Competency 2, Attribute C

Demonstrates an awareness of oppressive interactions between educators, students, families, and society, including one’s own complicity in upholding systems of oppression.

Attribute Key Definitions

Complicity

The condoning of dominant beliefs and practices (e.g. racism) by passive acceptance and, often, lack of action. Someone complicit in a system for racism, for example, may not explicitly act on beliefs about racial superiority over others, but they might think "it doesn't affect me" and avoid discussions or actions that regard race and racism.

Oppression

A pervasive social web of institutional and systemic discrimination, personal bias, bigotry, and prejudice. It creates an unequal power differential between dominant and subordinated groups by affording the dominant group (e.g. white people; heterosexual people) with the right to define "normal", "real, and "correct" ways of being, knowing, and acting and the power to punish or marginalize those who do not fit their definition.

Resources

"Conceptual Framework for Oppression" (pp 1 - 7) by Rita Hardiman and Bailey W. Jackson

Hardiman and Jackson provide a clear definition of "social oppression" and provide a framework for how oppression happens in our institutions, including schools, and the conditions that create oppression. They articulate the ways in which oppression impact us, including at the individual, institutional, and societal levels. A supplemental video explaining "social oppression" called, "Power, privilege, and oppression" is linked below.

"Chapter 2" from Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire.

Freire describes the "banking model" of education, a model based in unjust assumptions about the teacher-student relationship (e.g. "the teacher thinks and the students are 'thought about'"). He discusses the role teachers play in upholding oppression and offers a counter to the banking model called "problem-posing" education. Problem-posing, Freire offers, creates opportunities for students to critically analyze their world and take sociopolitical action.

"Introduction" from Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique Morris

Morris starts with the stories of several black girls and women who were victims of overly punitive discipline practices in our schools. Morris makes a case for centering the experience of black girls, as they simultaneously experience racism and sexism in schools. Black girls and women are often overlooked in discussions about the school-to-prison pipeline (due to a gaze on black boys and men), when they are being suspended from and arrested in disproportional rates. To supplement or preview, watch the TED Talk (video below), "Why black girls are targeted for punishment at school -- and How to change that."

Educational Exclusion: Dropout, Pushout, and School-to-Prison Pipeline of LGTBQ Youth (abridged) by GLSEN.

This article is a shortened version of a study done by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) about disparities in disciplinary measures taken against LGTBQ youth.

"Courage", Chapter 2 from For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood by Chris Emdin

Emdin tells personal stories about how he internalized fear-based narratives about black and brown students. He discusses how easily educators talk about students who are "teachable" and those who are "loud", "challenging", or "problems", and how venting sessions about students strengthen racist tropes about students of color. Emdin is forthright that, as a young black male teacher, he unknowingly reinforced his own mental model of urban students of color as students who are hard to control because they lack self-control and create chaos. In his book, Emdin exposes the white savior complex (video below) and its intersections with media and schools.

"Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life" by Derald Wing Sue, et al.

Microaggressions are everyday, often unintentional expressions of internalized bias damage, marginalize, and can push out students and families of color from schools. They often come in the form of "coded" language that signals to people of color that they unwanted and othered. Examples include telling an Asian or Latinx student or family, "You speak English well" or "Speak up. You're so quiet." Racial microaggressions are the symptom of larger system of white supremacy that normalizes/validates such comments as "innocent", "not intended" or calling someone who objects to a microaggression as "too sensitive". To supplement, you can view a video on young people discussing microaggressions.

Activities & Reflections

Suggested curricular arc:
A key concept of this arc is systems of oppression: the role it plays in schools and the role we, as educators, contribute to or disrupt them.
Linking to Prior Knowledge: Ask your group to read the "Conceptual Framework for Oppression" (pp. 1 - 7) by Hardiman and Jackson prior to coming to meeting. You may ask them to take notes on the filter questions: (1) What is social oppression and who does it impact? How, if at all, does social oppression impact students and families within our school?" You may ask them to watch the video, "Power, privilege, and oppression" (particularly up until 4:00) to solidify their knowledge.
After coming together, reiterate the definition of social oppression either constructed by the group or through your own paraphrasing. Then, provide some examples of how oppression shows up in schools at different levels (individual, institutional, and societal). A series of examples can be seen here. During this time, invite participation from the group for other examples that might show up in the district, in the school, at the classroom level.

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