answers be to these questions in order to reflect a truly inclusive, anti-racist approach to teaching and learning? Although imperfect, we have constructed a rubric to help you determine if your course reflects emerging, developed, or advanced levels in the syllabus qualities, course content, and messaging to students. This rubric may also help you in investigating next steps for each category listed below. For example, the areas where your syllabus reflects emerging practices might be an excellent place to focus as a first step toward creating the course you aspire to offer.

Find the tool (rubric) here: Rubric for Evaluating Courses designed by and for Antioch faculty

Questions to Consider

We hope the following list of questions will be representative of the spirit of ongoing interrogation and growth that we want to promote for our institution. Note that these questions have been adapted from Inclusion by Design -- a tool for faculty developed by Carl S. Moore, PhD, Edward Brantmeir, PhD, and Andreas Brocheild, PhD -- and the Anti-Racist Guide, a set of parameters developed by Hossna Sadat Ahadi & Luis A. Guerrero and distributed by the Academic Senate of the California Community Colleges.

Voice/Perspectives

• What voices are represented in my course content?

• What images are used in the materials I am using?

• Are my course resources inclusive to race, socio-economic standing, gender, sexuality, disability, immigration status, English language learner, and first-generation students?

• Does my course invite students to challenge the perspectives presented in the readings and discussion?

Tone

• What is the balance between inviting, friendly, and supportive sections and rules or prohibitions in my syllabus? Is it mainly a list of rules and regulations?

• Does the syllabus include explicit language about the intolerance of microaggressions and racist remarks, action, and behavior in the course?

Language

• Does my syllabus list Standard American English as an expectation for student writing or do I recognize multiple languages/grammars as acceptable in student writing and presentations?

• Do I explicitly address the problem with SAE as an expectation in my syllabus?

Accessibility

• To what extent is my course material accessible to all students, including those with disabilities? 

• Are all online readings recognizable by screen readers (can highlight the text on the pdf?)

• Do my visual media have subtitles?

Student Interests

• To what extent do the objectives of my course appeal to a range or variety of student interests? Do the objectives reflect the learning needs of different types/groups of students?

• Do my students have input in shaping content and co-creating community rules outlined in the course syllabus?

Diversity

• To what extent do the learning objectives aim at diversity- or inclusion-related knowledge, skills, or attitudes? Do they prioritize them?

Variety

• Have I provided students a variety of ways to show what they know?

• To what extent does the format of the course material respond to a broad range of learning preferences (reading written text, visual and audio media preferences, etc.)?

Formative Assessment

• Do I have a variety of assignments that provide students with immediate feedback and opportunities to improve?

• Are mistakes expected, respected, and used to elevate students’ understanding of the subject?

• Do I offer opportunities for students to resubmit or submit missed or late work?

• What opportunities do students have to catch up if they are behind due to technological barriers or other personal deterrents?

Alignment

• Do the assessments I use measure student knowledge and skills that are taught in the class and correspond to learning objectives?

• Do my assessments measure extraneous knowledge and skills?

Divergent Thinking

• Is divergent, creative thinking rewarded or do assessments require students to conform to one common norm?

Cultural Responsiveness

• Have I chosen teaching activities that meet the needs of diverse learners, including diverse ways of processing information and diverse performative styles?

• Is my classroom set up to allow for multiple methods of learning and demonstrating learning?

Flexibility

• Does my course design allow for some flexibility so that the class can respond to unexpected discussions and opportunities that may arise?

Instructor Positioning

• Do I identify myself by race or ethnicity, gender pronouns, academic experience, cultural identity, etc.?

• Do I provide anti-racist and equity-minded messaging to welcome my students?

Instructor Availability

• Can students contact me through multiple methods and with flexibility in communication times?

Instructor Responsibilities

• Does my syllabus clearly state the instructor's responsibility and commitment to student success in my course?

• Do I inform students that I will alert learners early if participation, learning, and attendance expectations are not met?

Student Identity

• Do I use official registration information for referring to students or do I invite students to discuss how they want to be identified?

What is linguistic prejudice?

A form of bias that comes from the implicit views we hold about others based on their language variety (the way they speak or write).

The U.S. has no official language. All language varieties are valid, no language, dialect, or accent is inherently superior to any other, and linguistic diversity and multilingualism should be celebrated. However, our implicit biases about others based on the way they speak can lead to linguistic discrimination, or unfair treatment based on the use of language and characteristics of speech. Even standard language ideology itself (the false idea that there is a “standard,” superior form of English) is a type of linguistic bias:

It is “a bias toward an abstracted, idealized, homogenous spoken language which is imposed and maintained by the dominant bloc institutions and which names as its model the written language, but which is drawn primarily from the spoken language of the upper middle class” (Lippi-Green, 1997, p. 64)
 

The enforcement of "Standard" English has a harmful and lasting colonial history:

The myth of a “standard” English (Greenfield, 2011) has historically been used for colonial and racist/classist gatekeeping purposes to exclude Black and Indigenous people from institutional (economic and social) power. 

• Language education policies have had “cascading negative consequences for Indigenous children and youth” (McCarty & Nicholas, 2014).

  • For example, at residential schools in the U.S. and Canada, Indigenous children were “often prohibited from speaking their own languages” (Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2015 Report). These residential schools were determined to be an act of “cultural genocide.” (Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2015 Report).

"The idea that intelligence is linked to English pronunciation is a legacy from colonial thinking." (Delalorm Semabia, Ghanaian blogger, The Guardian)

It is a false belief that people of color in the U.S. can avoid experiencing discrimination just by perfectly using the so-called "Standard" English. In reality, people will still be judged based on their perceived racial identity from their body, skin color, appearance, etc., and their language use will be viewed through that discriminatory lens. Greenfield (2011) explains that "our attitudes towards language ... are often steeped in our assumptions about the bodies of the speakers. We assume an essential connection—language as inherently tied to the body. In other words, language varieties—like people—are subject to racialization" (p. 50).

• It doesn’t help that “because non-SAE [“Standard” American English] accents are narrowly and negatively portrayed in popular media, we are taught to think ill of the speakers of those accents” (Andrew Hernandez, 8 Harmful Examples of Standard American English Privilege).

• The “implication... that discrimination is purely a matter of language” (Lippi-Green, 1997, p. 50), i.e., that linguistic discrimination will only be experienced by those who have not obtained the ability to speak the “Standard” English variety, falsely suggests that “a person of color could speak it and thus overcome” systemic oppression, making “invisible the institutionalized racism that remains” (Greenfield, 2011, p. 58).
   

Language discrimination has consequences:

Arbitrary racist and classist grammar/speaking “rules” have historically been used as a tool of colonization and gatekeeping, and that continues today, in 2021. These attitudes can affect:

• How young students are treated in the classroom

• How college students are graded on essays

• How candidates are selected for housing/job interviews

• The list goes on…

Higher ed. institutions privilege an idealized language variety

Antioch University, like all other higher ed. institutions in the U.S. in the vast majority of degree programs, privileges an idealized version of "Standard" American English as the default language variety. Students are subject to judgments – in classrooms and on assignments – based on others' perceptions about how they speak and write.

What are some typical ways that historically mostly white institutions enforce linguistic prejudice?

1. Academic culture that responds to student writing/presentations by rigidly enforcing language “standards” (which are classist and racist, and which punish the linguistic backgrounds of students).

2. Grading practices that favor students who speak "Standard" American English and make it unlikely that students from other linguistic backgrounds will be able to earn an A.

3. Academic climate that normalizes practices of policing the language of others in class discussions under the guise of “correctness” or “professionalism.”

Linguistic prejudice damages student success and sense of belonging

“The first question is: Can learning take place if in fact it silences the voices of the people it is supposed to teach? And the answer is: Yes. People learn that they don’t count.” – Henry Giroux, Border Crossings: Cultural Workers and the Politics of Education, p. 15)

Impact on students

When students can’t use the language that feels most natural to them in an academic context, they feel excluded and have poorer outcomes, such as greater attrition rates (see, e.g., Adams & Brink, 1990).

This type of linguistic prejudice damages students’ self-esteem and sense of identity.

• For example, Black students who speak AAE (African American English) may face pressure to code-switch (not use AAE) in academic settings. Dr. Vay writes that this expectation “damages students’ self-esteem and sense of racial identity by sending the message that AAE is only appropriate in social or home contexts, and it reinforces the myth of the superiority of Standard English” (as cited in Hardee). 

• They may feel a double consciousness (Young, 2009) that harms their sense of self and sense of belonging in an academic context. Young argues that being forced to speak Standard American English “promotes a lot of pain” and that we “should fight double-consciousness” (Young, 2014). 

When instructors send the message to students that only “standard” English (not other varieties) is appropriate in academic or professional contexts, it creates separation and hierarchy within the student body:

• Dr. Vay contends that “to teach students that the two language varieties cannot mix and must remain apart belies the claim of linguistic equality and replicates the same phony logic behind Jim Crow legislation–which held that the law recognized the equality of the races yet demanded their separation” (Young, 2009, p. 53).

"So if you really want to hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity – I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself” (Anzaldua, 1987, How to Tame a Wild Tongue, p. 59)

Instructor Practices

Instructors have a responsibility to learn about and welcome the use of different linguistic varieties (as part of equity work). 

• Examples of linguistic prejudice in instructor practices that result in educational trauma:

  • Students being suspected or accused of plagiarism

    • E.g., due to the “mainstream common sense” tenet of many instructors that speakers of African American English are “less intelligent than individuals who speak Standard English” and/or “less capable of expressing ideas in an academic manner” (Meacham, 2008, p. 194)

  • Inequities in instructor responses to perceived student “errors”

    • E.g., if a white student submits “a poorly written essay that draws upon her spoken language,” it will be assumed to be an example of poor editing; in contrast a comparable piece of writing that contains linguistic features associated with people of color may be met with “far greater hostility” and/or assumed to be evidence of incompetence (Greenfield, 2011, p. 47). (In one study, sentences featuring African American English were identified as the “most bothersome” compared with sentences containing common ESL errors; Greenfield, 2011, p. 47.) 

  • Students being told to take classes to work on getting rid of their accent (see, e.g., Lippi-Green, 2012). 

  • Students being misunderstood or perceived to have more of an accent due to their physical appearance (Kubota & Ward, 2000, p. 81).

What can I do as an instructor?

1. Treat student writing with respect. When evaluating student work, apply the same reading strategies that we routinely ask students to use for course readings. For example, we expect students to approach texts knowing that they may need to read them multiple times to understand more complicated ideas, or concepts from different cultural backgrounds.

As advanced readers, we accept a lot of things in published writing that we should also be open to in student writing:

• Published writers often include phrases from other languages or dialects. This is not a sign of their “deficient” English language ability but an intentional, stylistic choice for a particular effect. Some of these words may be accessible by looking them up in a dictionary (e.g., a phrase from French, German, or Latin), while others might denote an in-group connotation, showing that the writer is not undertaking the burden of making them accessible to all audiences.

• Published writers often include unfamiliar or specialized terms without defining them, expecting the reader to do the legwork or research to understand the meaning or context.

2. Be reflective about how critical you are of what you deem to be “errors”, and about how rigidly you enforce “standards.” (Whose standards are they – what makes them “standard”?)

Ask yourself how your implicit biases about students’ demographic backgrounds show up in your expectations and evaluations of individual students’ work.

• Pay attention to when you may be filtering your expectations for students’ writing through the lens of their identity.

Interrogate what it means to you to “speak/write professionally”: Do any of your criteria (for papers, presentations, or class discussions) demonstrate or reinforce linguistic prejudice based on race and/or class, or put multi-dialectal speakers at a disadvantage?

• The term “professional” is often used as a euphemism for the variety of English used by white, middle-class, educated people. This is a racist form of gate-keeping. 

3. Adopt inclusive ways of speaking about and valuing different linguistic varieties.

• Add Linguistic Diversity Statements to your syllabi; don’t devalue certain ways of speaking, or promote just one way as superior

• Model respect for all language varieties and don’t hold up just one as the false “standard” against which others are judged 

• Integrate discussions about language and power into your courses by including readings from scholars that illuminate the classist and racist origins of the “standard” language ideology.

  • Explore the idea with students that some linguistic varieties have more social prestige than others, and interrogate together why that may be.

• Create shared community guidelines that include a statement about not policing the language of others.

• Avoid policing student language use in class discussions: Actively monitor yourself and be careful not to rephrase a student’s words in a way that elevates your own way of speaking rather than responding to the content/ideas.

• Demystify (by explicitly discussing with students) what counts as knowledge, evidence, and acceptable expression of ideas in your field (including acknowledging what has traditionally counted as knowledge and introducing other ways of knowing).

4. Include a variety of types of assignments so that you’re not overly privileging students from certain linguistic backgrounds.

Make sure you’re not only asking students to demonstrate their learning through formal/academic written assignments. Instead, include a variety of ways for students to demonstrate learning outcomes. E.g., oral presentations or alternate assignment options.

5. Revise your writing assignments and assessments.

This section coming soon...

6. Learn about linguistic prejudice and its impact.

Take the time to consider the content on this page and to read some of the resources linked to the left.

Stay up to date on current theories and research on sociocultural linguistics and antiracist educational practices. Some important researchers on these topics include Dr. Vay (Vershawn Ashanti Young; developing the concept of code-meshing, using multiple Englishes and dialects in school and at work), Dr. Asao Inoue (research focusing on antiracist and social justice theory and practices in writing assessments), and Dr. Laura Greenfield (research on social justice frameworks, critical pedagogy, and anti-oppression education).

ADDRESSING Model

One model that can help with self-reflection comes from Pamela Hays (1996, 2008). She established the ADDRESSING model, within which each letter represents a different form of diversity. Each diversity status is separated by agent (those in the privileged position) and target (those in the marginalized position) ranks. This model is based on white Eurocentric culture, systems, and values. As such, it might look very different when constructed in other countries. The linked table was adapted from Hays' work by the Antioch University Seattle Counseling Department Faculty (2021).   As you review the linked table, try to think about how each form of privilege and marginalization may influence how you teach a given topic. In addition, try to attend to the intersection of your various identities, and how privilege in one area and marginalization in another area, for example, may interact to influence your implicit curriculum.