Foundational Understandings

1. Identity: The relationship established by psychological and societal identification, which include the distinguishing character or personality of an individual (Merriam-Webster, 2019).

2. Equity: Creating equal opportunity for access, success, and representation for all students in our classrooms by respecting and attending to the diverse strengths and challenges of each student.

3.-isms: Someone who exerts prejudice or discrimination on another individual on the basis of a specified characteristic of that individual.

4. Intersectionality: Manner in which multiple forms of discrimination combine, overlap, or intersect in the experiences of marginalized individuals

5. Marginalization: A form of lived experiences for individuals that is based upon persistent disadvantages by society at large (e.g., race, sexual orientation, gender, religion, disability, culture, etc.).

6. Implicit Biases: An individual’s unconscious attitudes, beliefs, understandings, and stereotypes that impact their behavior and interactions with another individual (Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, 2019).

7. Deficit Thinking: A paradigm by which educators attribute the academic or behavioral difficulties of some students to the students themselves, their families, communities, and cultures.

8. Asset Thinking: An approach that focuses on strengths of each student and views diversity in thought, culture, and traits as positive assets; students are valued for what they bring into the classroom.

9. Culture: The customs, traditions, arts, and beliefs of a racial, religious, or other social groups

10. Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: A concept of curriculum development originally outlined by Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995) that rests on three criteria or propositions: (1) students must experience academic success; (2) students must develop and/or maintain cultural competence; and (3) students must develop a critical consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the current social order (p. 160). 

ISBE RESOURCES with Links:

ISBE Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards Home Page

Alignment Approach 1

Alignment Approach 2

Reporting Guide

ISBE Self-Assessment Tool Kit

ISBE Administrative Code Part 24.50

ISBE Strategic Plan