On Inclusion
A Thought on Inclusion...
"Ideally, schools should be supportive environments for students. Unfortunately, zero-tolerance policies tend to funnel vulnerable students out of schools and into prisons, low-income jobs, and poverty."
Kimberle Williams Crenshaw
Image Credit: Annabel Clark
Culture Corner Spotlight:
Google Art & Culture is a great resource for all things visual and virtual cultural arts. It is an interactive and immersive experience from the comfort of your personal computer. This month we are spotlighting Google Arts & Culture's collection entitled:
"What Neurodiversity Means to Me"
What ARTVX artists want you to know, from the artists themselves.
Learn more about ARTXV championing Disability Inclusion in the Arts and Web3.
Watch & Learn
Ted Talks:
4 ways to design a disability-friendly future| Meghan Hussey
Why we need to make education more accessible to the deaf| Nyle DiMarco
3 steps to turn everyday get-togethers into transformative gatherings| Priya Parker
Other videos:
Teachers, Try This: Beyoncé's ‘Mute Challenge’ to Get Students’ Attention
How to Support Early-Career Teachers: Advice From Native Educators
Little Rock Nine - Elizabeth Eckford
Elizabeth Eckford is depicted in this photograph taken by Will Counts in 1957. Hazel Massery is the Caucasian girl seen yelling as Eckford attempted to enter the school on her first day.
Culture Corner Spotlight:
Google Art & Culture is a great resource for all things visual and virtual cultural arts. It is an interactive and immersive experience from the comfort of your personal computer. This month we are spotlighting Google Arts & Culture's collection entitled:
"A Journey to Educational Equity"
A Virtual Exploration of the Civil Rights Movement
Ways to be Inclusive
In Schools:
Define clear minimum standards for behaviour.
Enforce those standards consistently.
Deal with low level disruption in a sensitive way.
Create opportunities to listen to all children.
Develop a 'scaffolded' approach to learning.
Be aware of the specific needs of every child in your class.
Provide support for them in ways which benefit ALL children in your class.
Create a calm, purposeful learning environment.
Clearly display timetables and key information.
Use pre-assessment to inform your planning.
Let children choose how to show what they have learned.
Don't compare the progress of one child to another; personal progress is key.
Learn more at Plan Bee LTD: How to Create an Inclusive Classroom: 12 Tips for Teachers
At Work:
Listen and learn. The most important thing you can do to be more inclusive is educate yourself about other people’s experiences. Commit to your own continued education, and don’t underestimate the value of your example. Inclusion is a continuous practice.
Use respectful language. Inclusive language shows that you respect and value the person you are speaking with. Learn best practices for inclusive language, and when you don’t know how to address a person, remember that it’s ok to ask.
Run more inclusive meetings and work sessions. Give every person a clear opportunity to share their ideas, concerns, and solutions. Some people speak up easily. Others do so only when called upon. And still others will need your explicit direction to share their comments and questions by email afterward.
Stop interruptions. When you notice one colleague interrupting another, say “I’d like to hear Sam finish their thought” or “Let me stop you there so we can hear what Sam thinks.”
Give credit where credit is due. Thank people for their specific contributions, and share those contributions with others, using phrases like “Here’s what I learned from Jordan” and “That’s a point Alex made earlier.” Also, redirect misguided questions by saying something like “Pat’s the one to ask about this issue.”
Give direct feedback. Remember, you’re not doing anyone a favor by holding back on feedback that could help them do a better job. Real respect means honest, actionable feedback and a high expectation for every person’s success.
Volunteer to be included in interviews. A diverse team makes better hiring decisions. By participating in the interview process, you’ll learn to unpack your own biases and help to mitigate unconscious bias on your team.
Disrupt office housework. Office housework is routine work that isn’t part of someone’s job description, distracts from their career trajectory, and makes no real impact on business outcomes (like making coffee, straightening up the board room, ordering lunch, or organizing another person’s meeting schedule). When you see one person always assuming these tasks, volunteer yourself, or disrupt the flow by establishing regular rotations for administrative duties.
Interrupt microaggressions. Use micro-interruptions to respond in the moment and to act as an ally to fellow employees who may not have the confidence to speak up yet.
Learn what to do when you make a mistake. Mistakes are human. When you mess up, acknowledge it, apologize, and move on quickly.
Learn more about Diversity Movement's 10 Actions You Can Take Today to Be More Inclusive At Work
Creating Multilingual Spaces
Inclusive Practices in Multilingual Classrooms
This is a list of inclusive practices via Region 7 Educational Service
Making connections to the culture of the students you serve can reap great rewards!
As educators, it is our duty to provide an inclusive environment that embraces diversity and fosters learning for all students. In multilingual classrooms, this means creating an atmosphere where all students feel valued and respected, regardless of their language or cultural background. Connecting with student culture can also be beneficial for educators, as it can help build positive relationships with students and their families. Below I’ve listed a few ideas for inclusivity in multilingual classrooms. Start small and watch the magic happen!
Use Multilingual Resources
Incorporating multilingual resources such as books, posters, and music can create a welcoming atmosphere for students who speak different languages. Bilingual books allow students who speak different languages to access the same content and participate in discussions and activities together. Consider creating signs and other classroom materials in multiple languages to help students feel more comfortable and included. For example, you could create a welcome sign or post classroom rules in multiple languages. The best part? You don't have to be fluent in any of the languages to support your students.
Use Culturally Responsive Teaching
Culturally responsive teaching is an approach that recognizes and values the cultural backgrounds of all students. Ask students (or parents/guardians) about their culture, customs, and traditions, and incorporate this knowledge into the classroom. Teachers can use this approach to create lesson plans that include cultural references that are relevant to students. Students will feel valued and appreciated for who they are, plus, it can open the door for partnerships between home and school. This approach also helps students understand and appreciate their own culture while learning about others - a great precursor to empathy, a necessary soft skill for success in the workplace and beyond.
Incorporate Multicultural Literature
Incorporating multicultural literature in the classroom can provide a window into the lives and experiences of people from different cultures. Multicultural literature exposes students to different cultures and ways of life, providing them with a deeper understanding of the world around them. This helps to create a more inclusive and diverse learning environment, where students from all backgrounds can feel seen, heard, and valued. This literature can also help students understand the value of diversity and how it enriches our lives.
Encourage multilingualism
Encourage students to use their home language(s) in the classroom and incorporate it into their learning. By using their native language in the classroom, students can better understand new concepts and ideas, which can help them learn and communicate in the target language. Whenever possible, teachers should model the use of multiple languages in the classroom and provide opportunities for students to share their native language with others. In addition to helping them process their new learning, it can help to validate their cultural and linguistic identity and promote a sense of belonging.
Making connections to the culture of the students we serve can reap great rewards. By understanding and embracing the cultural backgrounds of our students, we can create a positive and inclusive classroom environment that fosters learning and promotes understanding. When students feel valued and respected, they are more likely to engage in the learning process and achieve academic success…and that’s a win for everyone!
Web Resources for Multilingual Inclusion:
Culture Corner Feature:
This video provides an overview of how education that is not inclusive affects children, and what can be done to promote change and ensure all children have access to an inclusive and equitable quality education.
Inclusive Language Resources
General terms related to equity and power
These can be found on the American Psychological Association's Inclusive Language Guidelines webpage. Please note that this is not all the inclusive language available for use, this is a brief summary and readers are encourage to research more.
Access:
The elimination of discrimination and other barriers that contribute to inequitable opportunities to join and be a part of a work group, organization, or community (APA, 2021b).
Ally/Allies:
People who recognize the unearned privilege they receive from society’s patterns of injustice and take responsibility for changing these patterns. Being an ally is more than being sympathetic and feeling bad for those who experience discrimination. An ally is willing to act with, and for, others in pursuit of ending oppression and creating equality. Real allies are willing to step out of their comfort zones. Those who decide to undertake the ally role must recognize and understand the power and privileges that one receives, accepts, and experiences and they use that position to act for justice (Akbar, 2020).
Bias:
APA defines bias as partiality: an inclination or predisposition for or against something. Motivational and cognitive biases are two main categories studied in decision-making analysis. Motivational biases are conclusions drawn due to self-interest, social pressures, or organization-based needs, whereas cognitive biases are judgments that go against what is considered rational, and some of these are attributed to implicit reasoning (APA, 2021b).
Climate:
The degree to which community members feel included or excluded in the work group, organization, or community (APA, 2021b).
Cultural Competence:
Ability to collaborate effectively with individuals from different cultures; such competence improves health care experiences and outcomes (Nair & Adetayo, 2019).
Discrimination:
The unjust and differential treatment of the members of different age, gender, racial, ethnic, religious, national, ability identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic, and other groups at the individual level (e.g., behavioral manifestation of prejudice involving negative, hostile, and injurious treatment of the members of targeted groups; APA, 2021b) and the institutional/structural level (e.g., operating procedures, laws, and policies) that favor certain groups over others and has the effect of restricting opportunities for other groups.
Diverse:
Involving the representation or composition of various social identity groups in a work group, organization, or community. The focus is on social identities that correspond to societal differences in power and privilege, and thus to the marginalization of some groups based on specific attributes—for example, race, ethnicity, culture, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, spirituality, disability, age, national origin, immigration status, and language. There is a recognition that people have multiple identities and that social identities are intersectional and have different salience and impact in different contexts (APA, 2021b).
Equity:
Providing resources according to the need to help diverse populations achieve their highest state of health and other functioning. Equity is an ongoing process of assessing needs, correcting historical inequities, and creating conditions for optimal outcomes by members of all social identity groups (APA, 2021b).
Generalization:
The process of deriving a concept, judgment, principle, or theory from a limited number of specific cases and applying it more widely, often to an entire class of objects, events, or people (APA, n.d.).
Global Citizenship:
The umbrella term for social, political, environmental, and economic actions of globally minded individuals and communities on a worldwide scale. The term can refer to the belief that individuals are members of multiple, diverse, local, and nonlocal networks rather than single actors affecting isolated societies (United Nations, n.d.).
Global Majority:
Also known as people of the global majority (PGM), a collective term that encourages those of African, Asian, Latin American, and Arab descent to recognize that together they comprise the vast majority (around 80 percent) of people in the world. Understanding the truth that Whiteness is not the global norm has the power to disrupt and reframe our conversations on race (Maharaj & Campbell-Stephens, 2021).
Health Equity:
Ensuring that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. This requires removing obstacles to health such as poverty, discrimination, and their consequences, including powerlessness and lack of access to good jobs with fair pay, quality education and housing, safe environments, and health care (Braveman et al., 2017).
Human Rights:
Rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled. In response to widespread, horrific violations of human rights in the first half of the 20th century, the international community established The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and international human rights laws that lay down the obligations of governments to respect, protect, and fulfill human rights (APA, 2015b). Human rights are defined by the United Nations as “universal legal rights that protect individuals and groups from those behaviors that interfere with freedom and human dignity” (APA, 2021b).
Inclusion:
An environment that offers affirmation, celebration, and appreciation of different approaches, styles, perspectives, and experiences, thus allowing all individuals to bring in their whole selves (and all their identities) and to demonstrate their strengths and capacity (APA, 2021b).
Intergenerational Trauma:
The transmission of trauma or its legacy, in the form of a psychological consequence of an injury or attack, poverty, and so forth, from the generation experiencing the trauma to subsequent generations. The transference of this effect is believed to be epigenetic—that is, the transmission affects the chemical marker for a gene rather than the gene itself. The trauma experienced by the older generation is translated into a genetic adaptation that can be passed on to successive generations (Akbar, 2017; APA, 2017a; Menakem, 2017; Whitbeck et al., 2004).
Intersectionality:
The complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups to produce and sustain complex inequities. Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the theory of intersectionality in a paper for the University of Chicago Legal Forum (Crenshaw, 1989), the idea that when it comes to thinking about how inequalities persist, categories like gender, race, and class are best understood as overlapping and mutually constitutive rather than isolated and distinct (Grzanka et al., 2017, 2020).
Marginalization:
Relegation to or placement in an unimportant or a depowered position in society (APA, 2017a).
Microaggressions:
Commonly occurring, brief, verbal or nonverbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities that communicate derogatory attitudes or notions toward a different “other.” Microaggressions may be intentional or unintentional, and the perpetrators may possibly be unaware of their behavior (APA, 2017a). Microaggressions can accumulate over time and lead to severe harm.
Minority:
A minority group is a population subgroup (e.g., ethnic, racial, social, religious, or other group) with differential power than those deemed to hold the majority power in the population. The relevance of this term is outdated and has changed as the demographics of the population change. Thus, refrain from using the term “minority” and use the specific name of the group or groups to which you are referring (e.g., people of color or communities of color vs. ethnic and racial minorities; APA, 2020b).
Oppression:
Occurs when one subgroup has more access to power and privilege than another subgroup, and when that power and privilege are used to dominate the other to maintain the status quo. Thus, oppression is both a state and a process, with the state of oppression being unequal group access to power and privilege, and the process of oppression being the ways in which that inequality is maintained (APA, 2021b).
Pathway Programs:
Programs (e.g., in secondary schools and colleges) that foster increased access by marginalized groups to education, training, or a profession. It is preferable to use this term rather than “pipeline” (see definition of pipeline for explanation; APA, 2021b).
Performative Allyship:
Also known as optical allyship, this term refers to someone from a nonmarginalized group professing support and solidarity with a marginalized group but in a way that is not helpful. Worse yet, the allyship is done in a way that may actually be harmful to “the cause.” The “ally” is motivated by some type of reward. On social media, that reward is a virtual pat on the back for being a “good person” or for being “on the right side” of a cause, or “on the right side of history” (Kalina, 2020).
Positionality:
Our social position or place in a given society in relation to race, ethnicity, and other statuses (e.g., social class, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, ability, religion) within systems of power and oppression. Positionality refers to our individual identities and the intersection of those identities and statuses with systems of privilege and oppression. Positionality shapes our psychological experiences, worldview, perceptions others have of us, social relationships, and access to resources (Muhammad et al., 2015). Positionality therefore means actively understanding and negotiating the systemic processes and hierarchy of power and the ways that our statuses affect our relationships because of power dynamics related to privilege and oppression (APA, 2019b).
Prejudice:
A negative attitude toward another person or group formed in advance of any experience with that person or group. Prejudices can include an affective component (e.g., nervousness, anger, contempt, pity, hatred) and a cognitive component (assumptions and beliefs about groups, including stereotypes). Prejudice is typically manifested behaviorally through discriminatory behavior. Prejudicial attitudes tend to be resistant to change because they distort our perception of information about the target group. Prejudice based on racial grouping is racism; prejudice based on perceived sexual orientation is homophobia and biphobia; prejudice based on sex or gender (including transphobia) is sexism; prejudice based on chronological age is ageism; and prejudice based on disability is ableism (APA, 2021b).
Privilege:
Unearned power that is afforded to some but not others based on status rather than earned merit; such power may come in the form of rights, benefits, social comfort, opportunities, or the ability to define what is normative or valued (Bailey, 1998; Johnson, 2018; McIntosh, 1989). Privilege arises in relation to systems of oppression. A person has privilege not because they desire to have privilege or promote inequity but because they exist within a system where biased values, attitudes, and behaviors have become integrated and normalized (APA, 2019b). See racial privilege or White privilege.
Social Justice:
Commitment to creating fairness and equity in resources, rights, and treatment of marginalized individuals and groups of people who do not share equal power in society (APA, 2021b).
Stereotype:
A set of cognitive generalizations (e.g., beliefs, expectations) about the qualities and characteristics of the members of a group or social category. Stereotypes, like schemas, simplify and expedite perceptions and judgments, but they are often exaggerated, negative rather than positive, and resistant to revision even when perceivers encounter individuals with qualities that are not congruent with the stereotype (APA, n.d.).
Structural competency:
The trained ability to discern how a host of issues defined clinically as symptoms, attitudes, or diseases (e.g., depression, hypertension, obesity, smoking, medication noncompliance, trauma, psychosis) also represent the downstream implications of a number of upstream decisions about such matters as health care and food delivery systems, zoning laws, urban and rural infrastructures, medicalization, or even about the very definitions of illness and health (Metzl & Hansen, 2014).
Inclusion Resources:
4 Steps to More Inclusive Language: Examples & Strategies for the Workplace
HubSpot's Inclusive Language: How To Use and Promote It at Your Organization
How Educators Can Talk About Inclusive Language With Young People
The Here to Here Language Guide: A Resource for Using Asset-Based Language with Young People
Understanding Hate Speech
Ted Talks:
The Freedom of Hate Speech; a Call for Civil Dialogue | Katia Campbell
How to be an anti-racist teacher in a mostly white school | Taryn Coe
Other videos:
Resources:
Understanding Restorative Practices
What are Restorative Practices?
The International Institute for Restorative Practices defines "restorative practices" as a field within the social sciences that studies how to strengthen relationships between individuals as well as social connections within communities.
Resource Articles on Restorative Practices:
Videos on Restorative Practices:
Ted Talks:
“The worst conversation adults can have with kids about race is no conversation at all. Talking to kids about race needs to happen early, often, and honestly.”
~Jemar Tisby, historian, author, speaker
In an episode of Home School, The Atlantic’s animated series about parenting, Tisby offers advice on how to have a conversation with children about race, from experiential learning to watching classic animated films.
Google Art & Culture is a great resource for all things visual and virtual cultural arts. It is an interactive and immersive experience from the comfort of your personal computer. This month we are spotlighting Google Arts & Culture's collection entitled:
With a mission to photograph 1,000 Black males of all ages
Image Credit: Byron Summers