Digital Content

Kimberle Crenshaw discusses: What is Intersectionality? and What is Intersectionality? from Newcastle University. While watching, consider the question: what is intersectionality? Then, summarize your understanding of intersectionality. Consider how the conversion of race and gender stereotypes (or other intersections)may have played out in your educational setting. How can understanding these help to provide an equitable education to those most marginalized?
Laverne Cox talks about intersectionality (2014). As she sat down with folks at Harvard to have a conversation about intersectionality. Watch the segment from 00:19-1:40 and reflect on the following question: How might the multiple identities that a person holds have an impact on how they experience systems and structures?
this crash course on socialization and identity until 08:04. Different people enter educational spaces in a variety of ways. That is because everyone holds different social identities and have been socialized in different ways. This video seeks to explain these differences and or illuminate some similarities in socialization. After watching the video, take some notes on the following questions: What may be some messages from your own socialization that you may be intentionally or unintentionally reinforcing in your classroom or school? Why does that matter? How might some of the ways you show up (your socialization) impact your ability to build productive collective spaces both inside and the classroom and outside of it?
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Chapter 6, “Developing Cultural Competence and Racial Awareness in Classroom Teachers,” from the book Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap in America’s Classrooms by Tyrone C. Howard. While you read, think about then jot down the answers to the following questions: What is cultural competence? Why is it so important? What is critical self-reflection? Why can it be challenging or even painful? What is racial awareness? Why is it important to critically self-reflect on your racial awareness? Of the 5 strategies suggested to support educators in this reflection, which resonate with you the most and why?
the racial identity development models. The attached models summarize several frameworks that have been developed to describe stages of racial and ethnic identity development. The models also have broader applications for understanding how individuals function in community, family and organizational settings. Most of the frameworks carry the same few cautions. Not every person will necessarily go through every stage in a framework. Many of the authors specifically acknowledge that the stages might also be cyclical, that people might revisit different stages at different points in their lives. The frameworks summarized here describe people who are situated in many different ways, but they do not describe all of the possibilities. (www.racialequitytools.org) Be sure to spend the most time reflecting on your own racial identity development; the model that most resonates with your own racial identity. Then provide answers to the following questions: How would you describe your current stage of racial identity development? Does this change in your current educational setting? Explain. What is a challenge or a question you are wrestling with?
The Systemic Birdcage of Sexism by Marilyn Frye. While reading, think: why might oppression be so hard to see? What are your experiences with seeing oppression in educational settings? Why do you think this has been your experience?
Nieto’s “Teaching as Autobiography”. Then write about: what resonated with you from the text? How has your own background or experiences influenced your decision to pursue a career in teaching (or education)? Where have there been troubling moments of transition and deep reflection that have influenced your practice? Why?
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the Wheel of Oppression Activity; here, one can begin to examine their roles as targets and agents in various forms of oppression or the “isms”. After completing the activity, jot down how it felt to engage in it. What new insights are you taking with you into the classroom/school now?
this identity mapping activity. We live with our identities every day, and, this activity in and of itself may be one that you’ve done in some way or another. Again, critical reflection is one of the most powerful and underutilized tools of an educator. Our cultural competence is what has the potential to start to shape and influence institutions and systems. It’s also important to underscore that this is relevant to our work with the students. Given that we bring our whole selves into spaces we must be aware of how our social identities impact our students and how they both perceive and receive us.
The cycle of socialization of your race in this activity inspired by the work of Bobbie Harro. In his piece, Harro outlines the non-linear process by which we come to believe what we believe about ourselves and the world around us given the various social identities we hold called the cycle of socialization. Our context, the story of oppression in America, and specifically within the world of education, is centered on race. Therefore, in education, in particular, race must be zoomed in on. It does not mean that to ignore other intersections or identities, but educational inequality cannot be resolved without race attentive solutions. After completing the activity, reflect on the following questions:What is “up “ for me after engaging win this activity?What viewpoints or perspectives on the world am I holding as a result of this socializationHow has this shown up in terms of what I proactively choose to do in the classroom, how I reactively respond to what students do in the classroom?What does this mean for how I work with colleagues and families?What does this make me want to know about others?