Transforming Practice: Learning Equity, Learning Excellence

Transforming Practice: Learning Equity, Learning Excellence

Project Working Group

Chad O'Brien

Transforming Practice: Learning Equity, Learning Excellence by Project Working Group is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Contents

Getting Started Transforming Practice: Getting Started Guide Introduction How are the Online Modules organized?

Systems of Inequity Learning Objectives Introduction Video Reflecting on Identity What are Systems? Unpacking Language: Key Terms Understanding Power and Oppression as Systems Systems of Inequity Connect Personal and Structural Inequities Systemic Barriers in the Education System Conclusion

Personal Privilege and Bias Learning Objectives Introduction Video Reflecting on Identity Anti-oppressive education and critical pedagogy Unpacking Language: Key Terms Situating Ourselves Intersectionality Framework for Understanding Privilege and Identity Implicit Bias Microaggressions have a big impact Power and Privilege in Educational Institutions Reflecting on Systems Systems of Inequity Conclusion

Equity-Seeking Groups Learning Objectives Introduction Video Reflecting on Identity Unpacking Language: Key Terms Intersectionality Equity-Seeking Groups in Nova Scotia Equity Legislation and Frameworks in Nova Scotia Reflecting on Systems Systems of Inequity Conclusion

Calling Out Racism: Anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism Learning Objectives Introduction Video Race on Campus Reflecting on Identity Unpacking Language: Key Terms Racism at Every Level of Society How do we know that systemic racism is real and rampant in Nova Scotia? Introduction to Decolonization Defining Terms Decolonization Learning Journey Calling Out Racial Discrimination Reflecting on Systems Conclusion

Navigating Courageous Conversations Learning Objectives Introduction Video Reflecting on Identity Unpacking Language: Key Terms Approaching “Courageous” Conversations Culture of Accountability: Brave and Safer Spaces Reflecting on Systems Conclusion

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Practices Learning Objectives CRP in Practice Introduction Video Reflecting on Identity What is Culture? What is Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Practice? CRP In Practice Connection to Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Reflecting on Systems Conclusion

Universal Design for Learning Learning Objectives Introduction Video Reflecting on Identity Why is UDL Important? Learning Networks and UDL UDL Framework Principle 1 — Multiple Means of Engagement Principle 2— Multiple Means of Representation Principle 3 — Multiple Means of Action and Expression UDL Summary How are UDL and CRP Interconnected? Reflecting on Systems Conclusion

Student Voice and Agency Learning Objectives Introduction Video Reflecting on Identity Unpacking Language: Key Terms Barriers to Student Participation What does cultivating student voice and agency look like? Sharing and Negotiating Power with Students Reflecting on Systems Conclusion

Transforming Teaching and Learning Learning Objectives Introduction What are Equity-Centered Practices? The Equity-Centred Guiding Principles 1. Critically Engage Across Difference 2. Shift Attitudes and Mindsets 3. Design the Learning Environment 4. Support the Learning Process Conclusion

Transforming Student Services Learning Objectives Introduction Equity-Centred Example What are student services? What are Equity-Centered Practices? Equity-Centred Guiding Principles 1. Critically Engage Across Difference 2. Shift Attitudes and Mindsets 3. Design the Learning Environment 4. Support the Learning Process Conclusion

Glossary List

Course Assets

Getting Started

Transforming Practice: Getting Started Guide

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Introduction

The Transforming Practice: Learning Equity, Learning Excellence curriculum aims to address an existing gap in professional development opportunities for faculty and student services professionals in higher education in Nova Scotia. The curriculum aims to do the following:

introduce faculty and staff to research in areas such as anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-oppressive, universal design for learning, and culturally responsive pedagogy and practices;

establish a shared understanding of foundational concepts and issues related to educational inequities;

encourage self-reflection related to systems of inequity and personal privilege and bias;

amplify the work of practitioners and scholars who are integrating inclusive and equity-centred practices; and

provide concrete strategies for enacting equity-centred approaches in curriculum, instructional methods, assessment, and across a multitude of intersecting student services.

Equitable practices are the foundation for academic excellence at Nova Scotia’s post-secondary institutions. This curriculum builds on Learning Excellence, Learning Equity, a report prepared by Jodie Black, Liz Stone, and Cherylanne James for the Social Equity Working Group (SEWG) in August 2019. The report identified 10 recommendations for Nova Scotia post-secondary institutions to achieve educational equity through Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Culturally Responsive Practices (CRP). This curriculum specifically responds to one of the recommendations: Invest in faculty as leaders in UDL and CRP.

This curriculum supports the recommendation by providing the tools and resources needed to foster inclusive, equity-centred learning environments that celebrate, recognize, adapt to, and accommodate diverse learning needs. It supports new and experienced faculty and student services professionals to enhance their professional practice by developing relevant tools, training, and resources to advance an ongoing commitment to creating equitable and innovative learning experiences for all students.

This curriculum is also a direct response to:

Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) Calls to Action

NS Human Rights Act

NS Culture Action Plan

NS Accessibility Act

Beyond legislation and Calls to Action, it is part of our moral responsibility as educators to rectify systemic inequity.

How are the Online Modules organized?

This curriculum is presented in a series of 10 self-paced modules in three sequential sections.

Personal and System Foundations: Understand the foundations of social inequities in post-secondary contexts, build a strong foundation of core concepts related to personal privilege and bias, systems of inequity, equity-seeking groups, and calling out racism.

Transforming Practice Foundations: Consider multiple strategies for how to address educational inequity in your practice including the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework, Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Practices (CRP) competencies, and strategies for Navigating Courageous Conversations and Student Voice & Agency.

Transforming Practice-Teaching, Learning, and Student Services: Consider promising practices and concrete examples to integrate equity-centred practices into your professional practice as faculty or student services staff.

The curriculum is self-paced and is presented in a series of self-contained modules. We recommend that you start with Module 1 and work your way sequentially through all modules, especially if you are new to social equity work. If you already have a strong grounding in foundational topics, or if you’re keen to dive into transforming your practice, you may choose to skip some of the foundational modules. However, we would still encourage you to skim through all modules, since later modules build on earlier ones and you may find new information within a familiar topic.

We have designed the curriculum so that it can be used by individuals or small groups. Working through the modules within a Professional Learning Team could be an excellent way to extend your own learning through interaction and discussion with others and to provide a measure of accountability. All faculty and student services staff can benefit from an open exchange of knowledge about what is working, or not working, for other people.

Becoming part of a community of people working toward educational equity can sustain and inspire your own journey, especially when setbacks occur. This community does not need to be limited by geography or discipline; digital learning environments have made it possible to share with and learn from a wider variety of people than ever before.

No matter where you are on your own personal and professional journey, this curriculum offers opportunities to deepen and extend your understanding of equity-centred practices:

If you are new to educational equity work, Transforming Practice will help you build a solid foundation for future exploration.

If you are already familiar with some of the foundational concepts covered here, Transforming Practice will refresh your prior knowledge and give you tools to translate your knowledge into improved professional practice.

If you are already deeply familiar with issues related to race and racism, Transforming Practice can give you a starting point for discussions with colleagues who are not, and can give you additional examples of how faculty and student services staff are enacting this work.

Why does the curriculum include foundational modules?

Social and educational inequities are complex. Yet, our first reaction is often to jump straight from awareness of problems of social inequity to trying out potential solutions.

When we approach systemic inequities with this shortcut approach, often the result is that we end up doing more harm than good. Even worse, when we use a trial-and-error approach in our work with diverse students, they may disproportionately bear the weight of our mistakes.

To truly make progress toward social equity, something more than a shortcut solution is required. We view the process of social equity work not as a straight line, but as an iterative cycle.

The Transforming Practice curriculum was designed around this cyclical model. Specifically, this curriculum will require you to:

Work to understand the foundations of social equity and your own relationship to the foundations (Modules 1 – 4)

Social and educational inequities have a long, complex history in Nova Scotia and Canada. Understanding these complexities is critical to understanding how social and educational inequities manifest in systems including post-secondary institutions as well as how they impact students from equity seeking groups. Your own identity and life experiences will impact your social equity work. It is critical that all people engaged in social equity work understand their own positions in the systems and institutions that enhance equity, and how their own identities and cultures shape the ways they view others.

Work to understand promising practices to address educational inequities in higher education (Modules 5-8)

For as long as inequities have existed, there have been people trying, with varying levels of success, to address them. Complex problems like social and educational inequity resist simple solutions. After taking the time to understand the foundations and your own role within systems of inequity, you can begin to think about strategies to address this issue within your own local context. Each strategy should be carefully evaluated before implementation, with a focus on its potential impacts — positive and negative — on the communities you serve.

Consider and implement strategies to build social and educational equity within your professional practice (Modules 9-10)

The modules on transforming practice also provide case studies, scenarios, and examples of promising practices to consider and implement. Of course, social equity work must be undertaken for the long haul, and no single strategy will “fix” structural inequity. With that said, all strategies we use in the classroom or in student services to try to improve our practice should be assessed in terms of their impact on the students we serve.

How long will it take to work through the entire curriculum?

It is difficult to estimate a total timespan for the entire curriculum. Many modules contain recommended action items that may take you days or even weeks to complete. You may find it useful to spend several days reflecting between modules, or, if you are working with a group, you may structure your progress through the curriculum according to your group’s meeting schedule. We do recommend that you take your time with this content, and use the provided additional resources in each section as necessary to reinforce your understanding of challenging topics before moving on.

Accessibility features of the web version of this resource

This course has been developed with accessibility in mind. Here are some important notes on the accessibility of the content within these modules.

Videos

All videos produced have scripts and are hosted on the NSCC YouTube channel with proper closed captioning.

The interview videos also have a picture in picture with ASL.

SRT files are available for all videos as well as scripts for the “Module videos”.

Third party videos referenced in these modules may or may not be captioned.

Images/Infographics

All images and infographics have authored alternative text.

Brightspace has an alt text character limit, so we added a link to a document with the alternative text to provide a workable solution.

See the Image Alternative Text document for a log of all the images alternative text for development purposes.

Textual Content

All authored text for the modules has been placed in HTLM pages in Moodle, Brightspace and that Atlantic OER Pressbooks site. This is a very accessible format for most screen readers.

Note, LMS CSS code will dictate font style and contrast ratios, so please ensure institutional styles are set up correctly for accessibility standards.

Accessibility standards

While we strive to ensure that this resource is as accessible and usable as possible, we might not always get it right. We have followed the Nova Scotia Post-Secondary Accessibility Framework.

Acknowledgements

More than fifty faculty and student services staff from a range of post-secondary institutions in NS reviewed the modules. The significant heavy lifting was done by a small committee comprised of co-leads Jill Provoe (NSCC), and Paula Barry Mercer (formerly MSVU), and Adrienne Glasgow (NSCC), Stefani Woods (SMU), Paula Romanow (StFX), Rachel Whitney (NSCC), and Meghan Murphy (NS Government). Digital development thanks also go out to Jim Simpson (NSCC), Nataliya Bukhanova, and Grant Potter. Your commitment to and passion for equity is the reason these modules exist.

Chapter 1

Systems of Inequity

Learning Objectives

Articulate some of the major systems that shape daily life and life outcomes for people in Nova Scotia and Canada. Describe how these systems both create and perpetuate societal inequities.

Relate your personal experiences as an educator or student support professional to structural inequities in your institution and/or communities.

Connect how these systems are linked to each other in ways that intensify inequities.

Introduction Video

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Throughout the module, we use this icon to suggest times to reflect on a concept, your professional practice, or yourself. We hope these questions help spark your thinking in new and creative directions.

Reflecting on Identity

Reflecting on our identities and acknowledging how they manifest in our education practice is ongoing work. Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your own identities and how they relate to this module.

Consider your own personal learning about the topic. Where do you fall on the following continuum?

In what ways does my social and geographical location influence my identity, knowledge, and accumulated wisdom? What knowledge am I missing?

What privileges and power do I hold? In what ways do I exercise my power and privilege?

Does my power and privilege show up in my work? If so, how?

Am I aware of if/how my biases and privileges might take up space and silence others?

It’s important to realize that you do not have to be an expert on these topics to actively engage in self-reflection and conversations with students. Being an equity-centred educator requires regular and repeated reflection on the Eurocentric assumptions, knowledges, and ways of being that guide our thoughts and actions.

Being aware of which knowledges, experiences, and ways of being in the world are privileged in your discipline, classroom, and institution are a critical first step to making education equitable. The next step is legitimate action to combat the impacts of oppression.

What are Systems?

A system is a set of things working together as an interconnecting network. These things can be rules, principles, or procedures for completing tasks or making decisions. They can also be ways of organizing a group, society, or institution. A system can also refer to a prevailing political or social order.

Systems are all around us. They are complex and interact to create complex effects on people and society.

Social systems include groups, institutions, businesses, and organizations that interact and shape how individuals and groups experience their daily lives. For example, the education system is made up of the people and processes that make education happen.

What is a social system?

Think about where you live. What makes your village, town, or city a community? There may be private businesses and manufacturing, public schools, government agencies, and religious institutions. We usually think of these places as independent entities that provide us with specific services and experiences, but they’re also some of the individual pieces that make up a community or society.

In sociology, the groups and institutions that work together to make a complete society are called social systems. Social systems are used to identify and describe the relationships that connect people and organizations, which ultimately contribute to the whole community picture.

For example, post-secondary education is a social system. It attempts to unify people by providing standard education that will allow them to participate in and contribute to the economy, with the goal of strengthening society as a whole.

While social systems may seem fairly straightforward and neutral, they can be difficult to understand depending on the context. It might help to think of social systems as a way of breaking down a larger group, such as an entire society, and categorizing its components to understand how they interact to create the whole.

Systems thinking is understanding how systems influence one another within a whole. In nature, systems thinking examples include ecosystems where air, water, plants, and animals work together to survive or perish. In a society, systems thinking includes looking at how people, structures, processes, and organizations work together to create the lived experiences of individuals.

Reflect

What social systems are you part of?

What unintended adverse consequences in those systems can you identify?

How is your institution a system?

What role do you play in your institution? How does that relate to your identity and to the identities of other people? How are you engaged in supporting equity and inclusion?

Unpacking Language: Key Terms

Words matter, and words can have multiple meanings

In this section, you’ll engage with several important words and ideas related to power, privilege, and bias. We will only skim the surface of these important, complex, and deep-seated issues.

The purpose of this section is to establish a shared understanding and vocabulary to build on in future modules. This work is essential but is also sometimes uncomfortable. This should not deter us from doing it.

As a staff or faculty member, recognizing and addressing the meanings of these words in your planning and reflection is important. The more clearly a term is articulated, the more likely you are to develop the knowledge and skills to use it. You will also feel more comfortable talking about and using these words in your teaching and interaction with students.

Write

Take a couple of minutes to jot down your understanding of the following key terms (don’t worry about getting it right or perfect; the idea is to respond quickly):

dominant culture

social identity

heteronormativity

marginalized groups

oppression

patriarchy

power

prejudice

systemic oppression

white supremacy

Review

Now, review the following definitions to see how your understanding of key terms align:

dominant culture: In Canada, dominant culture results from patterns of learned behaviours and values that are shared among members of a group and are transmitted to group members over time; these behaviours and values distinguish the members of one group from another. Even with the extent of racial and ethnic diversity in Canada, the prevailing cultural values are of Christian, European (Western) origin and are perceived as the norm.

social identity: Identity is our image of ourselves and our beliefs about the kind of person we are. Examples of social identities are race/ethnicity, gender, social class/socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, abilities, and religion/religious beliefs.

heteronormativity: A frame of reference that positions heterosexuality as the default and assumes that a man/woman romantic or sexual pairing is the norm.

marginalized groups: Marginalized groups or populations are communities that are systematically discriminated against and socially, politically, and economically excluded by the dominant group or culture. (Groups that have been marginalized is another way of framing this definition)

oppression: The systemic, institutionalized, or individual subjugation of one individual or group by a more dominant individual or group; it can be overt or covert. Put simply, it is an abuse of power that is justified by the dominant group’s explicit ideology. To uphold this unequal dynamic, physical, psychological, social, or economic threats or violence are often used. The term also refers to the injustices suffered by groups that have been marginalized in everyday interactions with members of the dominant group.

patriarchy: The structure of a society in which men have power over women. The unequal power relations that exist between women and men permeate all realms of society — social, legal, political, religious, and economic — thereby systematically disadvantaging women as a whole. Men’s violence against women is a key element of patriarchal structure.

power: The ability to influence others and impose your beliefs. All power is relational, meaning you have power only in relationship to other people. Different relationships either reinforce or disrupt power. Discrimination, including racism, ableism, sexism, and homophobia, cannot be understood without accepting that power is both an individual relationship and a cultural one, and that power relationships are shifting constantly. Power is not always used malignantly and intentionally. Individuals in one culture often benefit from power, over another or others, they don’t even know they have.

prejudice: To “prejudge” an individual or group, consciously or unconsciously, often without legitimate or sufficient evidence. Oftentimes, prejudices are not recognized as stereotypes or false assumptions and through repetition, become accepted as common sense. When backed with power, prejudice results in acts of discrimination and oppression against groups or individuals.

systemic oppression: A series of barriers that disadvantage particular groups of people based on race, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, ability, age, and more. Systemic oppression is often made invisible to those who don’t experience it. It is embedded in social norms and formal institutions such as the police, law, education, and health systems.

white supremacy: The belief that people who see themselves as white are superior to Black, Indigenous, and people of colour and should therefore dominate them. White supremacy perpetuates and maintains social, political, historical, and institutional domination by white people. For example, white supremacy justified the transatlantic slave trade and colonization around the world. Today, it is used to justify entrenched systemic and institutional racism. White supremacy also refers to the political and socio-economic systems that give white people structural advantages over racialized people — both collectively and individually.

Reflect

Which terms did you feel most confident defining?

Which ones felt more difficult? Why do you think this is?

How has your understanding of these terms changed over time?

Understanding Power and Oppression as Systems

Systems of Power

Systems of power are the beliefs, practices, and cultural norms that reinforce white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity as the defining power structures in Canada.

We are all part of these systems, whether we are conscious of it or not. We all either benefit from or are limited by these systems, and many of us experience both benefits and limitations, depending on our personal and social identities.

Systems of Oppression

The term systems of oppression helps us better identify inequity by calling attention to historical and organized patterns of marginalization, abuse, and exploitation. In Canada, systems of oppression (like systemic racism) are woven into the very foundation of Canadian culture, society, and laws. Other examples of systems of oppression include but are not limited to sexism, heterosexism, ableism, classism, ageism, and anti-Semitism. Society’s institutions, such as government, education, health, and culture, all contribute to or reinforce the oppression of social groups that have been marginalized while elevating dominant social groups.

There are levels of oppression that make it a system. These levels are:

personal

interpersonal

institutional

cultural

When we look at racism, sexism, classism, ableism, heterosexism, and other forms of oppression or “isms,” it may be difficult for us to see these issues as an interlocking system operating at the personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural levels.

This is at least partly because many of us only witness or hear about examples of these isms at the personal level (an individual tells a racist joke or makes a homophobic slur) or at the interpersonal level (a teacher expects lower academic achievement from their Black students, or a woman is passed over for a promotion in a non-traditional occupation). Broadening our understanding of these four levels of oppression can help us understand oppression as a system.

Systems of Inequity

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The Systems of Inequity Model

Adapted from:

https://www.world-trust.org/

Reflect

What other examples of structural inequities have you seen or experienced?

What types of oppression do you have control over, as an educator or student services professional?

Connect Personal and Structural Inequities

Thinking about systems of inequity helps us understand and internalize the continual interaction between personal (internal) and structural (external) oppressions. This self-perpetuating system must be interrupted at both the internal and external levels for lasting change to occur.

As potential change-makers, the importance of ongoing work to understand and heal our own internalized privilege or oppression is integral to our ability to analyze and dismantle systemic inequity.

The Systems of Inequity Model is important to everything you will learn in these modules. Reflecting on it will support your personal growth, as well as build your capacity to analyze inequity in policy, law, health, and institutions, in particular the education system.

Each module includes a reflection on personal identity as well as a reflection on structural inequities — which uses the Systems of Inequity Model. Looking at and connecting the big picture to your internal work and examining your own spheres of influence is critical.

In order to make change, we must hold both the collective and the individual responsible.

Systemic Barriers in the Education System

Systemic barriers to learning are created by the education system itself, as a result of policies, procedures, or practices that prevent individuals from having equitable access to services or resources so they can fully participate. These barriers are put in place intentionally and unintentionally, and can have severe negative impacts.

Tereigh Ewert: Going deeper to look at how education systems and institutions are oppressive.

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Nik Basset: How the history of public education lays a foundation for oppression.

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Systemic barriers disproportionately affect equity-seeking groups in Nova Scotia, including students of African descent, Indigenous students, students with disabilities, immigrant and international students, and 2SLGBTQ+ students.

Examples of systemic barriers include:

To create equitable learning environments, educators and staff must be aware of the barriers that affect student learning and educational opportunities, and they must proactively remove the barriers that are within their control.

Story: “Poverty is still that glass ceiling or glass door”

Ann Sylliboy, Post-Secondary Consultant with Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey (MK), tells a story about what happens when a student tries to apply for university without a credit card.

MK is a unified team of chiefs, staff, parents, and educators who advocate on behalf of and represent the educational interests of Mi’kmaw communities and protect the educational and Mi’kmaw language rights of the Mi’kmaq people.

I had a call from a parent whose son was applying to a university, to a fairly competitive and highly sought-after program. But they needed a credit card to apply online, and they don’t have a credit card. I know these parents. They both work, but they’re just people that don’t believe in credit card debt. The parent or the community director did call the registrar, and said, you know, is this really the only way to process this application? We don’t have a credit card, and my son, who’s not 18 and just graduated out of high school doesn’t have a credit card. The registrar told the parent, well then you should, or you should try and borrow a credit card, kind of rudely.

I met with the school, and I said I’m not just here on behalf of Mi’kmaq people — I think I’m here on behalf of poor people. The elitist thinking behind ‘If you don’t have a credit card, you’re not welcome at our school’. The messaging to that student is, you know, if you are not of a certain “class”, that’s it for admissions.

We have lots of students that could be applying to lots of programs and have the potential and have something to offer to schools. And this gatekeeping sends the message that there is a certain level you need to have and if you do not have it then don’t even bother. That’s even before getting into university, right? That’s just admissions. I think the message is you don’t want poor people. You only want people that have good credit. And what does good credit mean, right?

I find there’s attention paid to Indigenous students; there’s attention paid to African Nova Scotian students; there’s attention paid to students with physical and learning disabilities, but there’s no real mention of poor students. Poverty is still that glass ceiling or glass door that hasn’t even been broached by universities.

I don’t think they were being racist, and I don’t think it was just Indigenous students, it was just this assumption that everybody should have a credit card. There are impoverished communities all over Nova Scotia and everybody says that post-secondary education is the way out of poverty. I don’t 100 percent agree, but I mostly agree, and there’s some intersections along the way.

If you’re poor, then, there’s kind of no hope. And you know what, even if I were to go finish high school, you know, am I going to go to university? How am I going to get in? And that one incident with the credit card kind of highlights it: “Right, yeah, you’re right. You’re not getting in.”

Reflect

What systemic barriers do you notice in your institution?

What barriers do you have control over, as an educator or student services professional?

Systems of White Supremacy and White Privilege

The New York Times reports that the term “white supremacy” was used fewer than 75 times in 2010, but nearly 700 times in 2020 alone (as of the article’s printing on Oct 17, 2020). Originally, white supremacy was the belief that white people are superior to Black, Indigenous, and people of colour and should therefore dominate them. White supremacy brings to mind extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and Proud Boys.

Today, white supremacy is used to justify entrenched systemic, structural, environmental, and institutional racism and refers to a political and socio-economic system where white people enjoy structural advantages and rights that other racial and ethnic groups do not. Many white people are unaware that this system exists, which is one of its successes.

Peggy McIntosh’s influential article White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack discusses the everydayness of unearned entitlements and advantages. White privilege includes powerful incentives for maintaining this privilege and its consequences, and powerful negative consequences for trying to interrupt or reduce its consequences.

The racist and oppressive structures of white supremacy and the privileged people who uphold and benefit from them — intentionally or unintentionally — are responsible for:

ongoing, disproportionate levels of poverty for Black, Indigenous, and people of colour (BIPOC)

poorer health, lower levels of education, and fewer job opportunities for BIPOC than for their white peers

employment discrimination and lower earnings for BIPOC compared to their white peers

poor living and working conditions, less access to health care, and an increased likelihood of being the victim of police violence for BIPOC

We’ll talk more about tangible, everyday examples of these oppressive structures in the Calling Out Racism module.

While it is possible for any person to experience low income and reduced opportunities, individual and systemic racism play a significant role in creating disadvantages and barriers for BIPOC.

Understanding and accepting white privilege is not an academic exercise. Our responsibility is to internally and externally work to dismantle the system of white supremacy in all its forms.

What does systemic racism look like in Canada?

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CBC News Link: Five charts that show what systemic racism looks like in Canada

Reflect

Consider and complete the statements below

In my view, the most important message is…

I didn’t realize that…

For me systemic racism means…

White Supremacy and the Education System

Achievement gap and opportunity gap are two of the most widely used terms in the educational research and policy world. Achievement gap serves as shorthand for widespread and persistent disparities in educational outcomes (i.e., standardized test scores) between Black and Indigenous students and their Asian and white peers; opportunity gap refers to inequities in resources (and thus opportunities).

Questions about achievement and opportunity gaps have grown louder in recent years. Educators, researchers, parents, and students alike are challenging this narrative by implying that it is students of colour and their families who are failing in school, rather than schools and school systems failing students.

Typically, the goal of conversations about these gaps is educational equity for all.

Historical narratives that decentralize whiteness

Jean-Blaise Samou: The gap between what institutions say and what they do.

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Tereigh Ewert: Add and infuse historical narratives that decentralize whiteness.

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Reflect

How do the Dominant Higher Education Structures Support White Supremacy?

Activity

Choose the article that resonates most with you, then answer the reflection questions.

1. Being Black on campus: Why students, staff, and faculty say universities are failing them

Students, staff, and faculty at some of Canada’s largest universities say they have experienced anti-Black racism on campus, and that they were targeted if they spoke out about their treatment, an investigation by The Fifth Estate has found.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/anti-black-racism-campus-university-1.5924548

2. Written by students, this article explores how income inequality impacts educational attainment.

Despite Canada’s efforts to promote equal access to education, the experiences and outcomes of students differ greatly depending on their family incomes. The authors explore the educational opportunities of the top and bottom 10 per cent of students in the early childhood, primary, secondary, and postsecondary sectors. They illustrate how, in Canada, these groups are differentiated by much more than just income.

Inequality Explained: The hidden gaps in Canada’s education system

Reflect

What does this story highlight for you?

How do the dominant higher education structures support practices for the continuation of white supremacy?

Conclusion

Summary

The Systems of Inequity module built a foundation for your learning about social equity. You learned about some of the systems that shape daily life and life outcomes for people in Nova Scotia and Canada, including:

Social systems

Systems of power and oppression

Systems of white supremacy and white privilege

Education systems

Connecting personal and structural inequities

You also learned how these systems can create and perpetuate or uncreate and stop social inequities and oppression. You were invited to reflect on these systems in relation to your own experiences as an educator or student services professional.

Learn More

Colour of Poverty Fact Sheets

Anti-Black racism in schools: Still a long way to go

Me and White Supremacy, by Layla F. Saad

The Wheelchair Teen, Inspiration Porn vs. Actual Inspiring People (blog)

UN report slams Nova Scotia education system’s treatment of African Nova Scotians

References

“CARED Glossary.” Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre. (2020). Retrieved from www.aclrc.com/glossary

Dionardo Pizaña, Michigan State University Extension. (2017, Dec. 29). Retrieved from https://www.canr.msu.edu/people/dionardo-e-pizana

Our Impact: Curriculum. World Trust. (2021). Retrieved from https://www.world-trust.org/

Powell, M. (2020, October 17). ‘White supremacy’ once meant David Duke and the Klan. Now it refers to much more” New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/17/us/white-supremacy.html

“Racism and Power.” Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre. (2018, Dec. 18). Retrieved from www.aclrc.com/racism

Chapter 2

Personal Privilege and Bias

Learning Objectives

Articulate an expanded awareness of concepts and theoretical frameworks surrounding identity, power, and privilege, including intersectionality, bias, and microaggressions.

Reflect on how your own identities and experiences intersect with other identities, power, and privilege.

Connect how identity, power, and privilege relate to your role as an educator.

Introduction Video

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Throughout the module, we use this icon to suggest times to reflect on a concept, your professional practice, or yourself. We hope these questions help spark your thinking in new and creative directions.

Reflecting on Identity

Reflecting on our identities and acknowledging how they manifest in our education practice is ongoing work. Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your own identities and how they relate to this module.

Consider your own personal learning about the topic. Where do you fall on the following continuum?

In what ways does my social and geographical location influence my identity, knowledge, and accumulated wisdom? What knowledge am I missing?

What privileges and power do I hold? In what ways do I exercise my power and privilege?

Does my power and privilege show up in my work? If so, how?

Am I aware of if/how my biases and privileges might take up space and silence others?

It’s important to realize that you do not have to be an expert on these topics to actively engage in self-reflection and conversations with students. Being an equity-centred educator requires regular and repeated reflection on the Eurocentric assumptions, knowledges, and ways of being that guide our thoughts and actions.

Being aware of which knowledges, experiences, and ways of being in the world are privileged in your discipline, classroom, and institution are a critical first step to making education equitable. The next step is legitimate action to combat the impacts of oppression.

Anti-oppressive education and critical pedagogy

“[Critical pedagogy is] Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse.”

– Ira Shor, Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change

Brazilian educator and educational philosopher Paulo Freire developed the school of thought known as critical pedagogy. He believed that education was a revolutionary act capable of and responsible for bringing about a better and more equitable society.

Any society, institution, or system can be oppressive. This includes education systems and institutions. In Module 1, Systems of Inequity, we learned about systems of power and oppression, including white supremacy and white privilege. These systems create barriers in the form of policies, procedures, and practices that prevent individuals from having equitable access to education.

“Culture is a dynamic system of social values, cognitive codes, behavioral standards, worldviews, and beliefs used to give order and meaning into our own lives as well as the lives of others… Because teaching and learning are always mediated or shaped by cultural influence, they can never be culturally neutral.”

– Roxane Gay, 2018

Some examples of ways that education practices and spaces can be oppressive include:

Institutional leadership that lacks diversity

Eurocentric course content that does not represent the ways of knowing, experiences, and stories of Indigenous people, African Canadians, and people of colour

Physical spaces where accessibility is an add-on or afterthought, not a given. For example, having to ask a staff person for an elevator key to access upper floors in a building

Forms that only include “female” and “male” as gender options

Critical pedagogy is based on the idea that social justice and democracy are not separate from teaching, learning, and student support. The goal of critical pedagogy is to free our students and ourselves from oppression by growing an in-depth understanding of our world and how its social and political structures affect us, our students, and our professional practice.

In this context, it is the educator’s responsibility to help lead students to question oppressive beliefs and practices, including those at school, and encourage responses and actions that collectively and individually liberate them from the oppressive conditions of their lives.

“There’s no such thing as neutral education. Education either functions as an instrument to bring about conformity or freedom.”

– Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

In other words, one of your most important tasks is to create an environment and educational practice that is safer and more inclusive and invites your students to ask questions, respectfully challenge authority, and work to change their — and our — world for the better.

Thinking about difference

The students you encounter each day bring their lived experiences and identities with them.

All students identify with multiple identities and experiences. They may, for example:

identify as racialized, Indigenous, immigrant, 2SLGBTQ+, or as people with disabilities or who experience barriers to accessibility, such as those who identify as Deaf or neurodivergent

have experienced poverty or the child welfare system

be the first in their family to pursue post-secondary education, or come from a rural area and not have experience living in a city

As professionals, part of our role is to understand and acknowledge how these identities and experiences show up in the classroom and student services environment. Critical pedagogy helps us understand and accept this diversity and work to create an inclusive educational experience.

What I Wish My Professor Knew

To help you think more about your students’ lived experiences, watch What I Wish My Professor Knew (7:24) a video created by Stanford University’s student-run First-Generation and/or Low-Income Partnership (FLIP). This video is created to help Stanford faculty understand how their classroom practices and statements could make the difference between first-generation and/or low-income students feeling alienated or welcomed at university.

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Reflect

What do you think students at your institution would want you to know about their lives and what they need?

What statements from the video resonated with you or surprised you? Why?

How might the students’ perspectives on their learning experiences impact your own pedagogy and/or practice?

Unpacking Language: Key Terms

Words matter, and words can have multiple meanings

In this section, you’ll engage with several important words and ideas related to power, privilege, and bias. We will only skim the surface of these important, complex, and deep-seated issues.

The purpose of this section is to establish a shared understanding and vocabulary to build on in future modules. This work is essential but is also sometimes uncomfortable. This should not deter us from doing it.

As a staff or faculty member, recognizing and addressing the meanings of these words in your planning and reflection is important. The more clearly a term is articulated, the more likely you are to develop the knowledge and skills to use it. You will also feel more comfortable talking about and using these words in your teaching and interaction with students.

Write

Take a couple of minutes to jot down your understanding of the following key terms (don’t worry about getting it right or perfect; the idea is to respond quickly):

power

privilege

oppression

inclusion

diversity

equity

white supremacy

Review

Now, review the following definitions to see how your understanding of key terms aligns:

power: Control, authority, or influence over other people or events; the right to do something or act in a particular way.

privilege: A special advantage, right, or prerogative possessed by an individual or group. Privilege is often gained by birth or social position but can also be acquired through effort and accomplishment.

oppression: Cruel or unjust treatment or control, usually over a prolonged period of time. Oppression describes the feeling and experience of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically, by troubles, anxiety, and adverse conditions.

inclusion: Inclusion can refer to the policy or practice of providing equal access to opportunities and resources to people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized. Inclusion also requires us to challenge and dismantle systems of oppression, racism, and inequity to make a new and better space for everyone.

diversity: Variety. Diversity often refers to including or involving people from a range of different backgrounds, including gender, culture, racialized identity, sexual orientation, ability, socioeconomic status, etc.

equity: Fairness and impartiality. Equity is different from equality. Equality means everyone gets the same thing (treatment, resources, support, etc.); equity recognizes that people may need different things to ensure their opportunities are the same as others.

white supremacy: The belief that people who see themselves as white are superior to Black, Indigenous, and people of colour and should therefore dominate them. White supremacy perpetuates and maintains social, political, historical, and institutional domination by white people. For example, white supremacy justified the transatlantic slave trade and colonization around the world. Today, it is used to justify entrenched systemic, structural, and institutional racism. White supremacy also refers to the political and socio-economic systems that give white people structural advantages over racialized people — both collectively and individually.

Reflect

Which terms did you feel most confident defining? Which ones felt more difficult? Why do you think this is?

How has your understanding of these terms changed over time?

Situating Ourselves

Situating our identities

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Tereigh Ewert: Locating your own social identities and bringing them into the classroom

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The Personal Identity Wheel Activity:

Download and print the Personal and Social Identity Wheel developed by the American Association of University Women for its Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit.

The Personal Identity Wheel encourages us to reflect on how we identify specifically outside of social identifiers.

Fill out the worksheet by listing adjectives you would use to describe yourself, the skills you have, your favourite books and hobbies, and more.

The Social Identity Wheel Activity:

The Personal and Social Identity Wheel encourages us to reflect on the ways we identify socially, how those identities become visible or more keenly felt at different times, and how they affect the ways others perceive or treat us.

Fill out the worksheet by listing your social identities (e.g., religion, racialized identity, gender, sex, ability or ability, sexual orientation and so on) and further categorize those identities based on which matter most in your self-perception and which matter most in others’ perception of you.

Explore the complexity of identities

Using the Social and the Personal Identity Wheels encourages us to reflect on the relationships and dissonances between our personal and social identities.

Reflect

Consider the following as you reflect on the identity wheels you just completed.

Which of your identities…

Do you think of most often?

Are less apparent or even invisible in your day-to-day life?

Are most critical to your personal sense of yourself?

Most affect how others perceive you (positively or negatively)?

Have the most effect on how you perceive others?

Face the most marginalization — or give you the most advantage — in your community?

You may now be seeing that some aspects of our identities can’t be hidden, and some can’t be changed. This is especially important when considering which aspects of our identities are more valued in our communities and which aspects are more socially marginalized.

As people with many social identities, we may sometimes find ourselves members of dominant, more powerful groups, and sometimes members of groups that are more marginalized. These experiences of dominance and marginalization can also occur simultaneously.

Intersectionality

“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”

– Audre Lorde, 1984

Nik Basset: Intersecting identities, liberation, and justice

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Our identities are multiple and overlapping

You may have noticed in the previous section that our identities are not singular. Our identities are multiple and overlapping. They INTERSECT. This intersectionality can fundamentally alter how we experience social challenges and how we grasp our individual realities. All of this comes into play when we interact with, teach, and support students.

Understanding intersectionality

Understanding intersectionality is essential to understanding our students and each other. It is a distinct and crucial component of thoughtfully considering and supporting equity in the classroom and in student services.

Intersectionality lets us see each other as shaped by the interaction of our multiple identities, including but not limited to racialized identity/ethnicity, Indigeneity, gender, gender identity, class, sexuality, geography, age, ability, migration status, and religion.

These interactions happen within interconnected systems and structures of power: Laws, policies, education, governments, institutions, and people and organizations with social and economic power interact to create interdependent forms of privilege and oppression.

What is Intersectionality About?

Intersectionality is not simply about adding up or listing identities. It’s about how the world we live in — its policies, its institutions, its structures — has different impacts on us, in part depending on our identities.

Kimberlé Crenshaw is an African American lawyer, civil rights advocate, philosopher, and a leading scholar of critical race theory who developed the theory of intersectionality. In this keynote address on intersectionality delivered at the 2016 World of Women Festival (30:46), she explains:

“[Intersectionality] is about how structures make certain identities the consequence of and the vehicle for vulnerability. So, if you want to know how many intersections matter, you’ve got to look at the context. What’s happening? What kind of discrimination is going on? What are the policies? What are the institutional structures that play a role in contributing to the exclusion of some people and not others?”

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Complexity of identity

Learn more about the complexity of identity in this article by Pamela E. Barnett: Unpacking Teachers’ Invisible Knapsacks: Social Identity and Privilege in Higher Education. The article highlights how some aspects of identity, such as gender and age, carry both specific social privileges and liabilities that come into play in higher education.

Reflect

Intersections of identity in your own life

Consider the intersections of identity in your own life

Which, if any, of your personal and social identities give you advantages or privileges in life, at school, at work, or in your community?

Which, if any, of your personal or social identities give you privilege in some contexts but come up against barriers in others?

In what ways do your own social identity groups intersect?

Framework for Understanding Privilege and Identity

Privilege and identity are complicated, and they interact in complex ways.

New Forms of Transformative Education: Pedagogy for the Privileged, by Dr. Ann Curry-Stevens at University of British Columbia (UBC), includes a sample framework to understand and create greater awareness about our own identities and how they position us in relation to others and to our work. The article identifies actionable steps to build a transformative tool kit to engage privileged learners and support their transformation into allies in the struggle for social justice.

This framework is adapted from Dr. Curry-Stevens’ work and has 10 steps that involve both confidence-shaking and confidence-building.

Reflect

Consider the 10 stages identified in the framework

At which stage are you in this confidence shaking/confidence building framework?

Why do you think you’re at that stage?

Where would you like to be and how would you like to get there?

How do you see yourself working with colleagues to support each other in becoming better allies for students with identities that have been marginalized?

Implicit Bias

Implicit bias, also sometimes called unconscious bias, refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that unconsciously affect our understanding, actions, and decisions. These biases include assumptions about other people that affect:

our expectations of them

our assessment of their work or behaviour

our judgments about their characteristics as individuals or as a group

Everyone has implicit biases. It can be very difficult to see our own implicit biases, or even admit that we have them. We form themthroughout our lives as we are exposed to direct and indirect messages from our families, communities, and the media.

Not everyone has the same implicit biases, and it is possible to change our implicit biases over time by intentionally practicing more mindful decision-making; thinking carefully about our own attitudes and reactions; and participating in training like this. Implicit biases can also be challenged and changed through more accurate and inclusive representation of underrepresented or marginalized groups in the media, in public institutions, and in positions of power and influence.

Aboriginal Issues In The Classroom

What I Learned in Class Today: Aboriginal Issues in the Classroom (20:41) a video about everyday biases experienced by Indigenous people in educational settings.

A few key characteristics of implicit bias

Implicit biases are attitudes or stereotypes that affect our perceptions, impressions, and actions

Implicit biases are pervasive — this means they are widespread, persistent, and inescapable. They are often the result of dominant norms and structures in society that lead us to understand the world and other people in particular ways. Everyone holds implicit biases, even people obligated to impartiality, like judges

Implicit and explicit biases are related but distinct. They are not mutually exclusive and may even reinforce each other.

Our implicit biases do not necessarily align with our declared public beliefs. We might hold an unconscious bias even when our intention is to be inclusive and promote equity. Implicit biases can be positive (a preference for something or someone) or negative (an aversion to or fear of something or someone).

We tend to hold implicit biases that favour our own in-group, though research has shown that we can also hold implicit biases against our in-group.

Our stories matter. Our personal and professional lives are made up of many overlapping stories — not a single story.

Implicit biases are involuntary

They affect us without our awareness, often because of single stories we’ve heard about certain people or places, or because of stereotypes or assumptions we’ve inherited from our backgrounds or upbringing.

Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie uses the idea of the single story to describe the simplistic and often false perceptions we form about individuals, groups, or countries. This single story creates and maintains stereotypes. Adichie says the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. To learn more, listen to her TED Talk (18:33).

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Actions or reactions driven by implicit biases don’t take into account the many parts of identity that interact and intersect within a single individual.

How can we actively and intentionally listen and learn — and unlearn — the stereotypes we have internalized, and add multiple stories to the single story we might hold about an individual or group?

Through reflection, it’s possible to question even implicit biases and bring richer, multiple voices and stories to your professional practice and everyday life.

What does my headscarf mean to you?

What does my headscarf mean to you? (13:53) Speaker Yassmin Abdel-Magied challenges us to look beyond our initial perceptions and to open doors to new ways of supporting others.

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Reflect

On Implicit Bias

Where did your implicit bias come up during the video?

What happened or was said in the video to trigger it?

Where do you think this bias came from?

More About Implicit Bias

Implicit bias is a complex concept used in different ways in different fields. It is also subject to many critiques. To go deeper and learn more about some of these critiques, read The world is relying on a flawed psychological test to fight racism, by Oliva Goldhill.

Implicit biases can be changed and challenged. You can form strategies to help you cultivate new ways of approaching your own biases.

Deepen Your Understanding of Implicit Bias

To deepen your understanding of bias, we invite you to either read an article or listen to a podcast and appreciate the complex stories of people’s lived experiences.

Read

I fight anti-Black, anti-Indigenous racism with academic excellence, an article by award-winning researcher Jordan Gray about his experiences as a student who is both Mi’kmaq and Black.

Listen

Jennifer L. Eberhardt:How racial bias works – and how to disrupt it podcast from TED Talk Daily.

Reflect

Take a moment to reflect on how single stories operate and how stories matter by considering these questions:

What’s an example of how a “single story” operates in your personal life?

What’s an example of how a “single story” operates or has operated in your professional practice?

What strategies will you use to challenge single stories in your professional practice?

Consider the following areas:

your syllabus and course resources

student engagement

forms of assessment

classroom arrangement and course policies

images or examples used when lecturing or explaining concepts

the physical spaces where students meet with you

how you counsel and support students: techniques, tools, and approach the group activities you lead

Activity

Researchers at Harvard University have developed over a dozen tests for measuring implicit bias related to racialized identity, sexuality, ability, religion, and other forms of prejudice as part of Project Implicit. Visit the project’s Take a Test site and take the Race IAT. (You may also choose to take other tests).

After you view your results, reflect on the test itself, your experience taking the test, and your interpretation of the results. Consider how colonization impacts all of us.

NOTE:This project has faced intense scrutiny and not everyone agrees that it is useful or safe. If you choose to take the test, you may feel upset or surprised by the results. It’s a good idea to plan a debrief with a trusted friend or colleague.

Microaggressions have a big impact

Microaggressions target people or groups through hostile, derogatory, or negative messages based on their group membership. These subtle everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental insults, slights, snubs, or demeaning messages can be based on any aspect of a person’s identity who has been marginalized: socio-economic status, ability, sex, gender, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, racialized identity, ethnicity, nationality, or religion.

Microaggressions are often part of a pattern of behaviour, and the cumulative effects of these small attacks can be devastating. However, microaggression is a contested term.

“I do not use “microaggression” anymore. I detest the post-racial platform that supported its sudden popularity. I detest its component parts—“micro” and “aggression.” A persistent daily low hum of racist abuse is not minor. I use the term “abuse” because aggression is not as exacting a term. Abuse accurately describes the action and its effects on people: distress, anger, worry, depression, anxiety, pain, fatigue, and suicide.”

― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

Perpetrators of these subtle forms of abuse are often unaware of the impact of their words or actions and may feel defensive about them. They may even consider themselves to have good intentions.

Stories by African Nova Scotians

Stories by African Nova Scotians about personal experiences of microaggressions on the Working While Black website. Working While Black is a project that publishes anonymous stories of anti-Black racism in the workplace in Nova Scotia.

Anyone in a school community — faculty, students, or staff — can be a perpetrator OR a target of microaggressions. There are many different kinds of microaggressions.

Nik Basset: Microaggressions and queering the curriculum (3:02)

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Common Microaggressions

Microaggressions Behaviours and Actions

Microaggressions also include the following behaviours and actions:

Expressing personal or political opinions assuming that the targets of those opinions are not present

Singling students out in class because of their backgrounds, or expecting students of a particular group to represent the perspectives of others who share their identity

Denying the experiences of students by questioning the credibility and validity of their stories

Assigning projects or creating school procedures that are heterosexist, sexist, racist, or promote other oppressions, even inadvertently

Using sexist language

Using heteronormative metaphors or examples in class

Assuming the gender of any student

Continuing to misuse pronouns even after a student, transgender or not, indicates their preferred gender pronoun

You might be wondering what the big deal is about an unintentional microaggression.

An individual microaggression may not be deeply damaging to the person experiencing it, but microaggressions have a devastating cumulative effect on people’s social, emotional, and even physical well-being over time.

Activity Microaggressions:

Choose one post from the blog Microaggressions.com

Write down the role that both a single-story approach and intersecting identities played in creating the situation the writer is describing

Think about what it would feel like to experience microaggressions on a regular basis: monthly, weekly, even daily. What effect would it have on you? How would you cope?

Consider sharing this activity with a colleague and discussing your thoughts about two or three different posts.

The relationship between implicit bias, microaggressions, and stereotypes

It’s probably becoming clear to you that implicit bias, microaggressions, and stereotypes are closely related. Exposure to stereotypes and other misinformation over time leads to implicit biases, which can then lead us to commit microaggressions against people with identities that have been marginalized.

This diagram from Project READY: Reimagining Equity & Access for Diverse Youth, a free online professional development curriculum developed in North Carolina, shows how these three concepts interact.

Reflect

Consider the role of microaggressions in your own life

Describe any microaggressions you’ve experienced at work or at school. What effect did they have on you? On how you were treated by others?

If you have not experienced microaggressions, why do you think that is?

Can you think of any examples of times you witnessed or committed a microaggression without realizing it? What could have happened differently?

Power and Privilege in Educational Institutions

This module on power, privilege, and bias has introduced some important and challenging concepts and terms. The following modules will build on what you’ve learned and reflected on here. We encourage you to keep listening, reading, learning, and thinking about how our identities influence our interactions with others in complex and layered ways.

We all choose whether or not to share parts of our identity with different people, depending on our circumstances and how safe we feel; parts of our identity may remain hidden in our day-to-day lives, and the same is true for our students’ identities. This impacts our approach to teaching and supporting students. How we deal with identities is also central to whether or not students can succeed in our educational institutions.

Jean-Blaise Samou: The foundations of the education system and psychological segregation of people of colour.

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Reflect

Identities, Power, and Privileges in Educational Institutions

Think about the different situations where you interact with students. This could be courses you teach, programs you lead, or supports you provide.

Which identities do you present to students (especially when you first meet them)?

Are these identities generally visible or do you make them visible?

Are these identities socially valued or more marginalized?

Now think about your students

Are certain identities and voices made more visible/invisible in your space or classroom?

What are you communicating about the value of certain identities in your space or classroom?

What examples do you see of oppression or exclusion in your daily work? What about equity and inclusion?

Let’s connect these questions to the concepts you’ve engaged with so far:

How would you describe the connection between identity, power, and privilege? How do your identities reflect your power and privilege? Or not?

In light of your answers, how have you navigated your own power and/or privilege in your professional practice?

What changes might you make going forward?

Reflecting on Systems

Now that you have completed this module, we invite you to continue your learning by exploring the themes of decolonization, thinking more concretely about inclusive practices, learning about Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and/or considering courageous conversations in your interactions with students.

Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your institution as a system and how it relates to this module. Think about the written and unwritten rules, policies, procedures, practices, and traditions that define your institution.

Reflect

Reflect on and write a few lines answering these questions:

Who is welcomed and can fully participate?

Who may be excluded, discriminated against, or denied full participation?

Whose norms, values, and perspectives does the institution consider to be normal or legitimate? Whose does it silence, marginalize, or delegitimize?

Who inhabits positions of power within the institution?

Whose experiences, norms, values, and perspectives influence an institution’s laws, policies, and systems of evaluation?

Whose interests does the institution protect?

Systems of Inequity

Thank you for taking the time to reflect on your own institution in relation to this module. Being aware of the policies, procedures, practices, and traditions and how they intentionally or unintentionally privilege some groups over others is a critical first step to making education equitable. The next step is real action to combat the impacts of oppression.

Conclusion

Summary

This module built a foundation for your learning about social equity and introduced you to some complex ideas about identity, power, and privilege — and how those ideas intersect with your role and responsibility as an educator or student services professional.

This module unpacked implicit biases, stereotypes, and microaggressions, and how they come together to affect equity in education. As you learn, it’s important to further reflect on where you can find opportunities to disrupt oppressive practices.

Learn More

Watch:

Facing Race Halifax (2:35:13) This CBC town hall about racism in Nova Scotia was recorded in 2018. This recording is long but it contains a great deal of local context that is critical to developing a deeper understanding of racism in Nova Scotia, particularly Halifax.

Implicit Bias, Lifelong Impact (Kirwan Institute)(5:40)

Do:

The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity has partnered with MTV to create a series of three seven-day bias cleanses (3:15) designed to help individuals identify and begin dismantling some of their own associations related to racialized identity, gender, and sexuality. Over the course of one week, complete the race bias cleanse. After you enter your email, you will receive a series of seven daily emails from the project, each containing a brief exercise, tool, or thought starter.

This blog post lists activities you can do as a student services/affairs professional to get students talking about identities.

Listen:

After a 2018 incident in Philadelphia where two Black men were arrested at Starbucks, the coffee company decided to close all 8,000 of its stores for an afternoon to provide implicit bias training for its staff. Listen to the NPR All Things Considered segment, in which Perception Institute director Alexis McGill Johnson explains how racial biases might be lessened over time with intentional effort.

Read:

Understand more about the origins of critical pedagogy by visiting the Paulo Freire website.

On being an ally and being called out on your privilege

References

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. (2009). (video). TEDGlobal. The danger of a single story.

Barnett, P. E. (2013).Unpacking Teachers’ Invisible Knapsacks: Social Identity and Privilege in Higher Education. Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, Yale University. (2016). Creating inclusive college classrooms.

Curry-Stevens, A. (2007). New forms of transformative education: Pedagogy for the privileged. Journal of Transformative Education, 5(1), 33-58.

https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344607299394

Giroux, H. A. (1989). Schooling as a form of cultural politics: Toward a pedagogy of and for difference. In H. A. Giroux & P. L. McLaren (Eds.), Critical pedagogy, the state, and cultural struggle (pp. 125 –151). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Intergroup Relations Center, University of Arizona. (n.d.). Voices of discovery: Social identity wheel. In AAUW Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit. Retrieved from https://aauw-pa.aauw.net/files/2012/02/DI-Toolkit-nsa.pdf

Lorde, A. (1984/2007). Learning from the 60s. In Sister outsider: Essays and speeches by Audre Lorde (pp. 134-144). Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press. Quotation taken from p. 138.

McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. In Multiculturalism (pp.30 –36). New York: New York State Council of Educational Associations. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 355 141).

Sanneh, K. All the caffeine in the world doesn’t make you woke [podcast]. This American life.

Tatum, B. D. (2000). The complexity of identity: Who am I? In M. Adams, W. J. Blumenfeld, R. Castaneda, H. W. Hackman, M. L. Peters, & X. Zuniga (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice: An anthology on racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, heterosexism, ablism, and classism (pp. 5–9). New York: Routledge.

Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. (2019). Inclusive teaching strategies.

Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. (2019). Awareness of Implicit Biases | Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning .

Chapter 3

Equity-Seeking Groups

Learning Objectives

Articulate an expanded awareness of equity-seeking groups in Nova Scotia.

Connect how students from equity-seeking groups in Nova Scotia experience daily life with how they experience barriers in post-secondary education.

Explore your roles and responsibilities as they relate to Nova Scotia legislation as well as equity policy and procedures at your post-secondary institution.

Introduction Video

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Throughout the module, we use this icon to suggest times to reflect on a concept, your professional practice, or yourself. We hope these questions help spark your thinking in new and creative directions.

Reflecting on Identity

Reflecting on our identities and acknowledging how they manifest in our education practice is ongoing work. Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your own identities and how they relate to this module.

Consider your own personal learning about the topic. Where do you fall on the following continuum?

In what ways does my social and geographical location influence my identity, knowledge, and accumulated wisdom? What knowledge am I missing?

What privileges and power do I hold? In what ways do I exercise my power and privilege?

Does my power and privilege show up in my work? If so, how?

Am I aware of if/how my biases and privileges might take up space and silence others?

It’s important to realize that you do not have to be an expert on these topics to actively engage in self-reflection and conversations with students. Being an equity-centred educator requires regular and repeated reflection on the Eurocentric assumptions, knowledges, and ways of being that guide our thoughts and actions.

Being aware of which knowledges, experiences, and ways of being in the world are privileged in your discipline, classroom, and institution are a critical first step to making education equitable. The next step is legitimate action to combat the impacts of oppression.

Unpacking Language: Key Terms

In this section, you’ll engage with several important words and ideas related to power, privilege, and bias. We will only skim the surface of these important, complex, and deep-seated issues.

The purpose of this section is to establish a shared understanding and vocabulary to build on in future modules. This work is essential but is also sometimes uncomfortable. This should not deter us from doing it.

As a staff or faculty member, recognizing and addressing the meanings of these words in your planning and reflection is important. The more clearly a term is articulated, the more likely you are to develop the knowledge and skills to use it. You will also feel more comfortable talking about and using these words in your teaching and interaction with students.

Write

Take a couple of minutes to jot down your understanding of the following key terms (don’t worry about getting it right or perfect; the idea is to respond quickly):

intersectionality

equity-seeking groups

resilience

decolonization

Review

Now, review the following definitions to see how your understanding of key terms aligns:

intersectionality: Is a way of thinking about and understanding how we and our students are shaped and affected when our multiple identities interact and intersect within systems. It allows us to see people, groups, and social problems in the context of multiple discriminations and disadvantages.

equity-seeking groups: Are groups of people that experience oppression and exclusion from society, the economy, and education based on social, physical, cultural, religious, or personal characteristics. The terminology for equity-seeking groups is constantly evolving. You might also see equity-seeking groups referenced as equity groups, equity-deserving groups, or equity-denied groups.

resilience: Means using personal and collective strengths to protect ourselves and our communities in the face of great stressors and/or oppression and build a better future. It is the capacity of individuals and communities to build and recover their strength, spirit, and emotional well-being. Resistance — active and passive acts that fight back against oppression — is an important part of resilience.

decolonization: Is active resistance against colonial powers, and a shifting of power towards political, economic, educational, and cultural independence and power that originate from a colonized nation’s own Indigenous culture. This process occurs politically and also applies to personal, societal, cultural, political, agricultural, and educational deconstruction of colonial oppression.

Reflect

Which terms did you feel most confident defining? Which ones felt more difficult? Why do you think this is?

How has your understanding of these terms changed over time?

Intersectionality

Intersectionality is an important part of any discussion about equity-seeking groups. You already learned about intersectionality in Module 2: Personal Privilege and Bias. Using an intersectional approach to teaching and student support is critical to establishing equity in the classroom and in student services.

The concept of intersectionality was articulated by Kimberlé Crenshaw, an American lawyer, civil rights advocate, philosopher, and a leading scholar of critical race theory.

Intersectionality integrates our overlapping personal and social identities and experiences so we can understand the complexity and interconnectedness of the barriers and prejudices we might face — as well as the advantages and privileges we might enjoy.

Elements of our identities that might intersect

A People’s Journey

#APeoplesJourney: African American Women and the Struggle for Equality (2:58) produced by the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, explains intersectionality.

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Reflect

After watching the video…

What, if any, intersections of privilege do you stand in?

How have these intersections affected your life?

What is Intersectionality About?

Intersectionality is not simply about adding up or listing identities. It’s about how the world we live in — its policies, its institutions, its structures — has different impacts on us depending on our identities.

Intersectionality also encourages us to leverage our privilege in the spaces and places where we are, in order to lift up others who do not have power, access, and respect in those places and spaces.

Throughout this module, we invite you to consider how being a member of more than one equity-seeking group might affect a student’s life and educational experience. We’ll also offer readings, video clips, and other engagements to help you understand the complexities of identity.

Black LGBTQ activists bring Pride back to its protest roots

Black LGBTQ activists bring Pride back to its protest roots (4:18)

As protests against police brutality and anti-Black racism spill into Pride month, Black LGBTQ+ activists are drawing attention to the lives and voices often left out of the picture with the phrase “All Black Lives Matter”.

//www.cbc.ca/i/caffeine/syndicate/?mediaId=1756909635977

Read

Finding Space for Halifax’s LGBTQ2S+ Disabled Community

Finding Space for Halifax’s LGBTQ2S+ Disabled Community: Halifax’s Popular Queer-Centred Bar is Not as Inclusive as it May Seem

Equity-Seeking Groups in Nova Scotia

The equity-seeking groups described in this section are by no means an exhaustive list of people who are underrepresented, equity-seeking, equity-deserving, or equity groups in Nova Scotia. In addition to people who are Indigenous, African Nova Scotian, racialized, immigrant and newcomer, international, gender- and sexuality-diverse, women, as well as persons with disabilities or who experience barriers to accessibility we might also consider people who belong to certain religious groups, former youth in care, persons who are incarcerated, and women in underrepresented occupations.

Resilience means using personal and collective strengths to protect ourselves and our communities in the face of great stressors and/or oppression and build a better future. Despite living with the effects of intergenerational and historical trauma, members of equity-seeking groups have demonstrated enormous resilience in the face of prejudice, discrimination, and historical and present-day injustice. It’s crucial to recognize, celebrate, and build on this resilience in our professional practice.

As you learn about equity-seeking groups, remember that cultures are complex and changing all the time. They are not static. This applies to cultures as we traditionally think of them, including African Nova Scotian and Indigenous cultures, as well as cultures that have evolved around other shared experiences like being 2SLGBTQ+ or being a person with a disability or who experiences barriers to accessibility, such as those who identify as Deaf or neurodivergent.

Bradley Sheppard: Equity and supports lead to equality for all students

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Indigenous students

Mi’kma’ki People

Mi’kma’ki refers to the traditional and current territories of the Miꞌkmaw people and encompasses Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, as well as parts of New Brunswick, Québec, and Maine. Mi’kmaw people have been in Nova Scotia for more than 13,000 years! Mi’kmaw people have been segregated or centralized into 13 Mi’kmaw communities with more than 16,000 Mi’kmaw people throughout Nova Scotia.

Mi’kmaw communities in Nova Scotia

Interactive Map

An interactive or media element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=192 Mi’Kmaki Students’ Challenges

Roger Lewis, Mi’kmaq Cultural Heritage Curator at the Nova Scotia Museum, talks about the difference between contact and colonization (6:10) in Nova Scotia.

Danika Berghamer: How professors’ attempts to censor a presentation oppressed an Indigenous BEd student

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More Than 13000 Years of Mi’Kmaw History

Blue = generations since European contact

Yellow = current generations

Image courtesy of the Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre.

Resistance and Resilience

Mi’kmaw people have lived through many challenges and traumas. The Mi’kmaq, and Indigenous people as a whole, have demonstrated immense personal and cultural resilience and resistance in the face of generations of colonization, violation of treaty rights, and the social and cultural ravages of the residential school system in Canada.

Read

Livelihood or profit? Why an old fight over Indigenous fishing rights is heating up again in Nova Scotia

Peace and Friendship Treaties

On the East Coast, Peace and Friendship Treaties were signed with the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy prior to 1779. Treaties are solemn agreements that set out long-standing promises, mutual obligations, and benefits for both parties. The British Crown first began entering into treaties to end hostilities and encourage cooperation between the British and First Nations. As the British and French competed for control of North America, treaties were also strategic alliances which could make the difference between success and failure for European powers.

Treaty Education Nova Scotia

Treaty Education Nova Scotia Video (13:03) about who the Mi’kmaq are, why treaties are important, what happened to the treaty relationship, and how to reconcile moving forward.

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Treaty Rights in Canadian Constitution

Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution recognizes and affirms existing Indigenous and treaty rights, including the Peace and Friendship Treaties. This means that since 1982, treaty rights are protected by Canada’s Constitution. Unlike later treaties signed in other parts of Canada, the Peace and Friendship Treaties did not involve First Nations surrendering rights to the lands and resources they had traditionally used and occupied.

Adapted fromGovernment of Canada: Peace and Friendship Treaties.

Reflect

Consider the Peace and Friendship Treaties

What is your personal relationship to the Treaties — as a settler descendant, Indigenous person, or other social and cultural identity?

How do dominant higher education structures support practices for the continuation of white supremacy as it relates to Indigenous people in Nova Scotia?

African Nova Scotian Students

Canada’s history of enslavement, racial segregation, displacement, and marginalization of African Canadians has left a legacy of systemic anti-Black racism in Nova Scotia.

African Nova Scotians identify in a number of different ways and come from many backgrounds. Some are descended from generations of formerly enslaved African Black Loyalists and their family and community roots in the province go back more than 400 years. Others might descend from more recent Black immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean or be newcomers from the global Black diaspora.

Black Migration in Nova Scotia

To learn about the peoples of African descent who settled in Nova Scotia from the 1780s to the 1920s view the timeline of Black Migration to Nova Scotia.

People who move here from the continent of Africa, the Caribbean, or other parts of the African diaspora have a different lived experience than historical/Indigenous African Nova Scotians born to those who were placed here or came here under duress.

African Nova Scotians/Indigenous Blacks are part of the global diaspora of distinct African-descended peoples who were enslaved and forcibly removed from their homelands on the African continent. African Nova Scotians are descended from generations of African Nova-Scotian Loyalists, Black Refugees, Black Planters, Domestic Workers and Jamaican Maroons.

As a distinct people, African Nova Scotians have collective rights tied to over 52 land-based communities in the part of the unceded territory of Mi’kma’ki known as the province of Nova Scotia. The distinctiveness of African Nova Scotians as a people has been recognized by the United Nations.

Our N.S.: Change for African Nova Scotians

Our N.S.: Change for African Nova Scotians (3:23). This video, from the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, offers a synopsis of some of the challenges still facing Black Nova Scotians today.

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What systemic anti-Black racism looks like in Nova Scotia

Street Checks

A street check is a practice where police stop a person in public, question them, and record their personal information in a police database. Prof. Scot Wortley, doctor of criminology at the University of Toronto, presented his independent report on the issue of police street checks in Nova Scotia in March 2020. “The research clearly demonstrates that police street check practices have had a disproportionate and negative impact on the African Nova Scotian community,” said Prof. Wortley. “Street checks have contributed to the criminalization of Black youth, eroded trust in law enforcement and undermined the perceived legitimacy of the entire criminal justice system.”

To learn more, access the full Street Checks Report and video (2:30:05).

Activity: Systemic Anti-Black Racism in Nova Scotia

Choose one of the following articles and complete the following sentences

In my view, the most important message is…

I didn’t realize that…

For me systemic racism means…

Gentrification

‘Call it what it is — white ignorance’: Gentrification frays the social fabric in Halifax’s North End (vignettes 2:55)

Environmental Racism

Nova Scotia group maps environmental racism

Criminal Justice System

N.S. premier apologizes for systemic racism in justice system (vignettes 4:06)

Resistance and Resilience of African Nova Scotians

There is a strong sense of interconnected community and culture amongst African Nova Scotians. This includes values, traditions, and ways of life passed on from previous generations and how each new generation interprets and adapts these to their own lives and communities.

Community and cultural values and traditions are fluid and change over time. They exist within a specific historical and contemporary context of systemic racism, resistance, and survival. Family, extended family, church, spirituality, and community support are all important parts of African Nova Scotian culture and support individual and community resiliency.

While African Nova Scotians have experienced centuries of racism and injustice, they have also been resistant in the face of injustice and never gave up their cultural pride, which builds the resilience to confront subtle, systemic, and ongoing racism.

Students with disabilities and who face accessibility barriers

Nova Scotia has a higher percentage of citizens with disabilities than any other province in Canada.

View more visual statistics, Nova Scotia Accessibility Directorate.

What does the word disability refer to?

The word disability is very broad. It can refer to:

Physical disability

Cognitive disability

Sensory disability such as hearing or visual

Mental health-related disability

Learning disability

Intellectual disability

Neurological diversity such as autism spectrum disorder or ADHD

There are different ways of looking at disability and barriers to accessibility. The social model of disability says disability is caused by the way society, supports, and the built environment are set up. The medical model of disability says people are disabled by their impairments or differences. It focuses on what’s wrong with the person, not what barriers the person faces.

Ableism is discrimination or social prejudice against people with disabilities or who experience barriers to accessibility, such as those who identify as Deaf or neurodivergent, based on the belief that typical abilities are superior. Disclosing a disability can be stigmatizing. Disability, like other kinds of difference, is not well understood. People with disabilities or who experience barriers to accessibility face constant, daily barriers to participation in education, recreation, and employment.

Not everyone who experiences accessibility barriers identifies as disabled. This might include Deaf students or students who are neurodivergent (e.g., students with autism or ADHD). Ensuring that the built environment, learning materials, and educational approaches are designed for universal access benefits everyone.

Barriers for people with Disabilities

People with disabilities experience many different barriers

Attitudinal

Organizational or systemic

Physical

In how information, communications, and technology systems are designed

Emily Duffett: Barriers faced by students with accessibility needs

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What is the social model of disability?

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Social Model Animation

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Visible and Invisible Disabilities

Disabilities can be visible or invisible. A visible disability is one you can see. For example, a person with a visible disability might use crutches, have a service dog, or wear a hearing aid. An invisible disability, sometimes called hiddendisability, is not immediately obvious. Some examples include depression, learning disabilities, bipolar disorder, chronic illness, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Some disabilities, like autism or a brain injury, might be invisible at first and become more obvious as you interact with someone. People with invisible disabilities still face barriers.

Accessibility and Accommodations

Accessibility means intentionally designing our world to include everyone, regardless of ability. It’s also a way to remove physical, attitudinal, systemic, and technological barriers for people with disabilities.

An accommodation is when an arrangement or adaptation is made so people with all abilities can fully participate — in work, school, social situations, and life.

Disability is vastly diverse and each person experiences their disability differently. In addition to ensuring accessibility in our professional practice, we must provide accommodations to individual students to remove specific barriers. Accommodations need to be flexible and responsive to meet the needs of students with disabilities or who experience barriers to accessibility. Accommodations do not provide an unfair advantage — they improve the playing field.

Quick Facts

According to the 2012 Canadian Survey on Disability:

Bullying: More than 25 percent of persons with disabilities report being bullied at school because of their disability

Exclusion: 35 percent of persons with disabilities in Canada report being avoided or excluded at school because of their disability

Taking fewer courses: 37 percent of persons with disabilities in Canada report taking fewer courses because of their disability. This means it takes longer — and costs more — to complete a program

Early School Leavers: Across Canada, 16.1 percent of youth with disabilities aged 15 to 24 left school because of their impairment

Sources:

For persons with disabilities in Canada, education is not always an open door. (Read the full report: Left Out: Challenges faced by persons with disabilities in Canada’s schools)

Disable the Label: Improving Post-Secondary Policy, Practice and Academic Culture for Students with Disabilities

Resistance and Resilience of People with Disabilities

Disability advocates have been fighting for equity in work, education, recreation, and economic participation in Nova Scotia for decades. Despite significant progress in inclusion and accessibility, many stark inequities still exist. Disability can also intersect with many other social identities to create significant barriers and challenges.

Activity Disabilities and Accessibility

Choose one of the following articles and complete the following sentences

In my view, the most important message is…

I didn’t realize that…

For me, ableism means…

Accessible washrooms in restaurants and other public places

Disability activists say province too slow to act on tribunal order

Fighting for service animal rights on public transit

Man with guide dog denied access to Halifax Transit bus

Mental illness and Black identity

North Preston, NS, filmmaker Tyler Simmonds talks about his first film In My Mind, about what it means to live with mental illness as a Black man. Read more here: Filmmaker wins award to explore racism, mental health in North Preston.

2SLGBTQ+ Students

Your students and colleagues have a range of sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions. You might even witness changes in someone’s gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation over time.

2SLGBTQ+ means two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and more.

Quick Facts

Just over 1 in 10 (11 percent) sexual minority Canadians reported that they had been physically or sexually assaulted within the past 12 months in 2018—almost three times higher than the proportion of heterosexual Canadians (4 percent).

Since the age of 15, sexual minority Canadians (59 percent) were also much more likely than heterosexual Canadians (37 percent) to have been physically or sexually assaulted by someone who was not an intimate partner.

Transgender Canadians were more likely than non-transgender (cisgender) Canadians to report experiencing violent victimization since the age of 15. They were also more likely to report experiencing inappropriate sexual behaviours in all settings covered by the survey—in public, online and at work—than their non-transgender peers.

Source: Sexual minority people almost three times more likely to experience violent victimization than heterosexual people — Statistics Canada

Human Gender and Sexuality

Sexuality and gender diversity are complex concepts. Preferred language and terminology, as well as prevailing attitudes, about gender identity and sexuality have evolved rapidly in Canada over the past few decades and continue to evolve today.

Illustration by Bea Van Leeuwen

Sexuality describes a person’s identity in relation to the gender or genders to which they are sexually attracted. Sexuality is sometimes called sexual orientation. A person’s sexuality has nothing to do with that person’s gender or gender expression.

Gender refers to the social and cultural characteristics, rather than the biological ones, typically ascribed to men and boys and girls and women. Gender describes socially constructed characteristics. Sex and gender are separate and independent. You can’t tell a person’s gender by looking at them.

Sexual orientation describes to whom a person is sexually attracted. Some people are attracted to people of a particular gender; others are attracted to people of more than one gender. Some are not attracted to anyone.

Gender identity and expression describes the ways a person identifies and/or expresses their gender, including self-image, appearance, and embodiment of gender roles. Sex (male, female, intersex, etc.) is usually assigned at birth based on physical biology. Gender (male, female, genderqueer, etc.) is our internal sense of self and identity. Gender expression (masculine, feminine, androgynous, etc.) is how we embody our gender attributes, presentations, roles, and more.

A person’s sex, sexuality, gender, gender identity, or gender expression might change over the course of their lifetime.

Resistance and Resilience of 2SLGBTQ+ Nova Scotians

The rights of 2SLGBTQ+ Nova Scotians are hard-won. Gay liberation groups in the province have fought for equality for decades, initiating the first nationally coordinated gay and lesbian day of action in 1977, and spearheading a campaign to include sexual orientation in the Human Rights Act.

Our understanding of gender and sexuality is constantly growing. It can feel confusing or overwhelming to keep pace with that understanding, especially if you don’t have family or friends who can help you through sharing their personal experiences.

The most important thing you can do for 2SLGBTQ+ students and colleagues is to be open. Listen to and work to understand their perspectives, honour their experiences, and learn about what will create an inclusive, responsive, and accessible learning and working environment for them. This includes being willing to be corrected.

Reflect

Sex, sexuality, gender, gender identity, and gender expression are complex and evolving topics

What, if any, misconceptions about gender and sexuality did you grow up with or have you been exposed to? How did you learn more and correct these misconceptions?

How can you learn more, on your own, without turning to a 2SLBGTQ+ colleague or friend?

Immigrant and international students

Nova Scotia is home to people from all over the world.

Some come here as immigrants. This group includes economic immigrants, refugees, and people who are reuniting with family members. Immigration from other countries is a big contributor to population growth in Nova Scotia. The province received 2,124 immigrants during the second quarter of 2019, the highest level for any quarter for data that begins in 1946.

Source:Government of Nova Scotia Finance and Treasury Board

Others come as international students, many of whom decide to stay in Canada. More than 9,000 international students from over 140 countries attend Nova Scotia’s universities, colleges, secondary schools, and language schools, meaning nearly 10 percent of students on Nova Scotia campuses are from outside Canada.

Read

Record number of international students staying in N.S. after studies

You likely encounter many new Canadians and international students in your daily practice, as well as first- and second-generation immigrants who were born here but whose parents or grandparents immigrated to Canada. Many newcomers face language and social barriers and often experience discrimination.

Acknowledging, responding to, celebrating, and amplifying what these diverse students bring to the classroom and the institution is critical to offering an equitable education.

Racialized students

“During my childhood, in the protective and inclusive domicile of my family, I had no race. My parents taught me the words to describe our heritage and identity. Stepping out of the house, society named me and changed that name as it felt fit.”

– Dreeni Greer, Director of Human Rights and Equity, Lakehead University

Racialization refers to the processes by which a group of people is defined by their race. Put very simply, racializing people categorizes them according to their perceived race, and imposes racial character on that group as a whole. This racial meaning is then attributed to people’s identity as they relate to social structures and institutional systems, including housing, employment, and education.

These stereotypes, biases, and prejudices are socially constructed and have no scientific or biological basis. Typically, a subordinate or oppressed group is racialized by a dominant group in order to preserve the interests of that group.

Some of the students you encounter daily have been racialized since the day they were born, including Black Nova Scotians and other people of colour who were born or grew up here. Other students might never have experienced racialization before they arrived in Nova Scotia. For them, the experience of being racialized — perceived and treated as other or outside the norm because they are not white — might be new, shocking, and traumatic.

I didn’t know I was Black until I moved to Canada

In societies where white people hold economic, political, and social power — like ours — racialization is both created and maintained by social structures and systems based on race. Historically, these systems include institutions like slavery and social and economic segregation based on skin colour. Today, processes of racialization are evident in the racial inequalities embedded within social structures and systems.

This blog post by Dreeni Greer on the Ontario Library Association’s Open Shelf website describes a personal experience of being racialized in Canada. Racialized is the new Black, and Brown, and…

Students perceived to be not white are racialized. This racialization is imposed upon them by the dominant culture, and by the systems they interact with — it may or may not reflect how they see themselves.

Reflect

Which terms did you feel most confident defining? Which ones felt more difficult? Why do you think this is?

How has your understanding of these terms changed over time?

Women students

While this module focuses primarily on students who experience racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and ableism, sexism is also a significant intersectional factor facing women in higher education and in the workforce.

In 2019-20, 26,538 (57 percent) students enrolled in higher education in Nova Scotia identified as female, and 19,623 (43 percent) as male. Despite women making up a higher percentage of the student population, women are still more likely to face discrimination based on their gender and choice of discipline. Women are grossly underrepresented in mathematics, computer, and information sciences in Nova Scotia, with almost three times the number of male students pursuing these disciplines as female students. The same is true for architecture, engineering, and related technologies.

In 2019, one in ten (11 percent) women students reported experiencing a sexual assault in a post-secondary setting during the previous year. Almost 75 percent of post-secondary students witnessed or experienced unwanted sexualized behaviours in the past year. The proportion of women who had both witnessed and experienced this type of behaviour was five times greater than that of men (27 percent versus 6 percent).

Higher education, like all parts of Canadian society, must grapple with systemic gender discrimination.

Sources

Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission

Enrolment by Province, Major Field of Study and Gender

Students’ experiences of unwanted sexualized behaviours and sexual assault at postsecondary schools in the Canadian provinces, 2019

Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, 2021

Read

63% report experiencing sexual harassment on campus, Ontario survey shows

Reflect

Consider how women students whose identities intersect with other equity-seeking groups might experience multiple oppressions

How might being a woman make the experience of being a Black student in your area of discipline more — or less — challenging? What about being an Indigenous, racialized, international, or immigrant student, or a student who experiences barriers to accessibility?

What have you personally observed or experienced about the intersection of being part of an equity-seeking group and being a woman?

Equity Legislation and Frameworks in Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia Human Rights Act

The Nova Scotia Human Rights Act prohibits actions that discriminate against people based on a protected characteristic in combination with a prohibited area.

Protected characteristics:

Age

Race

Colour

Religion

Creed

Ethnic, national, or aboriginal origin

Sex (including pregnancy and pay equity)

Sexual orientation

Physical disability

Mental disability

Family status

Marital status

Source of income

Harassment (and sexual harassment)

Irrational fear of contracting an illness or disease

Association with protected groups or individuals

Political belief, affiliation, or activity

Gender identity

Gender expression

Retaliation

In addition to protection from discrimination, the Act also prohibits harassment based on any of these characteristics and prohibits sexual harassment in all areas of public life.

Prohibited areas:

Employment

Housing or accommodation

Services and facilities (such as stores, restaurants, or provincially funded programs)

Purchase or sale of property

Volunteer public service

Publication, broadcasting, or advertisement

Membership in a professional, business or trade association, or employers’ or employees’ organization

Accessibility Legislation in Nova Scotia

In 2017, Nova Scotia passed the Act Respecting Accessibility in Nova Scotia. The aim of the Accessibility Act is to make Nova Scotia inclusive and barrier-free by 2030.

As of April 1, 2020, Nova Scotia universities and the Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) became public sector bodies under the Accessibility Act. This means they must create multi-year accessibility plans, establish accessibility advisory committees, and comply with accessibility standards.

The Nova Scotia government is working with people with disabilities, as well as public and private sector organizations, to create six standards for an accessible Nova Scotia. The accessibility standards will apply to:

goods and services

information and communication

transportation

employment

education

built environment

These standards are in development, with the first standard development areas being education and the built environment. Compliance with the standards is mandatory and the Act contains fines of up to $250,000 for the most serious cases of non-compliance.

Access by Design 2030: Achieving an Accessible Nova Scotia is the provincial government’s strategy to achieve its goal of an accessible Nova Scotia by 2030. It was developed in consultation with persons with disabilities and their families, service provider organizations, the Accessibility Advisory Board, and representatives from the non-profit, education, health, municipal, and business sectors.

Post-Secondary Accessibility Framework

Nova Scotia’s Post-Secondary Accessibility Framework was collaboratively developed by university and NSCC representatives, faculty, staff, and students, with a focus on first-voice. It was endorsed in June 2020 by the Council of Nova Scotia University Presidents. The purpose of the Framework is to establish a shared vision and commitments for accessibility in Nova Scotia’s post-secondary sector, and to inform the development of institutional multi-year accessibility plans.

The Framework’s vision is for “Nova Scotia post-secondary education institutions [to] provide full and equitable access to education, employment, and services within a collaboratively-developed and values-based commitment to accessibility that prioritizes institutional accountability within a human rights framework.”

The Framework outlines commitments for accessibility in post-secondary education including:

Awareness and capacity building

Teaching, learning, and research

Information and communication

Goods and services

Employment

Transportation

Built environment

Implementation, monitoring, and evaluation

Reflect

Connect legislation and social movements to equity seeking policy and procedures at your post-secondary institution

In what ways has your institution been responsive to this legislation?

What are three examples of action that you can take in your professional practice to align with the legislation?

Reflecting on Systems

Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your institution as a system and how it relates to this module. Think about the written and unwritten rules, policies, procedures, practices, and traditions that define your institution.

Reflect

Reflect on and write a few lines answering these questions:

Who is welcomed and can fully participate?

Who may be excluded, discriminated against, or denied full participation?

Whose norms, values, and perspectives does the institution consider to be normal or legitimate? Whose does it silence, marginalize, or delegitimize?

Who inhabits positions of power within the institution?

Whose experiences, norms, values, and perspectives influence an institution’s laws, policies, and systems of evaluation?

Whose interests does the institution protect?

Systems of Inequity

Thank you for taking the time to reflect on your own institution in relation to this module. Being aware of the policies, procedures, practices, and traditions and how they intentionally or unintentionally privilege some groups over others is a critical first step to making education equitable. The next step is real action to combat the impacts of oppression.

Conclusion

Summary

This module introduced you to some of the equity-seeking groups in Nova Scotia, including:

Indigenous people

African Nova Scotians

Racialized people

People with disabilities and those who experience barriers to accessibility

2SLGBTQ+ people

Immigrants and international students

Women

Learning about equity-seeking groups in Nova Scotia is key to developing equity-centred practices that ensure every student has equitable access to education, an equal opportunity to learn and develop, and feels like they belong.

The students you encounter face many systemic inequities and multiple forms of discrimination. Some of these challenges may be obvious to you, and some may not.

Understanding your students’ lived experiences as members of equity-seeking groups is a first step in responding to their individual needs as learners.

Learn More

Watch

Facing Race Halifax (2:35:13). This CBC town hall about racism in Nova Scotia was recorded in 2018. This recording is long but contains a great deal of local context that is critical to developing a deeper understanding of racism in Nova Scotia, particularly Halifax. Mi’kmaq Culture and Resilience (30:00). Six videos sharing examples of Mi’kmaw culture A series of four 4 minute videos that are done in a light-humored kind of way to break attitudinal barriers for people with disabilities (17:47)

Assistive Technology (AT) in the Workplace, Job Accommodation Network, a presentation guide on how to use AT in the workplace, which relates to the classroom as well (20:44)

Read

I was paralyzed 6 years ago and now I struggle with suicide — but not for the reason you think. Scott Jones was attacked outside a New Glasgow, N.S., bar in 2013, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. The musician and music teacher founded the Don’t Be Afraid campaign shortly afterward to encourage others to speak out against homophobia.

Before the Parade: A History of Halifax’s Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Communities, 1972-1984, by Rebecca Rose https://nimbus.ca/store/before-the-parade.html

POST TRAUMATIC SLAVE SYNDROME — Dr. Joy DeGruy

Shaping a Community: Black Refugees in Nova Scotia | Pier 21 – by Lindsay Van Dyk, Junior Researcher (Updated November 19, 2020)

The story of Africville | CMHR (humanrights.ca) – by Matthew McRae

Who Lives Next Door to Your Waste? (nspirg.ca) – by Mark Butler and Chantal Gagnon

Navigating 2 identities: Being black and gay in Nova Scotia – Information Morning, CBC

A chronological history of Boat Harbour, Nova Scotia – by Michael Trombetta and

Practical Guides for Accessibility:

Guide to Planning Accessible Meetings and Events, Nova Scotia Accessibility Directorate, Department of Justice

Accessibility at CNIB, including a synopsis of clear print guidelines

Clear Print Accessibility Guidelines (cnib.ca)

Queen’s University, Creating Accessible Word Documents Using Word (Win/Mac)

Queen’s University, Creating Accessible PowerPoint Presentations (Win/Mac)

Assistive Technology (AT) in the Workplace, Job Accommodation Network (20:44)

References

Burczycka, Marta. “Students’ experiences of unwanted sexualized behaviours and sexual assault at postsecondary schools in the Canadian provinces, 2019.” Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 14 Sept. 2020, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2020001/article/00005-eng.htm

Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission

“Enrolment.” Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission retrieved from

http://www.mphec.ca/media/198375/Table11_Enrolment_2019-2020.pdf

Government of Nova Scotia Finance and Treasury BoardNova Scotia Department of Finance – Statistics, 30 Sept. 2019, www.novascotia.ca/finance/statistics/news.asp?id=15179.

Morris, Stuart, et al. Government of Canada. Statistics Canada: A demographic, employment and income profile of Canadians with disabilities aged 15 years and over, 2017

Chapter 4

Calling Out Racism: Anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism

Learning Objectives

Articulate an expanded awareness and understanding of concepts including racial discrimination, anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism, colonization, and decolonization.

Reflect on how your identity, power, and privilege as an educator or student support professional positions you to call out or call in racial discrimination.

Relate the lasting impacts of colonialism and systemic racism to the lived experiences of students.

Introduction Video

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Throughout the module, we use this icon to suggest times to reflect on a concept, your professional practice, or yourself. We hope these questions help spark your thinking in new and creative directions.

Race on Campus

From Race on Campus (2:22) mid-article.

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Reflecting on Identity

Reflecting on our identities and acknowledging how they manifest in our education practice is ongoing work. Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your own identities and how they relate to this module.

Consider your own personal learning about the topic. Where do you fall on the following continuum?

In what ways does my social and geographical location influence my identity, knowledge, and accumulated wisdom? What knowledge am I missing?

What privileges and power do I hold? In what ways do I exercise my power and privilege?

Does my power and privilege show up in my work? If so, how?

Am I aware of if/how my biases and privileges might take up space and silence others?

It’s important to realize that you do not have to be an expert on these topics to actively engage in self-reflection and conversations with students. Being an equity-centred educator requires regular and repeated reflection on the Eurocentric assumptions, knowledges, and ways of being that guide our thoughts and actions.

Being aware of which knowledges, experiences, and ways of being in the world are privileged in your discipline, classroom, and institution are a critical first step to making education equitable. The next step is legitimate action to combat the impacts of oppression.

Unpacking Language: Key Terms

Words matter, and words can have multiple meanings.

In this section, you’ll engage with several important words and ideas related to power, privilege, and bias. We will only skim the surface of these important, complex, and deep-seated issues.

The purpose of this section is to establish a shared understanding and vocabulary to build on in future modules. This work is essential but is also sometimes uncomfortable. This should not deter us from doing it.

As a staff or faculty member, recognizing and addressing the meanings of these words in your planning and reflection is important. The more clearly a term is articulated, the more likely you are to develop the knowledge and skills to use it. You will also feel more comfortable talking about and using these words in your teaching and interaction with students.

Write

Take a couple of minutes to jot down your understanding of the following key terms (don’t worry about getting it right or perfect; the idea is to respond quickly):

race

racism

racialization

systemic racism

colonization

decolonization

white supremacy

Review

race: It might come as a surprise that racial categorization schemes were invented by scientists to support the view that some groups of people are superior, and some are inferior. Three important concepts link to this fact:

Race is a social construct, and not an actual biological fact

Race designations have changed over time. Some groups considered white in Canada today were considered non-white in previous eras (for example, Irish, Italian, and Jewish people)

The way racial categorizations are enforced (the shape of racism) has changed over time.

racism: Racism stems from the belief, either conscious or unconscious, that one race is better than another (or than all others). This belief can result in acts of racism, such as racial discrimination at work, school, or in a health care setting. Although racism can happen between individuals, it also takes place on a systemic and institutional level. Racism is systemic, structural, institutional, intentional, and a layered approach to dehumanize people.

racialization: Racialization describes the processes by which a group of people is defined by their race. Put very simply, racializing people categorizes them according to their perceived race and imposes racial character on that group as a whole. This racial meaning is then attributed to people’s identity as they relate to social structures and institutional systems, including housing, health care, employment, and education. These stereotypes, biases, and prejudices are socially constructed and have no scientific or biological basis. Typically, a subordinate or oppressed group is racialized by a dominant group to preserve the interests of that group.

systemic racism: Racism that consists of policies and practices, entrenched in established institutions, that result in the exclusion or advancement of specific groups of people. It manifests itself in two ways: (1) institutional racism: racial discrimination that derives from individuals carrying out the dictates of others who are prejudiced or of a prejudiced society; (2) structural racism: inequalities rooted in the system-wide operation of a society that excludes substantial numbers of members of particular groups from significant participation in major social institutions.

white supremacy: white supremacy is the racist belief that white people are superior to those of all other races and should therefore dominate them. White supremacy perpetuates and maintains social, political, historical, and institutional domination by white people. Historically, white supremacy justified the Transatlantic Slave Trade and colonization.

Today, white supremacy is used to justify entrenched systemic and institutional racism. Like racism in general, white people may not realize or acknowledge that they participate in and benefit from white supremacy.

Reflect

Which terms did you feel most confident defining? Which ones felt more difficult? Why do you think this is?

How has your understanding of these terms changed over time?

This brief video from Vox to review the historical evolution of the term “race”. The myth of race, debunked in 3 minutes.

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Reflect

In my view, the most important message is…

I didn’t realize that…

For me, race means…

Racism at Every Level of Society

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Racism Lives Here Too

Watch

This 2-part series, APTN Investigates, Racism Lives Here Too.

‘All my ancestors are survivors’: Racism and the relationship between Black andMi’kmaw Peoples in Nova Scotia

‘Nova Scotia is the deep south of Canada’: A Look at racism from people who live it

Treaty Education Nova Scotia Video

This Treaty Education Nova Scotia Video describes who are the Mi’kmaq, why are treaties important, what happened to the treaty relationship and how to reconcile moving forward.

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Canada. it’s time for Land Back

The Breach is an independent media outlet in Canada that produces critical journalism to help map a just, viable future. Lawyer and professor Pam Palmater argues that symbolic gestures won’t amount to justice.

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CBC: Study looks at prevalence of racism in Canada (Nova Scotia focus)

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Reflect

What is your biggest takeaway from these videos?

What surprised you?

What does the phrase “We are all treaty people” mean to you?

Anti-Black and Anti-Indigenous Racism in Nova Scotia

How do we know that systemic racism is real and rampant in Nova Scotia?

Introduction

Systemic racism is a corrosive and widespread problem in our society. In recent years, many incidents and practices across the province demonstrate this, including violence against Indigenous people asserting their treaty rights; racist slurs used on a popular transit app; and police street checks that target Black people six times more often than white people in Halifax. These are only a few examples of racism in Nova Scotia.

We all need to do a better job of confronting it — in our work, in our neighborhoods, and in ourselves. As faculty and staff, we need to confront racism in our work with students, to build equity and belonging for everyone.

This section gives more concrete examples of the impacts of systemic racism.

1. Education

Residential school system

One of the most notorious forms of racism at the institutional level was the residential school system, which represented the attempted assimilation of Indigenous children.

In 1880, the first residential school was established in Canada, located off-reserve, funded by the federal government, and run predominantly by Catholic and Anglican churches. Until the 1950s, First Nations (and some Inuit and Métis) children between the ages of five and 16 were forced to attend these schools — many miles and for many months or years — away from their families and cultural traditions. Parents did not approve of the aggressive assimilation practices undertaken by school administrators but had no recourse or authority to remove their children from these institutions.

In May 2021, the news broke that preliminary findings from a survey of the grounds at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School uncovered the remains of 215 children buried at the site.

Read

About the residential school system in Canada

This Memorial Map from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation represents the location of residential schools, and the home communities of the students who never returned home from school.

Listen

Dennis Saddleman: performing his poem, Monster, about the residential school he was forced to attend as a child

African Nova Scotian learners

The opportunity gap between African Nova Scotian learners and white learners continues to expand, and along with it the opportunity gap. Unlike their white counterparts, many African Nova Scotian learners do not have access to the same resources because a large proportion of African Nova Scotian parents continue to endure poverty and low incomes, and systemic racism.

Equally, a long history of racism and poverty robbed many African Nova Scotian parents and grandparents of access to formal education. In the early 19th century, the provincial governments of Ontario and Nova Scotia created legally segregated common schools, also known as public schools. Amendments in 1884 stipulated that Black children could not be excluded from attending schools where they lived; racial segregation continued in some areas with high concentrations of Black residents, such as Halifax. The original provisions of racial segregation in education remained law in Nova Scotia until 1950. The legacy of systemic racism shows up in subsequent generations.

The education system in Nova Scotia continues to fail African Nova Scotian learners. The BLAC Report on Education, written in 1994, made many recommendations to redress inequities in the education system. To date, some of those recommendations have not been implemented.

There is very little in the system that reflects African Nova Scotian history, perseverance, accomplishments, contributions, culture, or resilience. Hundreds of African Nova Scotian learners have been stereotyped as unruly and learning-capacity impaired, often streamed into non-academic programs unsuitable for college and university prep and Individual Program Plans (IPPs). African Nova Scotian learners are also suspended from school at higher rates than other students.

2. Employment

First Nations and African Nova Scotians as general population groups have traditionally been economically disadvantaged in Canada and have faced systemic difficulties connecting to labour markets. Some of the barriers to successful labour market attachment include systemic, structural, and institutional racism and discriminatory hiring practices.

The unemployment rate among Nova Scotia’s Black population is 16.2 percent, much higher than unemployment among whites, which sits at 9.8 percent (2016 Stats Canada).

It’s not a matter of Black Nova Scotians giving up. Statistics Canada data tell us that slightly more African Nova Scotians are actively trying to find a job than whites. These numbers point at the ongoing and systemic racism in Nova Scotia that stops African Nova Scotians from finding good jobs and working their way out of poverty.

Read this series of stories to shine a light on systemic racism in Canada. This series includes a story about George Swaniker, an NSCC faculty member and his experience finding employment in NS.

Read this story about Nova Scotia’s Mi’kmaw communities trying to carry out their right to a moderate livelihood fishery. They faced violence from Nova Scotians and the police. Learn more about Mi’kmaw Fishing Rights.

3. Poverty

Census data from 2016, recently released by Statistics Canada, showed poverty to be more rampant in Nova Scotia than any other province, with 17.2 percent of the provincial population considered low income. As shocking as this number is, it pales in comparison to the poverty rate of 32.1 percent among African Nova Scotians, who face poverty rates of twice the number experienced by whites.

For African Nova Scotian youth 18 to 24, the poverty rate is a whopping 50.2 percent. And 39.6 percent of African Nova Scotian children up to 17-years old live in poverty.

The 2020 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Nova Scotia shows Eskasoni, Nova Scotia’s largest Mi’kmaw community, as having a 73.8 percent child poverty rate, which is the highest in the province.

4. Environmental Racism

Environmental racism is a form of systemic racism whereby communities of colour are disproportionately burdened with health hazards through policies and practices that force them to live in proximity to sources of toxic waste such as sewage works, mines, landfills, power stations, major roads and emitters of airborne particulate matter. As a result, these communities suffer greater rates of health problems.

Environmental devastation is most often felt by people who have been marginalized; in Canada, that means Indigenous, Blacks, and other people of colour. The pattern has, and continues, to repeat itself. It is environmental racism. It’s blatant and systemic.

One of the most egregious cases in the country is on the Pictou Landing First Nation in Nova Scotia. Here, a pulp and paper mill dumped toxic effluent directly into Boat Harbour, on the reserve, for over 50 years. It’s been devastating for the community. The Northern Pulp mill in Boat Harbour, NS, had to shut down in January 2020, amid concerns about pollution and environmental racism after decades of effluent treatment.

Another example is Lincolnville, a Black community within the Town of Shelburne, NS, where residents are worried about contamination from a nearby landfill. They want authorities to investigate their health-related fears and to provide access to town water.

5. Police Violence

Both Indigenous and Black people are overwhelmingly overrepresented in police-involved deaths in Canada. Between 2007 and 2017, Indigenous peoples represented 1/3 of people shot to death by RCMP police officers (Mercer, Fiddler, & Walsh, 2020). The Ontario Human Rights Commission found that a Black person was more than 20 times more likely to be shot and killed by the police compared to a white person (Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2018).

Listen

A look at anti-black racism in Canada (9:59) CBC News Network’s Carole MacNeil speaks to Robyn Maynard, author of Policing Black Lives: State violence in Canada from slavery to the present, about anti-Black racism in Canada.

6. Surveillance: Street Checks

Street checks are also known as carding. They have allowed police officers to document information about a person they believe could be of interest to a future investigation, and record details such as their ethnicity, gender, age, and location. Black people are six times more likely than white people in Halifax to be carded. In October 2019, after many years of community activism, it was announced that the practice of street checks is now banned. Although this is a positive step, there is still lots of work to be done in addressing systemic racism within law enforcement.

7. Criminal Justice: Disproportionate Incarceration Rates

There are few Canadian statistics on issues affecting Black people. It was only in 2014 that a report was issued about the conditions Black inmates endure while in federal correctional facilities. Black people are now the fastest-growing group of incarcerated people in Canada, and rates of incarceration for Black women are increasing steeply.

The disproportionate incarceration of African Nova Scotians and Indigenous people in this province is clear: In 2016, African Nova Scotians made up 2 percent of the general population in Nova Scotia but 16 percent of incarcerated youth and 14 percent of incarcerated adults (Statistics Canada); Indigenous people made up 5.7 percent of the general population but 12 percent of incarcerated youth and 7 percent of incarcerated adults.

Indigenous offenders are more likely to receive jail sentences if convicted of a crime and are currently the most over-represented group in the Canadian criminal justice system.

8. Health Care

Racism within Canada’s health care system

Racism within Canada’s health care system is a significant contributor to lower health outcomes for Black, Indigenous, Métis, and Inuit people. Structural racism exists in policies and practices throughout the Canadian health care system that are expressed through longer wait times, denial of access to services and resources, fewer referrals, and disrespectful treatment.

Joyce Echaquan’s death

Joyce Echaquan’s death (2:02) and the abuse she faced in her last moments have put a focus on systemic racism. Her life could have been saved but wasn’t.

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Deaths in Mi’kmaw communities in Nova Scotia

In Nova Scotia, 80 percent of all deaths in Mi’kmaw communities are premature (versus 38 percent in the general population), and 60 percent of deaths are avoidable with prevention or treatment.

Anti-black racism in health care system

How anti-Black racism affects the health of Nova Scotians of African descent

Access to health care can be a challenge for Nova Scotians of African descent.

Introduction to Decolonization

One of the core goals of this curriculum is unsettling our ways of thinking, just as a primary aim of teaching and learning is to challenge ourselves to embrace different frames of reference and ways of knowing. This section is a short introduction to this complex and ongoing journey.

In teaching and learning, to engage in decolonization is to engage in effective practice that:

Disrupts traditional dichotomous thinking which keeps us entrenched in us/them, white/other, oppressed/oppressor binaries

Makes us aware of how we hear and interpret each other’s narratives

Is mindful of whose voices are and continue to be privileged

Makes connections between the global and the local

Reflect

When you hear the word decolonization, what words, phrases, and ideas come to mind?

How do you define decolonization within your practice?

Defining Terms

Colonization can be defined as some form of invasion, dispossession, and subjugation of a people. The invasion need not be military; it can begin, or continue, as geographical intrusion in the form of agricultural, urban, or industrial encroachments. The result is the dispossession of vast lands from the original inhabitants and is often legalized after the fact. The long-term result of such massive dispossession is institutionalized inequity. The colonizer/colonized relationship is, by nature, an unequal one that benefits the colonizer at the expense of the colonized.

Ongoing and legacy colonialism impact power relations in most of the world today. For example, white supremacy as an ideology was developed largely to justify European colonial exploitation of the Global South (including enslaving African peoples, extracting resources from much of Asia and Latin America, and protecting and propagating cultural norms of whiteness as desirable both in colonizing and colonizer nations).

Adapted from: Emma LaRocque, PhD, “Colonization and Racism,” (Aboriginal Perspectives). Also see Racism and Colonialism, edited by Robert Ross (1982), and Andrea Smith, “Indigeneity, Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy” (Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century, 2012).

Decolonization may be defined as active resistance against colonial powers, and a shifting of power towards political, economic, educational, and cultural independence and power that originate from a colonized nation’s own Indigenous culture. This process occurs politically and applies to personal, societal and cultural, political, agricultural, and educational deconstruction of colonial oppression

Decolonization doesn’t have a synonym; it is not a substitute for human rights or social justice, though undoubtedly, they are connected in various ways

Decolonization demands an Indigenous framework and a centring of Indigenous land, Indigenous sovereignty, and Indigenous ways of thinking. (Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang)

Decolonization is a goal, but it is not an endpoint. The struggle for decolonization is a journey that is never finished, and, on this journey, uncertainty is not to be feared

Decolonization Learning Journey

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Call to Action

Review the TRC Calls to Action

and/or

The Spirit Bear’s Guide to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Calls to Action

Choose three Calls to Action that either relate to your discipline or that you can create links and interdisciplinary connections.

Reflect

What are two practical examples of how you would enact your chosen Calls to Action in your life and professional practice?

Read

Two-Eyed Seeing – Elder Albert Marshall’s guiding principle for inter-cultural collaboration [PDF] offers a comprehensive view of the two-eyed seeing approach to understanding Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledges.

Reflect

After you have read Elder Albert Marshall’s guiding principle, reflect on the ways in which this approach appreciates Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives and sees them as necessary for personal advancement and development.

Aboriginal Worldviews and Perspectives in the Classroom: Moving Forward

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Reflect

Although it was created for the K–12 system, think about what you can learn from this video about the need for Indigenization for all students.

Student Perspectives on Decolonization

In this video, you will hear from students at Queen’s University on the topic of decolonization. Take note of their diverse understandings of decolonization and how important it is to their learning.

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What Does Indigenizing the Curriculum Mean?

This is an interview with Jo-ann Archibald, professor and the director of Native Indian Teacher Education Program (NITEP) at the Department of Educational Studies (EDST), as well as the associate dean for Indigenous Education at the Faculty of Education at UBC. She talks about what ‘Indigenizing the curriculum’ means and how it can be practiced.

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Reflect

What perspectives in the videos most resonated with you? Why?

What elements from the videos do you see in your own practice?

What new ideas have the videos and your reflection on them sparked?

Read

Pete, Schneider, and O’Reilly’s (2013) article “Decolonizing Our Practice, Indigenizing Our Teaching [PDF]” for a deeper exploration of what these terms entail from the perspective of three female (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) academics.

Reflect

Use the subheadings in their article to document your own position and perception of these topics, constructs, and issues as they relate to your institution, your students, and your colleagues.

If possible, engage one or two colleagues in a conversation similar to the authors’ conversation.

The journey to Indigenize your practice fosters self-development. Whether you are an Indigenous or non-Indigenous person, this journey challenges your insights into your own culture and background, privileges, or oppressions that have affected your life. You will question the pervasive dominance of Western ways of knowing, pedagogies, and practices, and make space for including Indigenous ways of being that can benefit all learners.

If you want to learn more, this comprehensive curriculum is a great resource https://opentextbc.ca/indigenizationcurriculumdevelopers/

Calling Out Racial Discrimination

In light of the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis and the global Black Lives Matter movement, universities and colleges everywhere have been quick to put out anti-racist statements; some have promised to recontextualize their historical links to slavery and colonization. In some places, statues have been removed and lecture theatres renamed.

But that is the easy bit. The real question is whether post secondary institutions are effective in combating the racism on their campuses. Do students feel comfortable reporting racism? What actually happens when you report racism to senior management? And how effective are the systems in place?

“Antiracist education is good for everyone… It is good for the teacher, it is good for the learner, it is good for the administrator, it is good for the policy maker, because how we come to understand our world is powerfully connected to how we make sense of our existence in society”.

Dr. George S. Dei

Anti-Racism: Education Theory and Practice (1996)

In this section, you’ll learn about how your identity, power, and privilege as an educator or student support professional, positions you to call out racial discrimination. In this curriculum, we’ve already covered some important ideas about personal and social identities and how they position us in relation to our students, our professional practice, and our institutions.

What does it mean to “call out” racism?

Your approach to calling out racism will depend on how you are positioned and how personally safe you feel in any given situation. Remember that you are not obligated to speak up or take action if you feel unsafe, threatened, or at risk of harm. You can also seek support from others to speak up and report. What resources are available at your institution? Is there an anti-racism policy? Is there an equity office?

Sometimes, especially if you are one of only a few racialized people in your workplace or classroom, non-racialized people may turn to you for guidance. Although the intention might be positive, this approach can place most if not all responsibility for change on the backs of people who are already dealing with discrimination, microaggressions, and institutional racism. If you identify as a member of a racialized or oppressed group, it is not your responsibility to educate your colleagues or be their barometer for acceptable discourse of behaviour. How much you choose to participate in educating your colleagues is up to you.

The first step in preparing to talk about and call out racial discrimination when you see it, hear it, or experience it, is to learn about the history and lived experiences of racialized communities in Nova Scotia and Canada.

What does it mean to “call in” racism?

While call outs can be important ways to speak truth to power and call racist people to account, call-out culture is also criticized. Call outs can be performative and a way to signal virtue that is more interested in self-aggrandisement than in achieving real change, especially on social media.

The concept of calling in seeks to refocus challenges to racism by talking to the person privately and aiming for change, rather than shame.

How do you do it? Actively decide if you will call out or call-in racism.

Calling out is useful when you need to let someone know when their behaviour is unacceptable, or when it must be interrupted to avoid causing more harm. This is also a signal to the wider community.

Calling in is useful if you want to engage someone in a deeper discussion, understanding and reflection. It involves listening as well as feedback in a two-way conversation.

This worksheet includes different statements you might use if you choose to call out someone, or call in someone.

Here are a few other ideas to get you started thinking about creating change at the institutional and personal levels.

Creating Change on an Institutional Level

Review Organizational Culture

Review policies, practices, and decision-making for systemic racial discrimination

Review organizational culture such as patterns of communication, interpersonal relations, and social networks

Collect and analyze numerical data to identify areas of systemic discrimination

Building Reconciliation Forum, UVic

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Create an Anti-Racism Strategy

An anti-racism strategy is a common approach that acknowledges and pro-actively seeks to address and prevent racism and racial discrimination.

A strategy could include:

An anti-racism/discrimination vision statement and policy

Monitoring and data collection

Identifying and implementing strategies

Creating Change on Personal Level

Recognize your own privileges

Listen more than you speak

Educate yourself constantly (especially about historical and ongoing colonization and cultural genocide)

Question and resist stereotypes (Refer to Module 9- Navigating Difficult Conversations)

Learn about the history and current day realities of African Nova Scotians

Tour the Black Cultural Centre, Africville Museum, and Birchtown Museum

Participate in a Stop the Violence Walk

Experience the Nova Scotia Mass Choir

Educate yourself on the Restorative Inquiry (Home for Coloured Children)

Visit an historic Black community

Attend a church service

Visit Pier 21

Learn about the history and current day realities of Mi’kmaw people

Read and promote the TRC Calls to Action

Experience a Mi’kmaw Powwow

Visit Millbrook Cultural and Heritage Centre

Learn about treaties

Invite first voice speakers to your spaces and value their time

Explore and evaluate anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism resources and strategies for your practice.

Take the University of Alberta’s Indigenous Canada course

Reflecting on Systems

Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your institution as a system and how it relates to this module. Think about the written and unwritten rules, policies, procedures, practices, and traditions that define your institution. Reflect on and write a few lines answering these questions:

Who is welcomed and can fully participate?

Who may be excluded, discriminated against, or denied full participation?

Whose norms, values, and perspectives does the institution consider to be normal or legitimate? Whose does it silence, marginalize, or delegitimize?

Who inhabits positions of power within the institution?

Whose experiences, norms, values, and perspectives influence an institution’s laws, policies, and systems of evaluation?

Whose interests does the institution protect?

Systems of Inequity

Thank you for taking the time to reflect on your own institution in relation to this module. Being aware of the policies, procedures, practices, and traditions and how they intentionally or unintentionally privilege some groups over others is a critical first step to making education equitable. (Link to Systems of Inequity). The next step is real action to combat the impacts of oppression.

Conclusion

Summary

To work effectively toward racial equity across systems and organizations, we need to build a firm foundation. In this module, we developed a shared understanding of concepts central to racial equity work.

You learned about:

Anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism

Colonization and decolonization

How your identity, power, and privilege as an educator positions you to call out, or call in, racial discrimination

How the lasting impacts of colonialism and systemic racism connect to the lived experiences of students

Learn More

Watch:

Brooklyn Neustaeter: In their words: Canadians’ experiences of racism (1:18:27)

A’se’k – The Other Room (Boat Harbour) (18:48)

Megan Ming Francis:Let’s get to the root of racial injustice TEDX (19:37)

Baratunde Thurston: How to Deconstruct Racism, One Headline at a Time, TED (16:50)

The Little Black School House (rental, $3.99)

Read:

https://www.csc-ns.ca/decolonization-resources/ – Additional Resources to Support Your Decolonization Learning Journey, Community Sector Council of Nova Scotia,

The Stories We Tell: Land Acknowledgements & Indigenous Sovereignty

Scaffolded anti-racism resources

Concordia University’s Anti-Racist Video Pedagogy Project

Aboriginal Social Work Education in Canada: Decolonizing Pedagogy for the Seventh Generation (Links to an external site.) by Dr. Raven Sinclair

For definitions of additional terms related to race & racism, check out the Racial Equity Tools Glossary

Centennial College, Anti-Black Racism Social Equity Action Card

Ryerson University, Anti-black racism report

Understanding how racism becomes systemic – Colleen Sheppard, Tamara Thermitus, Derek J. Jones

Dr. Ivan Joseph

Opinion: Hiring a Black leader? Learn from my experience and treat it like it matters – The Globe and Mail

NSCAD, The Institute for the Study of Canadian Slavery

How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi

White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo

So, You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo

Policing Black Lives, Robyn Maynard

The Skin We’re In, Desmond Cole

Listen:

When should we call something or someone “racist?” The NPR podcast Code Switch explored this question in a “We Asked, You Answered” article.

Explore:

Indian Residential School Survivors Society https://www.irsss.ca/

The Legacy of Hope Foundation https://legacyofhope.ca/

Water First https://waterfirst.ngo/what-we-do/…

The Native Women’s Association of Canada https://www.nwac.ca/

First Nations Child & Family Caring Society https://fncaringsociety.com/about-us

Do:

Keep track of how the Canadian state is doing on the 94 Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. https://ualbertalaw.typepad.com/…/reconciliation-report… [blog – review reading list and year-end reflections starting April 8, 2021]

Write to your MP to pressure for follow through on all 94. Beyond 94

References

Albert Marshall, 2012.

Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/faf.12516

“Anti-Indigenous racism in Canada.” (2021). [fact sheets] National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health. Retrieved from https://www.nccih.ca/28/Social_Determinants_of_Health.nccih?id=337

“Call out & Call in Racism.” Creative Equity Toolkit, https://creativeequitytoolkit.org/topic/anti-racism/call-out-call-in-racism/

Frank, Lesley, et al. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2020, 2020 Report card on child and family poverty in Nova Scotia willful neglect, www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/Nova%20Scotia%20Office/2020/12/Child%20poverty%20report%20card%202020.pdf

“FUNDAMENTALS / Core Concepts / Decolonization Theory and Practice.” RacialEquityTools.org (2020).

“Glossary.” The Movement for Black Lives, 9 Jan. 2020, web.archive.org/web/20200109004008/https:/policy.m4bl.org/glossary/

Government of Canada, Statistics Canada. “Census Profile, 2016 Census.” Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 26 Apr. 2021, www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/index.cfm?Lang=E

“Health Information Bulletins.” Tui’kn Partnership | Because Health Belongs to All of Us, 2021, www.tuikn.ca/resources/pdf-downloads/

“Indigenous experiences with racism and its impacts.” (2014, July). [fact sheet] National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health. Retrieved from

https://www.nccih.ca/495/Indigenous_experiences_with_racism_and_its_impacts.nccih?id=131

Kivel, P. (2002). Uprooting racism: How white people can work for racial justice (1st ed., page 141). Gabriola Island, British Columbia: New Society Publishers.

Marie Battiste, 2002. Google Scholar. Retrieved from https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=0cCiI30AAAAJ&hl=en

Race: The Power of an Illusion [documentary]. PBS, 2018–2019 relaunch of 2003 series.

Ritskes, Eric. “What Is Decolonization and Why Does It Matter?” Intercontinental Cry, 21 Sept. 2012, www.intercontinentalcry.org/what-is-decolonization-and-why-does-it-matter/

Chapter 5

Navigating Courageous Conversations

Learning Objectives

Articulate what can make conversations challenging

Reflect on how your personal and social identities affect your response to conflict and develop greater self-awareness

Evaluate techniques and strategies to help you and your students navigate challenging situations and courageous conversations

Anticipate circumstances that could lead to a courageous conversation and make a plan for handling them effectively

What is a Courageous Conversation?

Years ago, I taught at a predominantly white institution. During the final class, a student who identified as white, male, and upper middle class advocated removing poor children from their families and placing them in boarding schools. This conversation, initiated by a student holding dominant identities, could very well be described as difficult.

As an instructor, I was forced to confront a perspective different from my own —one that I was shocked to learn my student held and one that I personally found reprehensible. I felt stunned but given that the student had made the comment in front of 49 other students, I also felt pressured to immediately respond.

Therefore, to give the student an opportunity to hear how outrageous his statement was and to clarify, I repeated what he had said and asked if I had understood correctly. When the student affirmed his position, I then opened the conversation to all students and asked them to respond with reference to texts we’d read that semester on topics such as assimilation and culturally relevant pedagogy.

In the discussion, the class countered their peer’s position using literature. I wrapped up the discussion by thanking the student for surfacing the issue and by summarizing the key concerns that his peers had raised.

Reflect

This is one example of a courageous conversation from Inside Higher Ed

Have you had similar situations arise in your classroom or learning space?

How have you responded? What might you do differently if given the opportunity?

What works/doesn’t work for you about the way the faculty in the example handled the difficult conversation?

Introduction Video

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=250

Throughout the module, we use this icon to suggest times to reflect on a concept, your professional practice, or yourself. We hope these questions help spark your thinking in new and creative directions.

Reflecting on Identity

Reflecting on our identities and acknowledging how they manifest in our education practice is ongoing work. Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your own identities and how they relate to this module.

Consider your own personal learning about the topic. Where do you fall on the following continuum?

In what ways does my social and geographical location influence my identity, knowledge, and accumulated wisdom? What knowledge am I missing?

What privileges and power do I hold? In what ways do I exercise my power and privilege?

Does my power and privilege show up in my work? If so, how?

Am I aware of if/how my biases and privileges might take up space and silence others?

It’s important to realize that you do not have to be an expert on these topics to actively engage in self-reflection and conversations with students. Being an equity-centred educator requires regular and repeated reflection on the Eurocentric assumptions, knowledges, and ways of being that guide our thoughts and actions.

Being aware of which knowledges, experiences, and ways of being in the world are privileged in your discipline, classroom, and institution are a critical first step to making education equitable. The next step is legitimate action to combat the impacts of oppression.

Unpacking Language: Key Terms

Words matter, and words can have multiple meanings.

In this section, you’ll engage with several important words and ideas related to power, privilege, and bias. We will only skim the surface of these important, complex, and deep-seated issues.

The purpose of this section is to establish a shared understanding and vocabulary to build on in future modules. This work is essential but is also sometimes uncomfortable. This should not deter us from doing it.

As a staff or faculty member, recognizing and addressing the meanings of these words in your planning and reflection is important. The more clearly a term is articulated, the more likely you are to develop the knowledge and skills to use it. You will also feel more comfortable talking about and using these words in your teaching and interaction with students.

Write

Take a couple of minutes to jot down your understanding of the following key terms (don’t worry about getting it right or perfect; the idea is to respond quickly):

courageous conversation

hot button moment

supercharged topic

brave and safer spaces

Review

Now, review the following definitions to see how your understanding of key terms aligns:

courageous conversation: Participants commit to engaging with each other and the group with honesty, vulnerability, and an open mind. The goal of a courageous conversation is to listen closely so we can understand each other’s perspectives, even if we don’t agree, and to keep the conversation going, even when it gets uncomfortable.

hot button: These moments sneak up on us in the form of microaggressions, stereotypes, myths, personal attacks, generalizations, and the dominant narratives people bring with them into a conversation. Dominant narratives are stories told by the dominant culture to uphold and reinforce through repetition the dominant social group’s interests and ideologies. “Isms” like racism, ableism, and classism are rooted in these dominant narratives, which come to be accepted as objective truths. Hot button moments can provoke strong reactions and disagreements, and though we might not feel qualified to even take a position or have an opinion about some of these issues, we still need to do our best to facilitate a courageous conversation.

supercharged: Supercharged topics are the ones you know without a doubt will provoke debate and elicit strong emotional reactions. While these reliably controversial topics do require careful preparation, they have the advantage of being predictably difficult — so you can be ready to facilitate the conversation responsibly and effectively.

brave and safer spaces: In these spaces, we acknowledge, support, and learn from painful or difficult experiences, rather than eliminating or ignoring them. Brave and safer spaces ask us to engage in genuine and honest conversations about equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging. This involves the participation of the whole community — in this case, the group, class, or organization — in creating supportive spaces where people can be their full, authentic selves.

Approaching “Courageous” Conversations

“Know yourself. Know your biases, know what will push your buttons and what will cause your mind to stop. Every one of us has areas in which we are vulnerable to strong feelings. Knowing what those areas are in advance can diminish the element of surprise. This self-knowledge can enable you to devise in advance strategies for managing yourself and the class when such a moment arises. You will have thought about what you need to do in order to enable your mind to work again.”

– Lee Warren, Managing Hot Moments in the Classroom

Remember: Facilitating courageous conversations is a skill. Like any skill, it takes practice and repetition. You will make mistakes and you will mess up, but you will also get better and find ways to help your students engage in courageous conversations more safely. There are many resources available online to help you build the skills and confidence to handle hot topics and critical conversations. Check out the Learn More section at the end of the module.

We don’t just do equity with students. A commitment to equity means we work to have courageous conversations with colleagues, family, and friends as well.

Why talk about courageous conversations?

Courageous conversations are an important part of higher education. It’s probably fair to say that we should welcome courageous conversations because they challenge us and help us learn! It’s also fair to say that these conversations can feel scary and sometimes we find ourselves in over our heads.

In any education setting, you’ll find students — and colleagues — with many different experiences, interests, knowledge, and even ways of knowing and making sense of the world. We welcome this diversity because it adds so much richness to learning experiences.

Sometimes policies, programming, course content, or on-campus activities can spark controversy or serious disagreement. When we’re passionate about something, it can be hard to listen to other perspectives, let alone understand them. Helping students learn to have respectful conversations when there is disagreement is important.

As faculty members or student services professionals, we have the privilege of guiding students in exploring emotionally or politically charged issues. Courageous conversations help all students — and us — grow personally and academically.

Approaching Courageous Conversations Step by Step

This series of videos will help you begin to develop skills and confidence to have courageous conversations. Remember that these skills evolve and grow over time, for everyone. Nobody is an expert, and there will be times when you feel uncomfortable, challenged, and like you don’t know what to do or say.

Being prepared for courageous conversations starts with laying the groundwork for students to engage in challenging discussions before those conversations happen.

Even in an environment that centres equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging, students will actively disagree and may become upset about statements made by their peers — or by instructors or student services staff.

Lay the Groundwork

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=250

Begin the conversation

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=250

After the conversation

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=250

Adapted from: Facilitating Class Discussions and Navigating Difficult Conversations, American University.

Navigating Difficult Conversations in the Classroom

In this video, Dr. Tanya Sharpe and Dr. Geoff Greif, from The University of Maryland School of Social Work, discuss how to navigate challenging conversations in the classroom.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=250

Reflect

After watching the video, take a moment to reflect on the following questions:

Has a situation similar to this occurred in your classroom, lab, program, or office?

How did you respond to the techniques used in the video?

How do you see yourself using these techniques in your professional practice?

How might have you responded differently?

Tianyuan Yu: Using the Council Practice or Talking Circle to hold space for all students.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=250

Courageous Conversation Openers

Culture of Accountability: Brave and Safer Spaces

You’ve probably heard people describe classrooms, common areas, and offices as safe spaces. While the intention behind this idea is good, labeling an area a safe space can be misleading because we can’t guarantee that our educational environments will be free of danger, risk, or harm. The idea of the safe space can also excuse us from tackling difficult issues and doing the hard work required for deep learning.

Brave and safer spaces

Brave spaces, on the other hand, ask us to engage in genuine and honest conversations about equity, diversity, inclusion, social justice, and belonging. We can’t guarantee safety, but we can work toward safer spaces where everyone can be their full selves.

“[C]reating brave spaces [can] challenge the implicit and explicit ways in which inclusion and exclusion, affirmation and disenfranchisement, and belonging and alienation play out for people with different identities.”

– Alison Cook-Sather

Read

To learn more about brave spaces, read Creating Brave Spaces Within and Through Student-Faculty Pedagogical Partnerships by Alison Cook-Sather

Establishing Brave and Safer Spaces

Adapted from: From safe spaces to brave spaces: A new way to frame dialogue around diversity and social justice by Brian Arao and Kristi Clemens (inThe Art of Effective Facilitation: Reflections from Social Justice Educators.)

Reflect

Think of a time you experienced a brave or safer space. This could be a brave space that was created either intentionally or not

Reflect on what made the space brave. What did you see, hear, and feel? What did the facilitator do to create safety?

What conversations and actions were made possible by the brave space?

How can you imagine creating brave spaces in your professional practice?

Ideas for Being and Working Together

There are many words to describe ways of being together and creating safer spaces for courageous conversations. Group agreements, ground rules, or Mawita’mk — “being together” in Mi’kmaq — are all ways to refer to guidelines we co-create with students for engaging with challenging topics. They can help us take part without excessive fear of being labeled racist or biased, avoid blaming, and avoid invalidating others’ experiences and feelings.

Stay engaged

Focus fully on the conversation topic or exercise at hand

Silence cell phones

Share a story, state your opinion, ask a question—risk and grow!

Speak your truth

Value everyone’s thoughts

Start by assuming good intentions

Speak from your own experience and use “I” statements, as in “I think”, “I feel”, “I believe”, or “I want”, “I hear”

Create a safe environment where everyone is free to speak openly

Keep in mind that people are in different places in this work

Be aware of non-verbal communication

Before speaking, think about what you want others to know

Recognize mistakes are part of success

Disagree respectfully

Listen for understanding

Listen without thinking about how you are going to respond

Try to understand where another person is coming from

Be careful not to compare your experiences with another person’s

Try not to explain or rationalize if someone points out that something you said left them feeling upset. Positive intent is not enough. Say, “I didn’t realize what I said was inappropriate or hurt you in that way, and I’m sorry.”

Be comfortable with being uncomfortable

Honour confidentiality

As faculty and staff we need to honour confidentiality, but we cannot guarantee that another student or someone else in the space won’t share

Encourage students to share with others only what they are comfortable in sharing and offer your space for more deeper sharing if necessary or other resources of support

Expect and accept non-closure

Courageous conversations involve ongoing work that does not necessarily leave us feeling comfortable. Your level of discomfort will vary, especially if you have personal experiences of marginalization and have to facilitate or be a part of these conversations

Adapted from: Continuing Courageous Conversations Toolkit

7 Steps to Effective Conversations

Adapted from:WinSETT Centre Navigating Difficult Conversations workshop.

Why classroom conversations about diversity and identity shouldn’t be framed as difficult (opinion)

In this article from Inside Higher Ed, Derisa Grant argues that framing discussions as difficult further marginalizes diverse students by labeling them as promoting identity politics when, in fact, all course content reflects identity politics.

Why classroom conversations about diversity and identity shouldn’t be framed as difficult (opinion)

Reflect

In what ways is identity present in your professional practice with students?

What would help you feel more skilled and confident in facilitating important conversations about identity?

Hot Button Moments

What’s a hot button moment? We’ve all been there. A topic comes up and triggers strong feelings, opinions, and sometimes even conflict — and sometimes hot buttons are made worse by group dynamics. If you don’t plan for and manage hot buttons appropriately, they can get in the way of learning and create tension in your meeting, program, or class.

These critical conversations may relate to a range of topics, including race, politics, religion, gender identity, indigenization, climate change, or other subjects where you and/or students have different perspectives and opinions.

It’s critical that people who have been marginalized in the room not be looked to as experts or spokespeople for all members of their social identity group — all Indigenous people for example. People who face barriers to equity are not responsible for the labour of educating their peers. Be prepared to offer resources and supports so all students can learn about the hot topic at hand.

Inaction is still action. When you witness a biased, stereotypical, or discriminatory comment, not saying anything can cause harm. If you don’t know how to proceed in that moment, acknowledge that what was said is not okay, and that you will do some work and come back to it later.

Reflect

With the right approach, hot buttons can be a great opportunity for learning and growth. Reflect on your own professional practice up till now.

Think back to a hot button moment you’ve experienced as an instructor or student services professional. How did you handle it?

How did the hot button moment feel while it was happening? How did you feel afterwards? How do you think others in the room felt during and afterwards?

What was effective or ineffective about your response and why?

What makes a hot button moment?

Dominant narratives

Dominant narratives are stories told by the dominant culture to uphold and reinforce a dominant social group’s interests and ideologies. For example, if a student starts talking about fisheries disputes in Nova Scotia from the dominant narrative of white fishermen, this could create a hot button moment when it comes up against the counter-narrative that asserts treaty rights and looks at how they are being violated. The danger of dominant narratives is that they are typically accepted as truth.

Microaggressions

As we learned in Module 2: Personal Privilege and Bias, microaggressions are subtle forms of abuse that target people or groups through hostile, derogatory, or negative messages based on their group membership. Microaggressions can be based on any aspect of identity: socio-economic status, ability, sex, gender, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, racialized identity, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. They often constitute a pattern of behaviour, and the cumulative effects of these small attacks can be devastating.

Read

Microaggressions in the Classroom, a resource from University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology.

Personal comments

Personal comments are either used or could be interpreted as personal attacks. They might be directed at a particular person or group of people based on the speaker’s unfiltered emotional reaction, unconscious or overt bias, or membership in another social identity group.

Generalizations

Generalizations are grand sweeping statements. Stereotypes are the most common hot button generalization. They are often rooted in the misconception that all members of a social identity group share common characteristics, views, or practices.

SNIPPET: Microaggressions in the Classroom

In this video, SNIPPET: Microaggressions in the Classroom (2:39) students talk about microaggressions they’ve experienced. You can watch the longer version here (18:03)

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=250

Words and Strategies for Hot Button Moments

Source: Adapted from Goodman, 2015.

Jean-Blaise Samou: Putting students at the centre.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=250

Supercharged Subjects

Strategies for dealing with supercharged subjects

Supercharged subjects are emotionally charged, polarizing, and can evoke strong reactions. The good news is that unlike many hot button moments, supercharged subjects can usually be anticipated and planned for.

A few strategies can help you and your students get ready to tackle them with respect and self-awareness. The key is to honour student input and help students take ownership of the discussion.

Build a foundation for discussing controversial topics. We’ve already talked about supporting students to respectfully participate in conversations. Before the supercharged subject arises, refresh students’ toolboxes.

Introduce the controversial topic neutrally. Review different perspectives, knowledge bases, and major arguments. Describe common assumptions and biases behind specific arguments and unpack popular and prevailing attitudes.

Talk about your shared roles and responsibilities. As a group, share and agree on ways you might respectfully discuss, learn, or disagree about the topic.

Offer a range of perspectives. This is especially important if certain perspectives are missing from or not being heard in the group.

Encourage students to contextualize. Discuss the cultural, historical, and social contexts of the supercharged subject. Give students a chance to process and reflect on why they think the way they do about it — then connect it to their personal experiences.

Acknowledge both agreement and disagreement. Make these points explicit and pause to observe them together.

Source: Adapted from Pace, 2003.

Reflect

Review the suggestions in this section and consider:

What topics do you engage with in your professional practice that might benefit from using some of these strategies?

What other words, phrases, or strategies have you used that worked well? Why or why not?

What have you learned from your students about dealing with hot button issues or supercharged topics?

Reflecting on Systems

Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your institution as a system and how it relates to this module. Think about the written and unwritten rules, policies, procedures, practices, and traditions that define your institution. Reflect on and write a few lines answering these questions:

Who is welcomed and can fully participate?

Who may be excluded, discriminated against, or denied full participation?

Whose norms, values, and perspectives does the institution consider to be normal or legitimate? Whose does it silence, marginalize, or delegitimize?

Who inhabits positions of power within the institution?

Whose experiences, norms, values, and perspectives influence an institution’s laws, policies, and systems of evaluation?

Whose interests does the institution protect?

Thank you for taking the time to reflect on your own institution in relation to this module. Being aware of the policies, procedures, practices, and traditions and how they intentionally or unintentionally privilege some groups over others is a critical first step to making education equitable. The next step is real action to combat the impacts of oppression.

Conclusion

Summary

The aim of this module is to help you handle and respond to challenging conversations in your educational practice — with students, colleagues, and others. The goal of a courageous conversation is to listen closely so we can understand each other’s perspectives, even if we don’t agree, and to keep the conversation going even when it gets uncomfortable.

This module introduced you to concepts and strategies for anticipating and navigating challenging conversations, including:

hot button moments, where a courageous conversation can happen unexpectedly

supercharged subjects, where a courageous conversation can be anticipated

brave spaces, where we create and hold space for students to share their experiences and learn from one another, even when the going gets rough

Learning about courageous conversations is critical to skillfully and bravely handling challenging discussions and helping students feel supported, safe, included, and able to learn — something all students are entitled to.

Courageous conversations are an opportunity to challenge ourselves and grow together with our students.

Learn More

Do

The Center for Research on Teaching and Learning (CRTL), University of Michigan, provides an amazing selection of resources for anticipating, facilitating, and responding to difficult discussions and moments, as well as classroom incivility:

Guidelines for planning and facilitating discussions on controversial topics

Strategies for making productive use of tense or difficult moments (PDF)

Facilitating Challenging Conversations in your Classes (blog post)

Sample guidelines for class participation

Guidelines for responding to particular topics and tragedies

Responding to Incivility in the College Classroom

Try

The Something’s Up Cycle – The Something’s Up! Cycle is a Reflective Intercultural Learning Cycle, core intercultural competence development process, and mindfulness practice. Practising the Something’s Up! Cycle can help you develop intercultural sensitivity leading to intercultural competence.

Read

These three posts by Tereigh Ewert from Educatus, the blog of The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness (GMCTL) at the University of Saskatchewan:

Part 1: Tools and Strategies for ‘Hot Topics’

Part 2: Tools and Strategies for ‘Hot Topics’

Part 3: Tools and Strategies for ‘Hot Topics’

Watch

Ilana Redstone: Beyond Bigots and Snowflakes: Building Community through Viewpoint Diversity (5:47) Our worldviews shape how we filter information and how we understand and interpret the world. So, what happens when you and I see the same thing, the same action, but our filters are radically different?

Engage

Continuing Courageous Conversations Toolkit. The Toolkit contains several group exercises designed to guide participants through a courageous conversation that can occur within a 20- to 45-minute time frame.

References

Arao, B.,Clemens, K. (n.d.). From safe spaces to brave spaces: A new way to frame dialogue around diversity and social justice. In L.M. Landreman (Ed.), The art of effective facilitation: Reflections from social justice educators (Ch 8, Part 3). Stylus Publisher, LLC.

Difficult dialogues. Centre for Teaching. Vanderbilt University.

Difficult conversations. The Teaching Commons. Georgetown University.

Grant, D. (2020, July 15) On ‘Difficult’ Conversations. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2020/07/15/why-classroom-conversations-about-diversity-and-identity-shouldnt-be-framed

Why classroom conversations about diversity and identity shouldn’t be framed as difficult (opinion)

Stone, D., Patton B., and Heen S. (1999). Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most. New York: Penguin Group.

The Canadian Centre for Women in Science, Engineering, Trades and Technology. “Navigating Difficult Conversations.” [workshop].WinSETT Centre https://www.winsett.ca/

Chapter 6

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy and Practices

Learning Objectives

Articulate an expanded awareness of the concepts and theoretical frameworks around cultural relevant pedagogy and practices (CRP), including critical race theory, anti-racist and anti-oppressive, and social justice theories.

Reflect on how your cultural identities and experiences intersect with other cultural identities and experiences.

Reflect critically on your professional practice to incorporate different world views into your own frame of reference.

Connect the principles and practice of CRP to your professional practice, and strategies for implementing them.

Why is Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Important?

Gloria Ladson-Billings (1994) introduced the concept of culturally responsive teaching. She saw it as a way to maximize students’ academic achievement by integrating their cultural references in learning environments. Since then, a deep field of research has developed around CRP, including important work by leaders like Geneva Gay and Zaretta-Hammond.

Culturally responsive/relevant pedagogy and practices (CRP) is a powerful way to reach ALL students. Here’s why:

It raises expectations for all students. CRP moves away from approaching instruction with a deficit mindset. (A deficit mindset would focus on what a student can’t do.) Instead, CRP identifies students’ assets and uses them to create rigorous, student-centred instruction. CRP builds relational competence. It validates the assets every student brings into the classroom and creates a community of learners committed to social justice.

Students are validated and empowered. With CRP, students tie their learning to their cultures, experiences, interests, and the issues that impact their lives. When students see themselves represented (through knowledge, visually, and physically) in the curriculum, they feel like they belong. They’re more likely to develop the trust it takes to build a relationship with a teacher. Brain science tells us that this sense of belonging makes learning easier and builds students’ self-confidence.

It builds cultural competence. Inclusive pedagogy and practices enhance student learning. It helps both you and your students understand different perspectives and worldviews, appreciate others’ strengths, and build empathy. CRP can also help you reflect on how your own identity and experiences impact your attitudes, pedagogies, and practices.

It works with UDL to create equity for all students. CRP and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) work together to create equitable learning for all students. Both approaches include the use of students’ backgrounds and high expectations by leveraging students’ strengths. Both use practices that are student centred.

CRP in Practice

In March 2019, the Kingstec L’nuek Alliance hosted their second annual Tribute to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirited people. The event began with the grand reveal of a four-foot-tall steel red dress built by Heavy Duty Equipment / Truck & Transport Repair students Alex Bent and Ben Able, with support from their instructor Dave Myre.

This project is a beautiful demonstration of how awareness of Indigenous realities of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls can be woven into just about any subject — in this case, welding. It shows how the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge and perspectives doesn’t have to take time away from an already busy schedule; it can be the means through which course outcomes are met.

Reflect

Can you think of an example from your own practice, your colleagues, or your campus?

In these examples:

How did faculty support the process?

What was the impact on students?

What is your biggest take-away?

Introduction Video

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=262

Throughout the module, we use this icon to suggest times to reflect on a concept, your professional practice, or yourself. We hope these questions help spark your thinking in new and creative directions.

Reflecting on Identity

Reflecting on our identities and acknowledging how they manifest in our education practice is ongoing work. Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your own identities and how they relate to this module.

Consider your own personal learning about the topic. Where do you fall on the following continuum?

In what ways does my social and geographical location influence my identity, knowledge, and accumulated wisdom? What knowledge am I missing?

What privileges and power do I hold? In what ways do I exercise my power and privilege?

Does my power and privilege show up in my work? If so, how?

Am I aware of if/how my biases and privileges might take up space and silence others?

It’s important to realize that you do not have to be an expert on these topics to actively engage in self-reflection and conversations with students. Being an equity-centred educator requires regular and repeated reflection on the Eurocentric assumptions, knowledges, and ways of being that guide our thoughts and actions.

Being aware of which knowledges, experiences, and ways of being in the world are privileged in your discipline, classroom, and institution are a critical first step to making education equitable. The next step is legitimate action to combat the impacts of oppression.

What is Culture?

Culture is “an amalgamation of human activity, production, thought, and belief systems.” (Ladson-Billings, 2014)

“Culture is a dynamic system of social values, cognitive codes, behavioural standards, worldviews, and beliefs used to give order and meaning into our own lives as well as the lives of others… Because teaching and learning are always mediated or shaped by cultural influence, they cannot ever be culturally neutral.”

– Geneva Gay, 2018

Culture goes much deeper than typical understandings of ethnicity, race and/or faith. It encompasses broad notions of similarity and difference, and it is reflected in our students’ multiple social identities and their ways of knowing and of being in the world. We must be responsive to culture to ensure all students feel safe, welcomed, accepted, and inspired to succeed in a culture of high expectations for learning.

Culture manifests through all our expressive behaviours including thinking, relating, speaking, writing, performing, producing, learning, and teaching (Geneva Gay, 2018).

Culture Iceberg

Edward T. Hall: Culture Iceberg

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The Cultural Iceberg outlines the differences between surface culture (the aspects of culture that are explicit, visible, and taught) and deep culture (habits, assumptions, understandings, assumptions- things we know but can’t easily articulate).

Use the slider on the following image to review some examples of surface and deep culture. Use the questions to reflect on your own or other cultures to discover more about this concept.

An interactive H5P element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here:
https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=262#h5p-1

Now try the following Cultural Iceberg drag and drop activity to see if you can recall those aspects of culture that are either easy or difficult to see.

An interactive H5P element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here:
https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=262#h5p-3

Reflect

Which questions were harder to answer?

What surface culture elements influence the way you think, relate, speak, write, perform, produce, learn, and teach?

What deep culture elements influence the way you think, relate, speak, write, perform, produce, learn, and teach?

It is important to consider Equity Seeking Groups and the different ways of knowing that students from these diverse communities bring to learning environments. However, this does not mean knowing every single culture in our learning environments but instead seeing student cultural diversity as strengths distinct from the dominant Euro-Canadian culture. It is about using culture to enhance learning rather than as challenges and/or deficits of the student or particular community.

Locating your own social identities and bringing them into the classroom

Tereigh Ewert: Locating your own social identities and bringing them into the classroom

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Reflect

Do you articulate your own social positionality when interacting with students? If so, how? If not, why not?

What is Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Practice?

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Practice

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Learn More on Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Practice

Gloria Ladson-Billings: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

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Nicole West-Burns: Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy: The Foundation and Core Components

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Tereigh Ewert: Why taking a deficit approach to students is problematic

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Listen

blogpost by Zaretta Hammond A foundational premise of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain is that relationships in the form of learning partnerships are the starting point of becoming culturally responsive as an educator. In this blogcast, Zaretta Hammond talks about the why and how of becoming more responsive starting with these three strategies:

Humanize your interactions with all students

Use the Neuroscience of Trust as your first CRP tool

Practice touching the spirit by igniting positive emotions

Reflect

In my view, the most important message of these resources is…

I didn’t realize that…

For me CRP means…

What stands out for me as the core components of CRP are…

The core components I already use in my practice are…

Core components that I can further develop are…

CRP In Practice

Building on this scholarship, and the CRP competencies developed by New America (think tank and civic innovation platform in the United States), we outline seven core competencies that describe what culturally responsive educators know and do. Reflection questions facilitate further reflection and learning.

Competency 1: Reflect on Your Cultural Lens

Culturally responsive educators routinely reflect on their life experiences and membership in various identity groups, and they ask themselves how these factors influence their beliefs and actions. They understand that they, like everyone, have internalized biases that shape their professional practice and their interactions with students, and colleagues. They understand that they can unknowingly use stereotypes and commit microaggressions if they are not vigilant about how they think and act.

Therefore, these educators diligently work to reflect on their unconscious attitudes and develop cultural competency—that is, understanding, sensitivity, and appreciation for the history, values, experiences, and lifestyles of others. Becoming self-aware can be difficult and uncomfortable, particularly for educators who have never explored their identities.

Reflect

How does my identity shape my thinking, values and understanding of the world?

How does my identity differ from students and colleagues? How does it shape my interactions with students and colleagues?

Do I access resources to deepen my own understanding of cultural, ethnic, gender, and learning differences to build stronger relationships and create more relevant learning experiences?

Do I have the skills to respond to stereotypes and microaggressions when they happen?

How can I further develop this competency?

Do

Cultural Competency Assessment This self-assessment tool is designed to explore individual cultural competence. Its purpose is to help you to consider your skills, knowledge, and awareness of yourself in your interactions with others.

Reflect

What surprised you?

How did you feel doing the assessment?

Competency 2: Recognize and Redress Bias in the System

Culturally responsive educators understand the difference between bias at the personal level (i.e., racist speech) and bias at the institutional or systemic level (i.e., racist policies). They seek to deepen their understanding of how identity markers (i.e., those assigned by race, ethnicity, ability, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and gender, etc.) influence the educational opportunities that students receive.

Bradley Sheppard: The importance of representation and seeing the whole person.

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Reflect

Do I understand the difference between personal privilege and bias and systemic bias and oppression?

Do I find and use tools and processes that promote self-reflection in order to mitigate behaviors and practices (e.g., racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned-privilege, eurocentrism, etc.) that undermine inclusion and equity in education?

Do I take leadership with colleagues in influencing institutional culture on issues of race, culture, gender, linguistic background, and socio-economic status?

How can I further develop this competency?

Competency 3: Draw on students’ culture

Central to culturally responsive practice is the belief that students’ cultural background and existing knowledge can help bridge new learning. Believing this to be true, culturally responsive educators use cultural scaffolding by providing links between new academic concepts and students’ background knowledge that comes from their families, communities, and lived experiences; they regularly use student input to shape assignments, projects, and assessments.

Reflect

Do the assignments, assessment, and instructional resources I use allow students to see themselves?

Do I use cultural references, experiences, and knowledges students bring as assets to be connected to/built upon?

Do I review the instructional resources I use for historical accuracy, stereotypes, cultural relevance, and multiple perspectives?

How do I seek to learn about my students’ existing knowledge, cultural backgrounds, interests, and issues of concern?

How can I further develop this competency?

Watch

Learning from Indigenous World-Views from the UBC course “Reconciliation through Indigenous Education” in which Dr. Jan Hare, who is an Anishinaabe from M’Chigeeng First Nation, talks about Indigenous worldviews and how they apply to teaching and learning.

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Reflect

What values or beliefs do you think underlie Western approaches?

What values or beliefs do you observe in Indigenous educational approaches?

What are the benefits, for all students, of integrating Indigenous approaches into curriculum?

Competency 4: Bring Real-World Issues into Learning

Culturally responsive educators address the “so what?” factor of instruction by helping students see how the knowledge and skills they learn are valuable to their lives, families, their communities. They ask:

What does this material have to do with your lives?

Does this knowledge connect to an issue you care about?

How can you use this information to take action?

They regularly assign activities, projects, and assessments that require learners to identify and propose solutions to complex issues, including issues of bias and discrimination. They actively seek input from students when planning learning activities and they ensure learning happens inside and outside of the classroom.

Reflect

How can I guide learners in developing possible solutions to real-world problems?

How do the projects, assignments, and assessments I use empower and prepare students to solve problems in their lives, their communities, and in the world?

How does my professional practice connect knowledge to students’ daily lives, including experiences with oppression and injustice?

Does my professional practice develop students’ self-efficacy, critical consciousness, and motivation to challenge the status quo?

How can I further develop this competency?

Competency 5: Model High Expectations for All Students

Culturally responsive educators believe all students can achieve high levels of success. These educators understand that students from equity-seeking and other marginalized groups are vulnerable to negative stereotypes about their intelligence, academic ability, and behavior. They understand that these stereotypes can inadvertently influence their pedagogical choices and expectations of students, which in turn influence students’ perceptions about their own abilities.

Culturally responsive educators are vigilant in maintaining their belief that all students can meet high expectations if given proper support and scaffolds, regardless of their identity or past performance. These educators do not accept anything less than a high level of success from all their students and they do not allow students to disengage from learning. Instead, they help students develop high expectations for themselves.

High Expectations Teaching Animation

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Reflect

How do I communicate that I have high expectations for students of all backgrounds and identities?

How do I help students develop high expectations for themselves?

What supports and scaffolds do I provide to ensure that all students are able to meet rigorous outcomes goals?

How can I further develop this competency?

Competency 6: Promote Respect for Students Differences

Culturally responsive educators foster learning environments that are respectful, inclusive, and affirming. Educators contribute to such environments by modeling how to engage across differences and embodying respect for all forms of diversity. They also help students value their own and others’ cultures and develop a sense of responsibility for addressing prejudice and mistreatment when they encounter it.

Reflect

How do I create learning environments that are safe, respectful, and inclusive for all students?

How do I role-model proactive responses to all forms of bias and oppression?

How do I help students recognize their responsibility to stand up against all forms of bias and oppression in their everyday lives?

How can I further develop this competency?

Competency 7: Communicate in Linguistically and Culturally Responsive Ways

When educators communicate in culturally and linguistically sensitive ways, students feel more welcomed and engaged in their own learning. Culturally responsive educators seek to understand how culture influences communication, both in verbal ways and nonverbal ways. They allow students to use their natural ways of talking in the classroom.

Reflect

What is my style of communicating verbally and nonverbally? Does my style of communication differ from that of my students?

How do my behavioural and communication expectations of students consider varying cultural norms?

How do I actively work to reduce communication barriers between myself and students?

How can I further develop this competency?

Connection to Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Both UDL and CRP frameworks focus on:

Identification and removal of barriers

High expectations for all learners

Building and maintaining relationships

Fostering the learning process

Connections to the neuroscience of learning

Building on strengths

Attitudinal investment and shifts from educators

CRP and UDL work together to create equitable learning for all students. Both approaches include the use of students’ backgrounds and high expectations for learning.

Both CRP and UDL are grounded in neurological science and when implemented, have a positive impact on student learning and wellness.

Reflecting on Systems

Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your institution as a system and how it relates to this module. Think about the written and unwritten rules, policies, procedures, practices, and traditions that define your institution.

Reflect

Reflect on and write a few lines answering these questions:

Who is welcomed and can fully participate?

Who may be excluded, discriminated against, or denied full participation?

Whose norms, values, and perspectives does the institution consider to be normal or legitimate? Whose does it silence, marginalize, or delegitimize?

Who inhabits positions of power within the institution?

Whose experiences, norms, values, and perspectives influence an institution’s laws, policies, and systems of evaluation?

Whose interests does the institution protect?

Systems of Inequity

Thank you for taking the time to reflect on your own institution in relation to this module. Being aware of the policies, procedures, practices, and traditions and how they intentionally or unintentionally privilege some groups over others is a critical first step to making education equitable. The next step is real action to combat the impacts of oppression.

Conclusion

Summary

This module builds a foundation for culturally relevant or responsive pedagogy and practices, CRP for short. We developed a shared understanding of CRP concepts and competencies, including:

Reflecting critically on your professional practice to incorporate different world views into your own frame of reference;

Articulating an expanded awareness of the concepts and theoretical frameworks around CRP, including anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and social justice theories;

Reflecting on how your cultural identities and experiences intersect with other cultural identities and experiences; and

Connecting CRP competencies to your professional practice.

Learn More

Read:

Activism Skills: Land and Territory Acknowledgement

Amnesty International Canada

Tips for Creating an Indigenous Land Acknowledgement Statement

Native Governance Center

How can I Make the Land Acknowledgement Meaningful? [blog]

Dr. Angela Nardozi

NAHLA Land Acknowledgement, Template for Personalization, Definitions, and Speaker Protocol

Northern Alberta Health Libraries Association

Watch:

TrillEDU: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (13:37), Jeffrey Dessources, TEDX

References

Antoine, A., Mason, R., Mason, R., Palahicky, S. & Rodriguez de France, C. (2018). Pulling Together: A Guide for Curriculum Developers. Victoria, BC: BCcampus. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/indigenizationcurriculumdevelopers/

Black, J., Stone, L., & James, C., Learning Excellence, Learning Equity, Implementing Universal Design for Learning and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in Nova Scotia in Higher Ed (2019).

“Diversity tool kit: A guide to discussing identity, power and privilege.” (2020, Nov 5). University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

https://msw.usc.edu/mswusc-blog/diversity-workshop-guide-to-discussing-identity-power-and-privilege/#unpack

Educators Team at Understood. (n.d.) What is culturally responsive teaching? Understood.

https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/for-educators/universal-design-for-learning/what-is-culturally-responsive-teaching#Why_use_culturally_responsive_teaching?

Ewert, T., & Johnson, L. T. (2021, April 27). Intro to universal design for learning (UDL) and culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) [Pre-conference session]. Dalhousie Conference on University Teaching and Learning, Halifax, NS, Canada.

Gay, G. (2018). Culturally responsive teaching: theory, research, and practice (Third). Teachers College Press.

Hammond, Z. (2015). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students. Corwin, a SAGE company.

Jabbar and Mirza in Pirbhai-Illich, Pete, and Martin (2017). Culturally responsive pedagogy working towards decolonization, Indigeneity and interculturalism. Palgrave MacMillan.

DOI:10.1007/978-3-319-46328-5 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311861807_Culturally_Responsive_Pedagogy_Working_towards_Decolonization_Indigeneity_and_Interculturalism

Kaufman, T. (n.d.) Building positive relationships with students: What brain science says. Understood.

https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/for-educators/empathy/brain-science-says-4-reasons-to-build-positive-relationships-with-students

Ladson-Billings, G.J. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Education Research Journal, 35, 465-491.

Peters, S. J. (2015, December 21). Disability culture. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/disability-culture

Shahjahan, R., Wagner, A., & Wane, N. (2009). Rekindling the Sacred: Toward a Decolonizing Pedagogy in Higher Education. Journal of Thought, 44(1-2), 70-71. doi:10.2307/jthought.44.1-2.59 https://www.jstor.org/stable/jthought.44.1-2.59?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

“Teacher Competencies that Promote Culturally Responsive Teaching.” (2020). New America.

https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/culturally-responsive-teaching/teacher-competencies-that-promote-culturally-responsive-teaching/

Chapter 7

Universal Design for Learning

Learning Objectives

Articulate Universal design for learning’s (UDL) rationales and benefits and describe UDL’s principles and practical guidelines.

Reflect on UDL examples and identify additional opportunities to apply UDL strategies.

Connect the principles and practice of UDL to your professional practice, in bite sized UDL strategy chunks.

What is UDL

Students enter the post-secondary education sector as highly variable learners, with a wide variety of backgrounds, cultures, abilities, skills, attitudes, interests, and motivations. Students come from diverse experiences and have generated knowledge and information in different ways. As educators, we must offer a number of ways to learn new content to maximize students’ potential. This is a complex and important task.

Universal design for learning (UDL) is a key part of the solution to make education accessible to all learners. UDL supports what educators are increasingly aware of: that one-size-fits-all learning environments do not sup­port all learners. Chen (2008) builds on this and writes that “UDL is the recognition that a standardized learning environment is no longer productive; it is vital — and, with today’s technology, possible — to acknowledge differences among students”.

There are five key reasons why UDL is essential in the post-secondary education sector and these reasons are what make it distinct from other frameworks:

Designs and plans for learner variability and for accessibility

Layers onto other design processes

Is highly adaptive because learning is contextual

Uses flexible means and methods

Is essential for some, helpful for all

UDL Examples

College STAR (Supporting Transition Access and Retention: A UNC System Initiative Supporting Students with Learning Differences) is a grant-funded project that seeks to help campuses become more welcoming of students with learning differences across the UNC system. This page provides several examples of their efforts to utilize the UDL framework throughout their participating campuses.

Read

The UDL Examples to see how faculty from the College STAR project redesigned their courses using the UDL framework across disciplines: Education, Music, Construction Management, and Criminal Justice.

Reflect

As you read these examples:

What is the most important message?

What surprised you?

What is one thing you could implement in your own professional practice?

Introduction Video

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=278

Throughout the module, we use this icon to suggest times to reflect on a concept, your professional practice, or yourself. We hope these questions help spark your thinking in new and creative directions.

Reflecting on Identity

Reflecting on our identities and acknowledging how they manifest in our education practice is ongoing work. Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your own identities and how they relate to this module.

Consider your own personal learning about the topic. Where do you fall on the following continuum?

In what ways does my social and geographical location influence my identity, knowledge, and accumulated wisdom? What knowledge am I missing?

What privileges and power do I hold? In what ways do I exercise my power and privilege?

Does my power and privilege show up in my work? If so, how?

Am I aware of if/how my biases and privileges might take up space and silence others?

It’s important to realize that you do not have to be an expert on these topics to actively engage in self-reflection and conversations with students. Being an equity-centred educator requires regular and repeated reflection on the Eurocentric assumptions, knowledges, and ways of being that guide our thoughts and actions.

Being aware of which knowledges, experiences, and ways of being in the world are privileged in your discipline, classroom, and institution are a critical first step to making education equitable. The next step is legitimate action to combat the impacts of oppression.

Why is UDL Important?

Many traditional teaching practices tend to cater to or privilege only certain types of learners, such as those learners who are able-bodied, fluent in the language of instruction, or good at learning course content by reading textbooks or listening to lectures. However, in reality, all learners bring their varying backgrounds, strengths, needs and interests to our education system, classrooms, and campuses. When this diversity is not recognized and addressed by proactive design, it can create barriers to learning. The UDL guidelines can help us reduce environmental and curricular barriers by bringing flexibility and options into learning design from the outset.

Accessibility is an important component of UDL, but UDL doesn’t approach accessibility only from a disability perspective. It is more broadly concerned about reducing any barriers to learning by making sure that all the instructional materials (e.g., texts, images, audio) as well as classroom environments, support services, and activities are accessible to as many learners, instructors, and staff as possible. For example, UDL encourages us to use a video with captions, but it is to help not only students with hearing challenges but also students who speak English as an additional language. It can also help reinforce other students’ understanding of the content.

Ultimately, the goal of UDL is to support students to become “expert learners” who are purposeful and motivated, resourceful, and knowledgeable, strategic and goal driven. UDL serves as a framework for making sure that ALL students will see success.

The implementation of UDL strategies can have a positive impact on instructors and staff as well. The benefits include:

Having concrete strategies to improve student learning

Reducing workload by avoiding a need to accommodate varying individual student needs retroactively

Enhancing professional capacity in the area of inclusive design and teaching

Maintaining academic rigour and high expectation by making support and learning activities tangible for students

UDL is a way to enact a NS government call for implementation and research of CRP and UDL in Higher Education. It is a direct response to:

Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) Calls to Action

NS Human Rights Act

NS Culture Action Plan

NS Accessibility Act

Beyond legislation and Calls to Action, it is part of our moral responsibility as educators to rectify systemic inequity.

Watch this short video by CAST to explore an overview of UDL: UDL at a Glance

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Watch this short video by CAST to learn how UDL can help diverse learners in higher education settings: UDL in Higher Education

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Read

Universal Design for Learning is a Philosophy – Not a Practice

Learning Networks and UDL

Informed by cognitive neuroscience, UDL addresses three broad distinct and interrelated learning networks of the brain and UDL has three principles that correspond with these networks. This module is organized by these UDL principles, and here is an overview.

Affective Networks

UDL’s Principle: Provide multiple means of engagement

These networks represent the why of learning and are located at the medial regions of the brain. This area of the brain evaluates patterns and the emotional significance of the information being perceived and stimulates motivation for learning. Learners perceive and respond to new information or tasks differently (e.g., excited, overwhelmed).

To support these networks, it is important to provide a balance of challenge and support, different ways to recruit learners’ interest, and multiple ways to engage learners. It is also important to remind students of goals and objectives to help them stay focused and motivated.

Recognition Networks

UDL’s Principle: Provide multiple means of representation

These networks, being situated at the posterior half of the brain’s cortex, represent the what of learning. This area of the brain helps us gather facts and categorize what we see, hear, and read, but everyone processes information differently. To support different learners’ recognition networks effectively, it is necessary to provide information and content using a variety of media.

Strategic Networks

UDL’s Principle: Provide multiple means of action and expression

These networks represent the how of learning and are situated in the anterior regions of the brain’s cortex. This area of the brain helps us to plan, execute and monitor action and skills. Learners are different in the way they acquire patterns and in higher-level strategies such as planning, organizing, and monitoring. It is important to give students choices, strategies, and appropriate tools for planning and demonstrating their knowledge.

UDL Framework

The UDL framework offers an overarching approach to designing meaningful learning opportunities that address learner variability and suggests purposeful, proactive attention to the design of goals, assessments, methods, and materials.

The UDL Framework was first defined by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) in the 1990s, now simply called CAST.

CAST’s UDL Guidelines are a tool to support educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and more to apply the UDL framework to practice. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

UDL on Campus provides many tangible examples of UDL in Higher Education.

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Principles of UDL Framework

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Now we’ll take a deeper dive into each of the Principles of UDL, and the strategies for implementation in Higher Education.

Principle 1 — Multiple Means of Engagement

Have you heard questions such as: “When will I ever use this in my life?” or “What does this have to do with me?” or “Why do I need to learn this?”?

These questions show how important it is for learners to know the why of learning as we try to engage them with any learning process, be it a classroom activity or an assignment. Yet, learners greatly differ from one another in what attracts their attention and curiosity and how their motivation needs to be stimulated and supported.

This principle addresses why and how we should recruit and sustain students’ interest, motivation, and engagement. It is comprised of the following three guidelines:

Provide options for recruiting interest

Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence

Provide options for self-regulation

Provide Options for Recruiting Interest

Learners tend to be more interested in learning when they understand how the knowledge they’re learning can be useful or meaningful to them. For example, when you keep presenting examples only from a certain social or cultural group, those students who do not belong to that group would not only find little relevance of those examples to them but also feel invisible, marginalized, or excluded, and their interest, motivation, and engagement in the course will decline. Research shows (Student Experience Research Network Blog) a sense of belonging plays a crucial role in students’ academic persistence and success. Therefore, creating multiple ways to engage diverse students’ interest is essential.

Relevancy is key for students, so they understand why they are learning what they are learning. It’s also about making the content relevant to them.

Reflect

What strategies can you use to allow students to recruit interest?

What practices can you implement that offer multiple ways to engage in content?

How can you give students choices to both make the experience relevant to them and give them a sense of ownership of their learning?

How do you create opportunities for your students to develop skills in self-assessment and reflection to improve student success?

Learn more about recruiting interest

Recruiting Interest—same goal, different ways to engage student interest

Optimize individual choice and autonomy

Optimize relevance, value and authenticity

Minimize threats and distractions

Provide Options for Sustaining Effort and Persistence

How can we support our learners to sustain their effort and concentration through the learning process? As learners differ in their initial motivation, some learners need support for remembering the goals and objectives, managing their emotional responses, staying focused on assignments, and/or setting learning goals for each study session. This can be addressed through offering different levels of challenge; fostering community and collaboration; and providing feedback by using reminders, checklists, frameworks, early alerts, progress-oriented support, peer mentoring, and peer support groups.

Characteristics of Good Student Feedback

In this 4-minute video, Gavan Watson introduces four characteristics of effective feedback to improve and sustain student learning.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=278

Reflect

What strategies can you use to sustain effort and persistence?

What practices can you implement that offer

What opportunities exist to incorporate student choice in my professional practice?

How do you create opportunities for your students to develop skills in sustaining effort and persistence to improve student success?

Learn more about Providing Options for Sustaining Effort and Persistence

Sustaining effort and persistence—help learners develop sustained attention and effort

Heighten salience of goals and objectives

Vary demands and resources to optimize challenge

Foster collaboration and communication

Increase mastery-oriented feedback

Provide Options for Self-Regulation

How can we encourage student self-regulation and personal coping skills?

Self-regulation is about setting goals; selecting strategies; observing progress; revisiting and restructuring goals that are not met; managing time; achieving focus amid distractions; self-evaluating the strategies used and adapting them for the future based on lessons learned. While many learners develop these skills on their own, either by trial or observing successful adults, many have difficulties in developing these skills. Therefore, self-regulation skills must be explicitly addressed.

This UDL Guideline offers different strategies on how to become a self-regulated learner, including: a) set personal goals that inspire confidence and ownership of learning; b) facilitate personal coping skills and strategies; and c) increase awareness around progress toward goals and how to learn from mistakes.

All your students have different skills and abilities related to self-regulation. Some students are excellent at setting goals for themselves and following through on them but struggle with staying focused when distracted; some may have strengths in managing time but not in setting goals; some may be really great at self-regulation with topics that interest them and struggle with topics that don’t. For some students in post-secondary education, this may be the first time that they are responsible for their learning, and they may still require a lot of development in these skills, while others may have had life experiences that have allowed them the opportunity to develop self-regulation skills well before they enter your course.

Reflect

What strategies can you use to allow students to develop self-regulation skills?

What practices can you implement that encourage students to take ownership of their learning and implement personal coping skills?

How do you create opportunities for your students to develop skills in self-assessment and reflection to improve student success?

Learn more about providing Options for Self-Regulation

Self-regulation—help learners develop intrinsic abilities to self-regulate

Promote expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation

Facilitate personal coping skills and strategies

Develop self-assessment and reflection

Examples of Strategies to Enhance Engagement

Questions for Considering Multiple Means of Engagement

How can you incorporate variety in your approaches and student learning activities?

How might you incorporate student interaction and collaboration into your professional practice?

How might technology be used to engage students in authentic learning?

What opportunities exist to incorporate student choice?

How can you encourage student self-regulation and personal coping skills?

Recruiting Interest– same goal, different ways to engage student interest	Optimize individual choice and autonomy Optimize relevance, value and authenticity Minimize threats and distractions
Sustaining effort and persistence– help learners develop sustained attention and effort	Heighten salience of goals and objectives Vary demands and resources to optimize challenge Foster collaboration and communication Increase mastery-oriented feedback
Self-regulation– help learners develop intrinsic abilities to self-regulate	Promote expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation Facilitate personal coping skills and strategies Develop self-assessment and reflection

Cynthia Bruce: The importance of being open.

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Principle 2— Multiple Means of Representation

Multiple Means of Representation

Have you ever asked your students…“What does this mean?” or “What do you see in this picture?” and received very different responses?

These varied responses show that we rely on our experiences and prior knowledge to fill in gaps in information to make meaning. Therefore, presenting course content only in one way cannot effectively reach all learners who have different frames of reference. For that, the Multiple Means of Representation guideline encourages us to present course content in multiple ways so that students have different ways to access and engage with the course content.

This principle includes practices that help learners recognize patterns in the information they receive through senses. For example, the recognition network helps us to understand the meaning of text by paying attention to patterns, such as the organization of paragraphs, use of transition words, and choice of words that communicate certain tone and style. Therefore, it is important to help students process information in an intentional and systematic way.

The representation principle is comprised of the following guidelines:

Provide options for perception

Provide options for language and symbols

Provide options for comprehension

UDL Principle Multiple Means of Representation

This 2-minute video focuses on how we can provide multiple means of representation to support the variability in our learners’ recognition networks.

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Provide Options for Perception

Learning can be impossible or difficult when we present key course information in only one format or in formats that require assistance. For example, for many of us printed text may have been the primary format of our educational materials, and some of us may have had no problem with accessing text and may have been good at deriving meaning from it.

However, presenting materials only in text format can be a barrier to many learners, including those who have a vision impairment or a learning disability, such as dyslexia that causes difficulty in reading. To reduce or remove these types of barriers, when possible, you may consider providing textual materials in different formats (e.g., alternative visual, audio), or ensure textual materials are accessible to screen readers (assistive technologies) and allow learners to enlarge text.

In presenting any materials, it is important to explicitly explain what you are trying to teach through those materials.

Read

two-page digital content and media accessibility identify two to three ways to make digital materials more accessible.

Reflect

What strategies can you use to provide options for perception?

How can you ensure that your course materials are accessible to as many students as possible?

How might you present concepts in more than one format?

Learn more about Providing Options for Perception

Perception—same information different ways; format allows for users to adjust

Offer ways of customizing the display of information

Offer alternatives for auditory information

Offer alternatives for visual information

Provide Options for Language and Symbols

Words and symbols can mean different things to people who have different points of reference due to their varying prior knowledge or experiences. When learners do not understand verbal and non-verbal language being used in the course material and delivery, their access to the content knowledge is limited. For example, when course readings are full of jargon that are specific to a certain academic discipline, students who are new to the discipline would have a hard time in understanding the content. Therefore, it is important to provide options for learners to learn about language and symbols (e.g., vocabulary, symbols, syntax, plain language) being used in course materials.

Reflect

What strategies can you use to allow options for students to learn about language and symbols?

What activities could emphasize comprehension of key concepts?

How might you informally gauge students’ understanding of concepts?

Learn more about Providing Options for Language and Symbols

Language, mathematical expressions and symbols—provide alternative representations for clarity and comprehensibility

Clarify vocabulary and symbols

Clarify syntax and structure

Support decoding text, mathematical notation and symbols

Promote understanding across languages

Illustrate through multiple media

Provide Options for Comprehension

Learners vary in their skills for information processing, for accessing and connecting new information to their prior knowledge and for making sense of the new information. For learners to develop knowledge that is useful to them, being presented with new information is not enough. They need to learn how to actively process information so that they can integrate new information with their prior knowledge, categorize their knowledge, and retain information in a systematic way. For example, providing models, scaffolds, and feedback can help learners to build connections to their prior experiences.

Reflect

What strategies can you use to provide options for comprehension?

How can you ensure that your materials are accessible to as many students as possible?

How might you present concepts in more than one format?

Learn more about Providing Options for Comprehension

Comprehension—help learners develop ways to transform information into useable knowledge

Activate or supply background knowledge

Highlight patterns, critical features, big ideas and relationships

Guide information processing, visualization and manipulation

Maximize transfer and generalization

Examples of Strategies to Enhance Representation

Questions for Considering Multiple Means of Representation

How can you ensure that your materials are accessible to as many students as possible?

How might you present concepts in more than one format?

Do you offer opportunities to encourage student agency?

What activities could emphasize comprehension of key concepts?

How might you informally gauge student understanding of concepts?

Perception – same information different ways; format allows for users to adjust	O ffer ways of customizing the display of information Offer alternatives for auditory information Offer alternatives for visual information
Language, mathematical expressions and symbols – provide alternative representations for clarity and comprehensibility	Clarify vocabulary and symbols Clarify syntax and structure Support decoding text, mathematical notation and symbols Promote understanding across languages Illustrate through multiple media
Comprehension – help learners develop ways to transform information into useable knowledge	Activate or supply background knowledge Highlight patterns, critical features, big ideas and relationships Guide information processing, visualization and manipulation Maximize transfer and generalization

Principle 3 — Multiple Means of Action and Expression

Have you ever wondered “How do learners navigate a learning environment?” or “How do learners express what they know?”?

Focusing on the how of learning, this strategic network of the brain recognizes that there is no single means of action or expression that is optimal for all learners. For example, individuals with movement impairment may struggle with a certain learning activity, such as turning pages in textbooks. Other learners may struggle with expressing themselves in speech and/or in writing. Therefore, it is important to provide learners with different options for action and expression.

The Action & Expression principle is comprised of the following guidelines:

Provide options for physical action

Provide options for expression and communication

Provide options for executive functions

Provide Options for Physical Action

When designing our course materials, it is important to provide materials with which all types of learners can interact. For example, educational technologies may raise barriers to learners with movement impairments because their navigation options (e.g., keyboard, touchscreen, touchpads) can be limited. As you take this online module, you may have no problem with navigating the content by scrolling down the screen, but it’s not always the case for those who have moving impairments.

To increase accessibility, we need to optimize our learners’ access to tools, and teach them how to use them effectively. In addition, we should try to make the use of assistive technologies and services, if required, as seamless as possible for our learners.

Reflect

What strategies can you use to allow students options for physical action?

What choices might you offer regarding assignments, communication, and content delivery?

What assistive technologies can students access?

Read

Providing Options for Physical Action

Physical Action—same goals, different motor, strategic and organizational options

Vary the methods for response and navigation

Optimize access to tools and assistive technologies

Provide Options for Expression and Communication

Learners express their knowledge differently: some are comfortable with writing; some prefer to speak; and others may like to draw. The medium (e.g., writing, speaking, drawing) is the vehicle for self-expression and there is no medium of expression that can be equally suited for all learners. To give all learners opportunities to show their knowledge, we need to provide them with alternative modalities to express themselves and share their learning. This way, learners have a fair chance to demonstrate their learning.

Reflect

What practices can you implement that provide options for expression and communication?

How can you use multimedia as a resource?

How might you provide opportunities for feedback?

Learn more about Providing Options for Expression and Communication

Expression and communication—provide learners with different ways to express what they know

Use multiple media for communication

Use multiple tools for construction and composition

Build fluencies with graduated levels of support for practice and performance

Provide Options for Executive Functions

Executive functioning is a term psychologists use to describe the many tasks our brain performs that help individuals learn new information, remember and retrieve information, and use information to solve problems of everyday life. For example, executive functions allow you to organize an event, complete a research project, meet a deadline, and get dressed in the morning. The capacity of executive functions is limited. Therefore, to perform any tasks well, we need to reduce distractions and free up the space in our executive functions so that we can focus and prioritize.

To help our learners develop their executive function skills over time, we need to give them options and prompts to generate ideas and organize tasks, support the development of their working memory by using checklists, course schedules, and reminders, and provide them with different options for monitoring their progress.

Executive Functioning in Online Learning Environments

This short 2-minute video highlights a learner’s struggle with transitioning to an online learning environment.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://caul-cbua.pressbooks.pub/transformingpractice/?p=278

Reflect

This video highlights one student’s journey with the challenges in online learning environments, in particular for students with different executive functioning abilities.

What are three strategies you could use to decrease some of the barriers for this student in the classroom and beyond?

Learn more about Providing Options for Executive Functions

Executive Function—help learners develop deliberate strategies for learning

Guide appropriate goal-setting

Support planning and strategy development

Facilitate managing information and resources

Enhance capacity for monitoring progress

Examples of Strategies to Enhance Action and Expression

Questions for Considering Multiple Means of Action and Expression

What opportunities exist to incorporate multiple means of expression?

How might you provide opportunities for timely feedback?

What choices might you offer students regarding assignments, communication, and content delivery?

What decisions can you make to mitigate student anxiety regarding assessment?

Physical Action – same goals, different motor, strategic and organizational options	Vary the methods for response and navigation Optimize access to tools and assistive technologies
Expression and communication – provide learners with different ways to express what they know	Use multiple media for communication Use multiple tools for construction and composition Build fluencies with graduated levels of support for practice and performance
Executive Function – help learners develop deliberate strategies for learning	Guide appropriate goal-setting Support planning and strategy development Facilitate managing information and resources Enhance capacity for monitoring progress

UDL Summary

The UDL principles of multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression comprise an instructional design model that allows instructors to strive for equitable access for all students. That is, these principles offer options, flexibility, and goals to accommodate diverse learners, regardless of discipline. In addition, UDL prompts faculty and staff to consider how they might improve their own professional practice by considering diversity in the classroom, learning environments, and student voice and agency.

This module has introduced you to UDL’s three principles and guidelines for each principle. Trying to implement all these guidelines can be overwhelming. Here are some suggestions for you to remember as you start implementing what you have learned in this module:

You do not need to change everything all at once. You can redesign your professional practice gradually based on your priorities and available resources. Check at your institutions to determine if there are resources to help with your redesign

Even one small change that you make can have a big impact on everyone. (For example, adding closed captioning to your videos benefits students learning in noisy environments, students with hearing disabilities and students who do not use English as their primary language.)

Proactively design your course with flexibility and options based on the assumption that your students have diverse learning needs. Making retroactive changes or individual accommodations can take you more time and work

Reflect

What engagement challenges do you have in your professional practice?

What UDL strategies on engagement do you currently use?

What would you like to try in your professional practice?

Incorporating UDL

Learn more about incorporating UDL

This UDL Progression Rubric by Katie Novak and Kristan Rodriguez helps you move from emergent, to proficient, to progressing toward expert practice.

This 1-page UDL Rubric by Melissa Toland helps you shift from UDL Explorer to UDL Idol.

How are UDL and CRP Interconnected?

Both frameworks focus on:

Identification and removal of barriers

High expectations for all learners

Building and maintaining relationships

Fostering the learning process

Connections to the neuroscience of learning

Building on strengths

Attitudinal investment and shifts from educators

Is my professional practice going to be completely inclusive and accessible if I use UDL?

No, unfortunately. Like any educational approach, UDL alone does not necessarily make your practice completely inclusive and accessible, although it does give us a very clear and useful framework to start making improvements. Integrating UDL with CRP and other equity-centred practices is critical.

Both UDL and CRP frameworks focus on:

Identification and removal of barriers

High expectations for all learners

Building and maintaining relationships

Fostering the learning process

Connections to the neuroscience of learning

Building on strengths

Attitudinal investment and shifts from educators

CRP and UDL work together to create equitable learning for all students. Both approaches include the use of students’ backgrounds and high expectations for learning. Both UDL and CRP are grounded in neurological science and when implemented, have a positive impact on student learning and wellness.

UDL at Mohawk College

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Reflecting on Systems

Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your institution as a system and how it relates to this module. Think about the written and unwritten rules, policies, procedures, practices, and traditions that define your institution.

Reflect

Reflect on and write a few lines answering these questions:

Who is welcomed and can fully participate?

Who may be excluded, discriminated against, or denied full participation?

Whose norms, values, and perspectives does the institution consider to be normal or legitimate? Whose does it silence, marginalize, or delegitimize?

Who inhabits positions of power within the institution?

Whose experiences, norms, values, and perspectives influence an institution’s laws, policies, and systems of evaluation?

Whose interests does the institution protect?

Systems of Inequity

Thank you for taking the time to reflect on your own institution in relation to this module. Being aware of the policies, procedures, practices, and traditions and how they intentionally or unintentionally privilege some groups over others is a critical first step to making education equitable. The next step is real action to combat the impacts of oppression.

Conclusion

Summary

Universal design for learning, or UDL, is an approach to improve and optimize teaching and learning that helps give ALL students an equal opportunity to succeed. UDL is an evidence-based educational framework based on research in the learning sciences.

In this module you:

Articulated UDL’s rationales and benefits

Described UDL’s principles and practical guidelines

Reflected on UDL examples and identify additional opportunities to apply UDL strategies

Connected the principles and practice of UDL to your professional practice, in bite sized UDL strategy chunks

UDL is an essential framework in the post-secondary sector because:

It designs and plans for learner variability and accessibility

It layers onto other design processes

It is highly adaptive because learning is contextual

It uses flexible means and methods

It is essential for some, and helpful for ALL

Learn More

Most institutions have an accessibility center to help guide and support you with making your course more accessible.

Read:

Top 10 UDL Tips for Designing Engaging Learning Environments – Cast Professional Learning

UDL Strategies – Goalbook Toolkit (goalbookapp.com)

7 Things You Should Know About Universal Design for Learning – educause.edu

Universal Design for Learning — Quick Tips – Access, Colorado State University (colostate.edu)

UDL Guidelines Checklist.pdf (state.wv.us)

Universal Design for Learning and Digital Accessibility: Compatible Partners or a Conflicted Marriage? EDUCAUSEreview. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2018/9/universal-design-for-learning-and-digital-accessibility-compatible-partners-or-a-conflicted-marriage

Watch:

What is Accessibility? (2:06)

Why Accessibility Matters. (2:47) In this short video, Ernie Perez explains how incorporating accessibility and universal design principles into your course is good for all students.

Legal Obligations for Accessibility | The importance of Accessibility: A Faculty’s Perspective (2:22)

Review:

McGill University

McGill University has undertaken, from 2011 to 2015, a system-wide implementation of UDL. Their site offers in-depth explanations of UDL; faculty resources; video resources; information about universal design research; concrete tips for implementing UDL; assistive technology information; and they also offer workshops on request.

Mohawk College

In 2018, Mohawk College completed the “Universal Design for Learning for Technology-enabled Post-secondary Courses” at Mohawk College research project with funding from eCampusOntario.

The two deliverables of this project were a college wide UDL standard for implementation and the UDL Course Assessment; both of which are unique to Mohawk College and its UDL implementation efforts. For more information on these UDL initiatives please visit the Universal Design for Learning Resources page on the Mohawk College website.

To review any of Mohawk College’s other UDL implementation initiatives and resources, please visit the Centre for Teaching and Learning’s Universal Design for Learning page

References

Ableser, J., & Moore, C. (2018, September 10). Universal Design for Learning and Digital Accessibility: Compatible Partners or a Conflicted Marriage? EDUCAUSEreview. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2018/9/universal-design-for-learning-and-digital-accessibility-compatible-partners-or-a-conflicted-marriage

Barsalou, L.W., Breazeal, C., & Smith, L.B. 2007. “Cognition as Coordinated Non-cognition.” Cognitive Processing. Vol. 8, No. 2.

Chen (2008) https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/08/12/importance-universal-design-learning

Chita-Tegmark, M., Gravel, J. W., De Lourdes, M., Serpa, B., Domings, Y., & Rose, D. H. (2011). Using the Universal Design for Learning framework to support culturally diverse learners. The Journal of Education, 192(1), 17–22.

Dean, T., Lee-Post, A., & Hapke, H. (2017). Universal Design for Learning in teaching large lecture classes. Journal of Marketing Education, 39(1), 5–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0273475316662104

Ewert, T.,Johnson, L. T. (2021, April 27). Intro to universal design for learning (UDL) and culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) [Pre-conference session]. Dalhousie Conference on University Teaching and Learning, Halifax, NS, Canada.

Goldberg, E. 2001. The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind. New York, NY: Oxford.Cytowic, R.E. 1996. The Neurological Side of Neuropsychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Hanesworth, P., Bracken, S., & Elkington, S. (2018). A typology for a social justice approach to assessment: Learning from universal design and culturally sustaining pedagogy. Teaching in Higher Education, 0(0), 1–17. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13562517.2018.1465405

Luria, A.R. 1973. The Working Brain. New York, NY: Basic Books.

“Universal Design for Learning.” (n.d.) Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation. University of Toronto. https://teaching.utoronto.ca/teaching-support/udl/

Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education

https://taylorinstitute.ucalgary.ca/resources/universal-design-learning-higher-education

Chapter 8

Student Voice and Agency

Learning Objectives

Articulate definitions of student voice and student agency

Relate the concepts of voice and agency to how your students experience education content, spaces, and relationships

Explore a new framework for understanding student voice and agency

Connect what you’ve learned to your professional practice to provide opportunities for all students to develop and express their voices

Introduction Video

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Examples of Student Voice and Agency

George Swaniker: Let people tell their stories

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Read

Two-Eyed Seeing: Blending perspectives and protecting Unama’ki. NSCC student Kieran Wasuek Johnson follows Elder Albert Marshall’s principle of Etuaptmumk — weaving her traditional knowledge and formal training.

Sharing Black stories, amplifying Black voices | NSCC, about NSCC Radio Television Journalism students shining a light on a land ownership issue in the historically-Black community of North Preston with the launch of the film Untitled: The Legacy of Land in North Preston.

Reflect

What does student voice and agency mean to you?

What levels of student voice and agency do you think are demonstrated in the article?

What factors do you think made it possible for these students to exercise their voice and agency?

Throughout the module, we use this icon to suggest times to reflect on a concept, your professional practice, or yourself. We hope these questions help spark your thinking in new and creative directions.

Reflecting on Identity

Reflecting on our identities and acknowledging how they manifest in our education practice is ongoing work. Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your own identities and how they relate to this module.

Consider your own personal learning about the topic. Where do you fall on the following continuum?

In what ways does my social and geographical location influence my identity, knowledge, and accumulated wisdom? What knowledge am I missing?

What privileges and power do I hold? In what ways do I exercise my power and privilege?

Does my power and privilege show up in my work? If so, how?

Am I aware of if/how my biases and privileges might take up space and silence others?

It’s important to realize that you do not have to be an expert on these topics to actively engage in self-reflection and conversations with students. Being an equity-centred educator requires regular and repeated reflection on the Eurocentric assumptions, knowledges, and ways of being that guide our thoughts and actions.

Being aware of which knowledges, experiences, and ways of being in the world are privileged in your discipline, classroom, and institution are a critical first step to making education equitable. The next step is legitimate action to combat the impacts of oppression.

Unpacking Language: Key Terms

In this section, you’ll engage with several important words and ideas related to student voice and agency. We will only skim the surface of these important, complex, and deep-seated issues.

The purpose of this section is to establish a shared understanding and vocabulary to build on in future modules. This work is essential but is also sometimes uncomfortable. This should not deter us from doing it.

As a staff or faculty member, recognizing and addressing the meanings of these words in your planning and reflection is important. The more clearly a term is articulated, the more likely you are to develop the knowledge and skills to use it. You will also feel more comfortable talking about and using these words in your teaching and interaction with students.

Write:

Take a couple of minutes to write your understanding of the following key terms (don’t worry about getting it right or perfect; the idea is to respond quickly):

student voice

student agency

Review

Now, review the following definitions to see how your understanding of key terms aligns:

student voice:

In education, voice refers to the values, opinions, beliefs, perspectives, and cultural backgrounds of the people in an educational institution and the community it’s in. Voice can also mean the degree to which those values, opinions, beliefs, and perspectives are considered, included, listened to, and acted upon when important decisions are being made.

Voice is often misunderstood as being unified within a group; student voice is an excellent example of this. While post-secondary students may have many interests in common, such as keeping tuition affordable, they come from a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds. This means that in any student body, there will be many student voices.

The concept of voice is sensitive to, inclusive of, and predicated on intersectional layers of diversity, including individual, racial, socio-economic, and cultural diversity. This also means that one person from an equity-seeking group can’t represent or speak for the interests of all people in that group. For example, one 2SLGBTQ+ student activist does not necessarily speak for all 2SLGBTQ+ students, nor should they be assumed to.

Student voice can be seen as an alternative to more traditional forms of governance or instruction in which school administrators and teachers may make unilateral decisions with little or no input from students.

(Adapted from The Glossary of Education Reform.)

Student voice has two parts:

Students have important stories to tell. In telling their stories, they provide insight and enrich the narrative about what it means to be a student, particularly a student associated with an equity-seeking group or groups.

Student voice must include social action. This supports student agency and positions students as agents of change in their schools and communities.

student agency:

“The concept of student agency… is rooted in the principle that students have the ability and the will to positively influence their own lives and the world around them. Student agency is thus defined as the capacity to set a goal, reflect and act responsibly to effect change. It is about acting rather than being acted upon; shaping rather than being shaped; and making responsible decisions and choices rather than accepting those determined by others.

When students are agents in their learning, that is, when they play an active role in deciding what and how they will learn, they tend to show greater motivation to learn and are more likely to define objectives for their learning. These students are also more likely to have “learned how to learn” – an invaluable skill that they can and will use throughout their lives. Agency can be exercised in nearly every context: moral, social, economic, creative.”

OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 Conceptual learning framework – STUDENT AGENCY FOR 2030

Student agency can include:

Influencing course and program topics, activities, and final products

Participating in development, policy, and programming decisions

Sharing ideas about — and solutions to — problems in education spaces and communities

Collaborating with other students, faculty, and staff to engage in research, social action, and institutional change

Enhanced motivation for learning

For students, having a voice is the first step in establishing agency and making an impact on themselves, their institutions, and society. Many students need our support and allyship to amplify their voices and make change for themselves and their communities. Equity-centred practices are part, but not all, of that picture.

Reflect

Brainstorm a list of topics and concerns important to your students — issues they care about and that impact their lives.

How do your students use their voices to raise these topics and concerns? What might be some of the barriers that would stop them?

Can you think of any examples of student agency influencing program or course content or change on your campus?

How do student voice and agency intersect with different aspects of student development, in your experience?

Barriers to Student Participation

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Four Layers of Student Voice and Agency

Activity

Choose one of the following articles and answer the reflection questions.

Finding Her Voice, about NSCC automotive and repair student Gizelle de Guzman’s journey to becoming a mental health advocate Trigger Warning: This article contains references to suicide.

Black Citadel High School students get a glimpse into nursing. This story is about the Community of Black Students in Nursing, a student-led group working to encourage Black Nova Scotian students in nursing careers.

University and other students walk out to protest in favour of Indigenous land rights

Divest holds protest during open house. Divest MtA is a group of Mount Allison University student activists dedicated to promoting fossil fuel divestment at their school

Reflect

What levels of student voice and agency do you think are demonstrated in the article?

What factors do you think made it possible for these students to exercise their voice and agency?

How does the story influence your own understanding and development as a faculty and staff member?

What does cultivating student voice and agency look like?

During Discussions

Group Work and One-on-One

Here are a few other ideas

Tell and hear counterstories

Providing opportunities for students from equity-seeking groups to engage in counterstorytelling can be a powerful way to cultivate voice and agency.

“Counterstorytelling is “a method of telling the stories of those people whose stories are often not told,” especially those who do not belong to the dominant white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied culture (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 26).

Counterstorytelling not only ensures that the voices of BIPOC and other marginalized youth are heard, but it also validates their life experiences, provides a venue for them to share their own narratives and community wealth, and serves as a powerful way to challenge and subvert the versions of reality held by the privileged.

Richard Delgado teaches civil rights and critical race theory at University of Alabama School of Law and suggests that telling and hearing counterstories can help students:

Heal through acknowledging and understanding the historic oppression and persecution their community has faced

Realize that other members of their community have similar feelings and experiences and that they are not alone

Stop blaming themselves or their community for being considered marginalized

Construct narratives that challenge the dominant narrative

Students who are not members of equity-seeking groups also benefit from hearing counterstories, because it helps them decentre their way of seeing the world and consider that there are many other ways to learn and be.

Adapted fromProject READY: Student Voice and Agency.

Ask and listen to students!

This might seem obvious, but one of the easiest and most important things you can do is ask students what they need to succeed. There are many ways to do this, including:

Engaging one-on-one or in small groups with students and getting to know them

Giving students an opportunity to make suggestions and give feedback anonymously

Co-creating learning experiences and objectives with students

Pay attention to who is struggling to connect with others, to communicate, to participate. Reach out to see if you can help.

What are the strengths of the student voice?

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Tianyuan Yu: Using the Council Practice or Talking Circle to hold space for all students to contribute

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Different ways to solicit and gather student voice

There are also many different high-level ways to solicit and gather student voice:

(Source:Other ways of collecting student voice, University of Plymouth)

ways we can engage, include, and amplify student voice

This model also represents a variety of ways we can engage, include, and amplify student voice.

(Source:Other ways of collecting student voice, University of Plymouth)

Reflect

How can you encourage your students to create counterstories?

What would your students need to feel safe sharing their concerns or needs?

What are some things you already do to cultivate student voice and agency?

What would you like to add to your repertoire?

Sharing and Negotiating Power with Students

“I entered the classroom with the conviction that it was crucial for me and every other student to be an active participant, not a passive consumer… education that connects the will to know with the will to become. Learning is a place where paradise can be created.”

~ bell hooks, African American academic, feminist, and social activist

The idea of sharing decision-making and co-creating success with students is relatively new. The traditional view of education positions teachers, administrators, and staff members as authorities. In this view, students are passive receivers of knowledge and rules, and must adapt to the ways of the institution.

The institutional structures we operate in were designed to reinforce an inequitable hierarchy of power and privilege — one we now work to challenge and transform.

Student voice and agency is key to this transformation.

Student Unions and Associations

Student unions are among the most important vehicles for student voice and agency in Canada. Elected by the student body to represent all students at the institution in matters of policy and campus issues, student unions are dedicated to social and organizational activities for, and representation and academic support of their membership. Student unions also provide a range of campus services, and advocate for students locally and nationally.

They can also act on behalf of students on matters such as:

Academic appeals

Student discipline cases such as plagiarism and cheating

Residential tenancy issues

Parking disputes

Library fine appeals

Requests for information

Many student unions in Canada are politically active, getting involved in a wide range of on-campus and community issues.

What can you do?

Take the time to tell your students what the student union is and what it can do for them. Include specific examples of why students should care about the student union

Encourage your students to get involved in their student union; tell them specifically how to get involved

Include links and information about the student union on your website, LMS, and syllabi

Direct students with concerns to the appropriate student union representative

Invite student union representatives into your class

Read

Dalhousie student faces backlash for criticizing ‘white fragility’ of Canada 150: ‘Act of ongoing colonialism’.

Faculty and staff accountability

Equity is a shared responsibility. Students need to know that you’re learning, too.

Checking in with students one-on-one or through tools like exit slips — short written student responses to questions posed after classes, programs, or other interactions are great ways to build relationships and check in. This is the key to students feeling they can share, voice their concerns and be their authentic selves.

What can you do?

Demonstrate your accountability by being transparent about your own learning around equity, diversity, and inclusion

Review your reflections and learning from previous modules, especially Module 2: Personal Privilege and Bias

As a lifelong learner, share what you’ve learned and how your practice has changed — with each other, with students, with family and friends

Integrate your own reflections and learning into class discussions

Invite student feedback specifically about your professional practice as it relates to equity, diversity, and inclusion. If appropriate, find ways for students to give feedback anonymously

Communicate clearly to students that they can approach you if they have concerns around equity, inclusion, or accessibility

Institutional accountability

Power dynamics in education are intimidating. Whether an issue is personal, interpersonal, institutional, or community-focused, students may feel confused, overwhelmed, and disempowered.

Many, if not most, students don’t know where to go or who to approach to advocate for themselves, their group, or their community.

As a faculty member or student services professional, you can amplify student voice and agency by being a resource and a source of encouragement.

What can you do?

At the beginning of each course, program, or relationship, communicate clearly to your students that there are resources, policies, and procedures to support equity at the institution

Give specific information and links on your own website, LMS, and syllabi

Give specific information about your campus’s accessibility services

Be clear that students can approach you in confidence with questions and concerns about institutional inequities, and that you will help point them in the right direction

Be honest if you don’t know what the next step might be for a student with a concern. Help them find out

You don’t have to know everything and be an expert — commit to listening, learning, and guiding

The Navigating Courageous Conversations module covers in more detail how you can create a climate of mutual understanding and co-learning while ensuring that challenging, uncomfortable, and sometimes difficult conversations can still happen.

Reflect

Consider what you’ve learned so far in this module about student voice and agency.

Revisit the list you made of topics and concerns important to your students

Thinking about the four layers of student voice and agency, brainstorm a list of ways you can work with students to cultivate their voices and express their agency. Remember to think collaboratively and focus on student leadership. Think creatively and boldly

Reflecting on Systems

Take a moment to reflect and think deeply about your institution as a system and how it relates to this module. Think about the written and unwritten rules, policies, procedures, practices, and traditions that define your institution.

Reflect

Reflect on and write a few lines answering these questions:

Who is welcomed and can fully participate?

Who may be excluded, discriminated against, or denied full participation?

Whose norms, values, and perspectives does the institution consider to be normal or legitimate? Whose does it silence, marginalize, or delegitimize?

Who inhabits positions of power within the institution?

Whose experiences, norms, values, and perspectives influence an institution’s laws, policies, and systems of evaluation?

Whose interests does the institution protect?

Systems of Inequity

Thank you for taking the time to reflect on your own institution in relation to this module. Being aware of the policies, procedures, practices, and traditions and how they intentionally or unintentionally privilege some groups over others is a critical first step to making education equitable. The next step is real action to combat the impacts of oppression.

Conclusion

Summary

“For voice to be meaningful, there must be those willing to listen.” Pedro Noguera, Distinguished Professor of Education at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and Faculty Director for the Center for the Transformation of Schools at UCLA.

Consider who is listening to your students. Community leaders? Government policymakers? Your institution? You? Look for people and organizations within your institution and in your community who are willing and ready to listen to the voices and ideas of students — and connect your students to them.

Reflect

Think of three actions you can take right away to make and hold space for students whose voices and agency are compromised by inequities and exclusion:

What resources, strategies, or skills can you help your students develop?

What platforms can you make available for students to speak their truths and share their ideas for change?

Learn More

Read:

Theorizing Africentricity in Action: Who We Are Is What We See, an MSVU compilation edited by Delvina Bernard and Dr. Sue Brigham [print on demand].

Academic Well-Being of Racialized Students, by Benita Bunjun, associate professor at Saint Mary’s University

Engaging Student Voices in Higher Education: Diverse Perspectives and Expectations in Partnership

Editors: Simon Lygo-Baker, Ian M. Kinchin, and Naomi E. Winstone

Student Voice in Higher Education Pedagogy, by Mikaela Clark-Gardner and Erin Campbell – CSU Research Report (Concordia)

Engage:

Teaching Tolerance’s Framework for an Anti-Bias Curriculum includes social justice standards. In addition to helping students develop knowledge and skills related to prejudice reduction, many of the standards support voice and agency.

Try:

7 Ways Colleges Can Help Support Students in Speaking Up. This infographic succinctly details how higher education professionals can support student voice and agency.

References

Project READY: Student Voice and Agency.

The Glossary of Education Reform

OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 Conceptual learning framework – STUDENT AGENCY FOR 2030

Other ways of collecting student voice, University of Plymouth

Chapter 9

Transforming Teaching and Learning

Learning Objectives

Reflect on your professional approaches to equity and inclusion to identify strengths and areas to improve.

Build on your teaching approaches by adding equity-centred practices and strategies to your professional toolkit.

Internalize equity-centred guiding principles to provide opportunities for all students to meet high expectations for learning.

Introduction

“Believe it or not, when I walked into the start of this class, I was defeated and didn’t believe in myself. With your help, I started believing that I could achieve the things I wanted to achieve.”

“In one class, you presented one of my answers (anonymously) to the whole class, and it was such a huge encouragement for me. I am proud to let you know that because of your inspiration, I switched my major.”

Have you ever heard comments like this from students? These quotes are reminders that our work as educators can create belonging, inspiration, and equity.

Equity-centred education means embracing student diversity in all forms — race, ethnicity, gender, disability, socio-economic background, ideology, even personality traits like introversion — as an asset. It means designing and teaching courses in ways that foster talent in all students, but especially those who come from groups traditionally underrepresented in higher education. These strategies pay off in all types of courses and classrooms, across disciplines.

In the foundational modules you learned that both universal design for learning (UDL) and culturally responsive/relevant pedagogy and practices (CRP) focus on:

Identification and removal of barriers

High expectations for all learners

Building and maintaining relationships

Fostering the learning process

Connections to the neuroscience of learning

Building on strengths

Attitudinal investment and shifts from educators

CRP and UDL work together to create equitable learning for all students. Both approaches include the use of students’ backgrounds and high expectations for learning. Both CRP and UDL are grounded in neurological science and when implemented, have a positive impact on student learning and wellness.

In addition to CRP and UDL, the foundational modules introduced other essential equity-centred approaches and frameworks. This module will use a set of equity-centred guiding principles intended to build on previous modules to offer guidance as you reflect on and implement these approaches in your professional practice. The aim is to break down equity-centred practices into manageable themes and levels of practice.

The goal? Creating inclusive, equity-centred learning environments and prioritizing student learning.

Equity-Centred Example

Let’s start with a few inspiring examples of equity-centred practices in post-secondary in Nova Scotia.

Mi’kmaw student creates lab at Acadia to share traditional knowledge with future scientists

All first-year biology students at Acadia University now learn about Mi’kmaw traditional knowledge thanks to the efforts of one student who was tired of seeing Indigenous perspectives ignored in science. Leah Creaser, a member of the Acadia First Nation, said she often felt out of place and uncomfortable in her university biology classes.

She remembers taking a first-year lab about plant identification and waiting for her professor to talk about how the Mi’kmaq have been using those same plants for thousands of years. It never happened. “I don’t want to say I got mad, but I was definitely really frustrated to not even see any acknowledgements of any Indigenous peoples at all,” said Creaser, 26, who is now in her fourth year and president of the university’s Indigenous Students Society.

“The fact that the school flies the flag, puts their acknowledgements at the end of their emails, like that’s not enough.” When her professor Juan Carlos López suggested she create her own lab based on Mi’kmaw traditional knowledge as part of a research topic in her third year, she said yes right away and then took it a step further. Creaser wrote the lab from her own perspective, and last fall agreed to teach 120 first-year students some of the traditional plant knowledge she’s learned from her band.

Her lab is now part of the required core biology course at the university. “Decolonization and reconciliation, that is really what’s happening here,” said Creaser. Read the full story.

Danika Berghamer: A positive teaching practicum experience

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Reflect

Can you think of an example from your own practice, your colleagues, or your campus?

In these examples:

How did faculty support the process?

What was the impact on students?

What is your biggest take-away?

Educational Equity

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Throughout the module, we use this icon to suggest times to reflect on a concept, your professional practice, or yourself. We hope these questions help spark your thinking in new and creative directions.

What are Equity-Centered Practices?

“Equity-minded teaching and learning practices, no matter the modality, call on us to look at systemic barriers to achieving educational equity in the learning environment…

Equity is about enacting intentional strategies to address disparities that affect students who are already disproportionately impacted.”

– Jill Provoe, Equity-Minded Practices in Virtual Learning Communities, NSCC, 2020

Equity-centered practices in education consider, incorporate, and make the most of students’ cultures, learning strengths, and accessibility requirements. These strengths-focused approaches build a foundation for all students to achieve equality in educational and life outcomes. They also build our individual and community capacity to dismantle systemic oppression and create a future with equity for all.

Inclusive teaching and learning involve deliberately cultivating a learning environment where all students are treated equitably, have equal access to learning, and feel valued and supported in their learning. Such teaching attends to social identities and seeks to change the ways systemic inequities shape dynamics in teaching-learning spaces; affect individuals’ experiences of those spaces; and influence course and curriculum design.

These guiding principles are informed by and adapted from the inspiring work of others, including:

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion-Minded Practices in Virtual Learning Communities (2019). Jill Provoe, Senior Advisor, Educational Equity Nova Scotia Community College.

“Employing Equity-Minded and Culturally-Affirming Teaching and Learning Practices in Virtual Learning Communities” (2020). Dr. Frank Harris III and Dr. J. Luke Wood.

Learning Equity, Learning Excellence Report (2019). Jodie Black, Liz Stone, Cherylanne James.

Ready for Rigor Framework, (2013). Zaretta Hammond.

Transforming Higher Education Through Universal Design for Learning:

An International Perspective, (2019). Bracken and Novak.

Universal Design for Learning Framework, CAST

The Equity-Centred Guiding Principles

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Use of Equity-Centred Guiding Principles in Teaching and Learning

You are invited to use these interconnected equity-centred principles to guide instructional choices across all domains of learning (including content selection and delivery, interactions among and between students and instructor, and assessment) in order to support inclusive teaching environments. These inclusive educational principles are relevant to any discipline or teaching setting, including remote or hybrid settings.

The Equity-Centred Guiding Principles are not a prescription; they are an evolving set of ideas and practices, based on continuously emerging research and practice. The concepts and language in the principles will continue to evolve. You can mix and match elements of the tool to support specific learning goals, content areas, and contexts.

In the following sections of the module, we include examples of practices, aligned with the principles, relevant to inclusive learning in remote or hybrid settings.

Please Note:

When the term system racism is used in this module, it includes systemic, structural, institutional, environmental racism and oppression.

Table Image: Equity-Centered Guiding Principles Checklist

Text table included here for accessibility reasons:

CRITICALLY ENGAGE ACROSS DIFFERENCE	SHIFT ATTITUDES AND MINDSETS	DESIGN THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT	SUPPORT THE LEARNING PROCESS
R E F L E C T	Identify and name your social identities and locations Persistently reflect on your social identities and locations in relation to systemic racism and oppression inside and outside your institution· Acknowledge systemic inequities· Identify your strengths and weaknesses	Challenge your mindset · Recognize that changing attitudes are key to changing actions· Know equity-centred practices can help all students· Integrate an inclusion mindset to foster innovation, performance, academic and personal success, opportunities, and well-being	Be culturally relevant and affirming Know your own cultural and social lens Learn about diverse cultures, lived experiences, and ways of knowing Connect content, assessment, and approaches/strategies to students’ lived experiences and cultures	Centre equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging Engage in personal and professional learning and development Apply a social justice/ decolonizing/anti-racist/ anti-oppressive lens to programs and environments Commit to designing for diverse learners
B U I L D	Be anti-racist and anti-oppressive Learn about the trauma of systemic racism and oppression Support and validate students’ intersectional identities Reduce students’ social/ emotional stress	Expand your view of students Reorient your view to students as co-learners Value students’ diversities as strengths and build on them Commit to identifying and removing barriers for — and challenging all — students	Foster a community of learning Ground decisions in accessibility and equity Welcome courageous conversations Build a learning community that goes beyond the classroom and institution	Build trusting relationships and rapport. Ground relationships in humility, trust, respect, and care Support students’ ownership of their learning and have high expectations for all students Reach out to students often and engage positively
I N T E R N A L I Z E	Adopt an intersectional lens Recognize students as the subject matter experts in their own lives See students as individuals and acknowledge their intersecting identities and communities Honour a range of expression and communication	Embrace intentionality Plan and design for predictable variability in students’ lived experiences, strengths, and needs Formulate proactive approaches, instead of reactive approaches Work to move responsibility for knowledge and healing from the individual to the community	Cultivate safe(r)/brave learning environments Create intellectually and socially safe(r) learning environments Foster student voice and agency Establish a culture of accountability with equal space for culturally relevant conversations	Strategize for inclusive information processing, engagement, and assessment Maximize choice in expression and assessment and encourage self-reflection Connect your practice to the neuroscience of learning Advance digital equity, offer flexible delivery, and ensure access

These equity-centred practices are not intended as a checklist for ensuring your professional practice is equitable, accessible, and inclusive. Rather, they are designed to help faculty reflect on a range of inclusive teaching practices to reinforce practices already in use and identify new ones for exploration. Links to videos, podcasts, and articles are included under each principle to further your learning.

Here is a suggested way to engage with these lists:

Reflecting upon your teaching practice, do you or would you use any of the following strategies?

✓ I regularly use this or a similar strategy in my teaching

~ I sometimes use this in my teaching

X I do not or would not use this in my teaching/this is not applicable in my setting

✩ I would like to try this, though I may need more information or resources

For ease of use beyond this module, all practices are compiled into a downloadable PDF in Learn More.

We hope this reflection provides a useful basis for further exploration of equity-centred teaching practices, through conversation with colleagues, communities of practice or engaging in relevant scholarship.

1. Critically Engage Across Difference

Review Current Practice

We bring our experience and our expertise into our professional practice. We also bring our social identities. Our social identities include our social relationships, both on a micro (personal) and macro (social) level. For example, our personal identities are based on our experiences, or what makes us unique, while our social identities are based on our group affinities, such as age, gender, race, religion, abilities, sexual orientation, or socio-economic status. Some identities are visible, such as race and assumed gender, while others are invisible, such as abilities, socioeconomic status, and education level.

All our social identities intersect, change, and evolve over time.

Reflect

Reflect on your social identities. How do your social identities impact your decisions and the way you interact with the world? Which parts

are apparent or even invisible in your day-to-day life?

are most critical to your personal sense of yourself?

most affect how others perceive you (positively or negatively)?

have the most effect on how you perceive others?

face the most marginalization — or give you the most advantage — in your community?

What do you think your students would want you to know about their social identities and worldviews?

Have you considered the intersectional identities of your students and how that impacts learning?

Practices to Critically Engage Across Difference

Identify and Name Your Social Identities and Locations

Persistently reflect on your social identities and locations in relation to systemic racism and oppression inside and outside your institution

Acknowledge systemic inequities

Identify your strengths and weaknesses

Be Anti-Racist, Anti-Ableist and Anti-Oppressive

Learn about the trauma of systemic racism and oppression

Support and validate students’ intersectional identities

Reduce students’ social-emotional stress

Adopt An Intersectional Lens

Recognize students as the subject matter experts in their own lives

See students as individuals and acknowledge their intersecting identities and communities

Honour a range of expression and communication

Examples of practices that align with this principle include:

Acknowledge the ways that campus or world events may be creating barriers to students’ capacity to engage in coursework, or their sense of being welcomed and valued; acknowledge the differential impacts developments may have on different students

Model vulnerability by sharing the ways your own identities shape your relationship to your work or the discipline

Deepen your understanding of culture beyond race, language, etc.

Ask students to be mindful of their own positionalities and the range of (more and less visible) identities among students in the course; this supports students’ inclusive interactions with their classmates

Consider opportunities for respectfully integrating Indigenous and African Nova Scotian perspectives and worldviews within your courses

Consider opportunities to integrate anti-racist, anti-ableist, and anti-oppressive perspectives within your courses

Understand microaggressions and how they might occur in both in-person and online environments; be ready to address them

Stay present in dialogue; monitor it regularly and intervene when necessary

Critically reflect on your roles and responsibilities in removing systemic barriers to student success; don’t attribute disparities in outcomes exclusively to perceived deficits in students’ identities, life circumstances, or capabilities

Normalize the fact that students will have a range of background preparation and find ways of highlighting those differences as assets for learning (e.g., learners who are new to material can often pose useful critical questions that help those familiar with the material identify gaps in their understanding or think about the material in new ways)

Provide opportunities for students to consider the relevance of course concepts to concerns of communities that they are part of

Draw examples you use to illustrate course concepts from a range of social or cultural domains. Or invite students to identify examples from their own arenas of knowledge or expertise

Use a background questionnaire early in the term to learn about individual students’ past academic experiences, goals, concerns, or other information that could help you plan relevant and inclusive learning opportunities

Choose course materials and activities with a range of student circumstances in mind (e.g., physical abilities and disabilities, financial and technological resources, time commitments such as work or family care obligations)

Proactively invite requests for accommodations as a chance to include everyone more fully in learning (through a non-stigmatizing syllabus statement, a reminder in class, an email); be inclusive in your messaging to not single out students who require accommodations

Communicate concern for students’ well-being, and share information about campus resources (e.g., Counseling & Psychological Services, Sexual Assault Prevention & Awareness Center, Services for Students with Disabilities, Indigenous Advisors, Black Student Advisors)

Ask students for concrete observations about content (e.g., simply describe an image, passage, or diagram) before moving to analytical questions; this can provide everyone a common starting point, highlight multiple different approaches, and model analytical processes you want to teach

Present course material in a variety of modalities (readings, diagrams, lectures, podcasts) rather than relying on one mode of engagement

Accompany verbal instructions with a written corollary; multiple modes can be helpful to students with processing disabilities as well as multilingual learners

Internalize Your Learning

Reflect

What other strategies do you use to acknowledge or affirm students’ different identities, strengths, or needs in your courses? What else could you do?

Choose another question from this list that resonates for you:

What is one tiny shift you can make today that would have the most significant impact on your students?

Where do you feel this work is most urgently needed?

What area or topic makes you feel the most uncomfortable and what will you do to tackle that?

What has emerged for you that you can meaningfully act on today?

Where do you feel most alive in this work?

What’s your biggest take-away so far that affirms one of your own values?

Learn more about Critical Engagement Across Differences

Watch

Danika Berghamer: Not knowing something is an opportunity to learn and grow

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Jean-Blaise Samou: Institutional strategies for change

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Tereigh Ewert: Our task is to expect and pursue academic success for all students

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Jean-Blaise Samou: Decolonize your own perspective and co-create knowledge with your students

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Kimberlé Crenshaw: What is Intersectionality?

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Niigaanwewidam (James) Sinclair: What does an Indigenous University Look Like?

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Read

First Peoples Principles of Learning

First Nations, Metis and Inuit Perspectives in Curriculum

Student Survey Questions to Assess Classroom Climate and Potential Microaggressions

University of Alberta Creates Hub for Intersectional Gender Research

Innovative Designs for Accessibility Student Competition

Examples of Microaggressions in the Classroom

First Nations Pedagogy

Nguzo Saba Principles

2. Shift Attitudes and Mindsets

Reflect

Review current practice

How do you recognize that changing attitudes are key to changing action?

How do you see students as co-learners?

How do you consider the life experiences of the students when offering services and consciously create a safer learning environment?

How do you offer multiple options for accessing services so that students may interact in a way that is compatible to their learning needs?

Practices to Shift Attitudes and Mindsets

Challenge Your Mindset

Recognize that changing attitudes are key to changing actions

Know equity-centred practices can help all students

Integrate an inclusion mindset to foster innovation, performance, academic and personal success, opportunities, and well-being

Expand Your View of Students

Reorient your view to students as co-learners

Value students’ diversities as strengths and build on them

Commit to identifying and removing barriers for — and challenging all — students

Embrace Intentionality

Plan and design for predictable variability in students’ lived experiences, strengths, and needs

Formulate proactive approaches, instead of reactive approaches

Work to move responsibility for knowledge and healing from the individual to the community

Examples of practices that align with this principle include:

Embrace learning and inclusive mindsets; accept vulnerability as without it, you miss key opportunities for growth

Cultivate growth mindsets: Allow for productive trial and error (e.g., through low-stakes practice quizzes, drafting opportunities, modeling, or discussion of interestingly productive wrong answers). Emphasize that risk, struggle, and failure can be important parts of any learning process and/or the scientific method.

Communicate high expectations and your belief that all students can succeed

Remember that service provision is a teaching and learning interaction/ experience in both directions

Hold high expectations for performance — for your students and for yourself

Reject deficit perspectives about students’ intellectual capacities or fit for higher education; validation and positive messaging are critical

Tell students, “you belong;” “you can do the work;” “you can succeed;” “you have the ability;” and “you are intelligent”

Seek opportunities to expand your own knowledge and skills in helping students with specific concerns (e.g., bias, navigating systems of oppression) as well as interfacing with equity groups

Be open to feedback on barriers

Establish rapport with students, groups, colleagues, and others that acknowledge differences in lived experience

Ensure all students feel welcome as an integral part of the institution

Learn students’ names to create the feeling of more than a number

Engage in continual relationship building

Have an open mic session for students to ask general/informal questions. Or use an anonymized tool such as a question box if students do not want to be identified

Use external community supports (like the Youth Project) to do presentations/ training for faculty and students on gender identity

Exhibit culturally inclusive active listening skills (e.g., appropriately establishing interpersonal contact, paraphrasing, perception checking, summarizing, questioning, encouraging, avoid interrupting, clarifying)

Allow for flexibility when assisting students who feel uncomfortable with current processes. When a student feels intimidated going to a formal meeting invite them to meet in the cafeteria over coffee and allow for pauses so students can formulate thoughts and have a chance to speak without feeling they are interrupting

Consistently update student information to ensure all populations are included in approaches

Demonstrate culturally inclusive advising, supporting, coaching, and counseling strategies

Design or modify services and programs to support well-being and a positive organizational culture and ethic of care, considering students holistically

Bradley Sheppard: Having an inclusive mindset

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Danika Berghamer: Not knowing something is an opportunity to learn and grow

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Emily Duffett: Be open to dialogue about barriers, and how to help

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Bradley Sheppard: The power of learning students’ names

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Jean-Blaise Samou: Putting students at the centre

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Read

CAST webinar slide deck on The Language of UDL: Shifting Mindsets. You can also listen to the audio recording of the presentation here.

Language of Appeasement to learn more about critical perspectives on inclusion.

Engineers Canada creates an inclusive environment for LGBTQ students

Universities across Canada make way for the “non-traditional” student

UDL and Growth Mindsets

Internalize Your Learning

Reflect

What other ways do you help facilitate students’ sense of belonging in your practice? What else could you do?

Choose another question from this list that resonates for you:

What is one tiny shift you can make today that would have the most significant impact on your students?

Where do you feel this work is most urgently needed?

What area or topic makes you feel the most uncomfortable and what will you do to tackle that?

What has emerged for you that you can meaningfully act on today?

Where do you feel most alive in this work?

What’s your biggest take-away so far that affirms one of your own values?

3. Design the Learning Environment

Reflect

Review current practice

How is the learning environment welcoming and accessible to all individuals of differing skills and abilities?

How do you foster student voice and agency?

How are you open and engaging to all students and share a belief in their equitable treatment?

How do you welcome and inclusively navigate courageous conversations?

How do you connect content, assessment, and approaches/strategies to students’ lived experiences and cultures?

Practices to Design the Learning Environment

Be Culturally Relevant and Affirming

Know your own cultural and social lens

Learn about diverse cultures, lived experiences, and ways of knowing

Connect content, assessment, and approaches/strategies to students’ lived experiences and cultures

Foster A Community of Learning

Ground decisions in accessibility and equity

Welcome courageous conversations

Build a learning community that goes beyond the classroom and institution

Cultivate Safe(R)/Brave Learning Environments

Create intellectually and socially safe(r) learning environments

Foster student voice and agency

Establish a culture of accountability with equal space for culturally relevant conversations

Examples of practices that align with this principle include:

Recognize the importance of students’ physical, emotional, spiritual, and social well-being in learning, development, and success

Demonstrate a willingness and capacity to generate, critically examine, and change policies and practices that privilege one group of students or educational stakeholders over another

Perceive and analyze unspoken dynamics in a group setting

Create dedicated opportunities (time during class, dedicated office hours, online forms, etc.) for students to ask questions about assignments and expectations

Invite students to share information about their own expectations about the learning environment based on their prior experiences to help you understand where your expectations may be mismatched and what you might need to explain

Explicitly communicate the purpose, task, and assessment criteria for graded assignments; also identify any assumed capacities, abilities, skills, or prior knowledge embedded in your assignments or course learning activities, and connect students to resources that help them bolster those skills if necessary

Explain the learning objectives of activities you use class time for (e.g., discussion of readings, lectures, critique of peers’ work, independent work on projects)

Ensure information is created in multiple formats

Make your documents, presentations, and websites accessible (there are website accessibility guidelines) and check with your Centre for Learning and Teaching center or IT supports

Make your online meetings more accessible (see the Nova Scotia Accessibility Directorate‘s guide online for tips).

Make videos accessible (e.g. use closed captions, have ASL interpreters when possible, create transcriptions)

Clearly articulate core course learning objectives so you can make deliberate decisions about what elements in the course can be revised, adapted, or made optional in response to individual and/or collective student needs.

Build in opportunities for student choice, for example, flexible or self-paced deadlines for assignments if possible; multiple options for topics or modalities for assignments; optional opportunities for instructor or peer feedback on drafts

Design course policies that provide clear pathways if students need to be absent, turn in work late, leave class early, etc.; explain how these are designed to support student learning when unforeseen circumstances arise; avoid framing such policies as simply punitive

Solicit feedback from students about what teaching approaches or technologies work best for their learning and be willing to make adjustments accordingly when you can

Regularly assess student understanding of key course concepts so you can provide relevant instruction or access to supplementary materials to fill common gaps

Prioritize student learning needs when content coverage is in tension with responding to student learning needs; be willing to adjust lecture pace, reduce information on slides, make course materials available to students for study and exam preparation, etc.

Learn about students’ prior skill and familiarity before introducing a new technology in your course; gauge how demanding learning the technology is likely to be and to make informed decisions about students’ capacity to add that learning to the core learning in your course.

Design your course with both synchronous and asynchronous options for participation; flexible design choices can help you adapt to changing conditions and meet student needs as they arise

Bradley Sheppard: Perspective taking – Asking yourself how you would feel in the same situation

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Rashida Symonds: The importance of enjoyment in learning, and acting on student feedback

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Cynthia Bruce: Why it’s important to provide learning materials in multiple accessible formats

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Cynthia Bruce: Use multiple formats when posting pre-recorded lectures online, and always anticipate the broadest spectrum of learners

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Empowering Students to Own the Assessment Process

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Read

Key UDL Questions to Consider when Designing Lessons

Student Voice inside Higher Ed.

Make class a safe space with Oops/Ouch Method

Internalize Your Learning

Reflect

What other strategies do you use to acknowledge or affirm students’ different identities, strengths, or needs in your courses? What else could you do?

Choose another question from this list that resonates for you:

What is one tiny shift you can make today that would have the most significant impact on your students?

Where do you feel this work is most urgently needed?

What area or topic makes you feel the most uncomfortable and what will you do to tackle that?

What has emerged for you that you can meaningfully act on today?

Where do you feel most alive in this work?

What’s your biggest take-away so far that affirms one of your own values?

4. Support the Learning Process

Reflect

Review current practice

How do you centre equity, diversity, and inclusion in your practice?

How do you ground relationships in humility, trust, respect, and care?

What are your strategies for inclusive information processing, engagement, and assessment?

How do you maximize choice in expression and assessment and encourage self-reflection?

Practices to Support the Learning Process

Centre Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Engage in personal and professional learning and development

Apply a social justice/decolonizing/anti-racist/anti-ableist/anti-oppressive lens to programs and environments

Commit to designing for diverse learners

Build Authentic Relationships and Rapport

Ground relationships in humility, trust, respect, and care

Support students’ ownership of their learning and have high expectations for all students

Reach out to students often and engage positively

Strategize For Inclusive Information Processing, Engagement, and Assessment

Maximize choice in expression and assessment and encourage self-reflection

Connect your practice to the neuroscience of learning

Advance digital equity, offer flexible delivery, and ensure access

Examples of practices that align with this principle include:

Learn and use students’ names and pronouns, and encourage them to learn and use one another’s, accurately pronounced and spelled; be aware that what students choose to be called may differ from the name that appears on your class roster

Build rapport in the class through regular icebreakers, small group activities, collaborative thinking, etc.

In course materials, meetings, and communications, express your commitment to creating an accessible, inclusive course, and invite student feedback about practices that do and don’t facilitate that goal

Assess students’ prior knowledge about your field and topics so you can accurately align instruction with their strengths and needs

Encourage or require students to visit office hours early in the term, and use that time to ask about their interests and experiences with course material

Highlight the diversity of contributors to your discipline (through the authors you assign, the research you highlight, the guests you invite to meet with your students, etc.), and/or sponsor discussion about the reasons for a history of limited access to the field and current efforts to change it

Seek to identify professionals who bring a range of backgrounds, including identities that are different from yours, when inviting outside critics or speakers

Prepare outside visitors to contribute to the inclusive environment of your class meetings (e.g., make sure they are aware of community norms, accessibility needs, etc.)

Deliberately avoid generalizations that may exclude students who are already experiencing marginalization on campus; these are often communicated through phrases (e.g, “when you go home for Thanksgiving,” “if you have a child some day,” “just walk over to my office,” “it only costs $x”) that make implicit assumptions about students’ physical ability, family structure, social identities, citizenship status, or economic means.

Create intentional opportunities for students to provide feedback on their experience of the learning environment and share ideas for improving it; this could include short anonymous polls, check-ins at the beginning of a class meeting, or more substantial written feedback opportunities.

Online, invite students to create short videos about themselves as a way to start building meaningful relationships; in person, find safe ways for students to meet and get to know each other

Convey unconditional positive regard; see your students as being fully capable of succeeding; approach them in non-judgmental ways

Develop discussion guidelines or community agreements about interactions during class (see examples at crlt.umich.edu/examples-discussion-guidelines); reflect upon those guidelines with students at strategic points throughout the term; revise them when useful

Use strategies for including a range of voices in facilitated discussions, for example, take a queue; ask to hear from those who have not spoken; wait until several hands are raised to call on anyone; or use paired or small group conversations to seed larger discussion

Give all students time to gather their thoughts in writing before sharing ideas with the whole group

Task students to work in pairs or small groups on brief, well-defined activities (with a timeline and specific goals/outcomes)

Assign student groups/teams or provide criteria for student-formed groups/teams that both help leverage diversity and avoid isolating students from underrepresented identities, when possible

Create time and a process for students to discuss their respective strengths, personal learning goals, anticipated contributions, etc. at the beginning of group or team projects

Give students regular opportunities to reflect upon ways their learning has been enhanced by interaction with classmates; this could be as simple as asking them to reflect on their learning at the end of a session with the question, “What did you learn from someone else today?”

Establish processes for ensuring you’re giving equitable time and attention to each student

Reflect

George Swaniker: Help students feel like they belong

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Rashida Symonds: Giving students options for demonstrating their learning

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Tianyan Yu: The importance of giving all people an opportunity to speak in the classroom and in meetings

Please Note: It may be problematic to suggest that folks who are already marginalized are singled out to speak in a meeting first. This video demonstrates one suggestion but might further marginalize some people.

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Jean-Blaise Samou: The benefits and challenges of diverse discussion groups

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Read

Strategies for anti-racist and decolonized teaching – Anamika Twyman-Ghoshal, PhD, and Danielle Carkin Lacorazza, PhD.

Why I put pronouns on my email signature – Max Masure (they/them)

Tips for Building Student Voice and Agency – XQTeachers

Resources for Inclusive Digital Pedagogy – compiled by Esther Lherisson

Reflect

What other ways do you build flexibility into your courses to support and respond to students’ range of needs and circumstances? What else could you do?

Choose another question from this list that resonates for you:

What is one tiny shift you can make today that would have the most significant impact on your students?

Where do you feel this work is most urgently needed?

What area or topic makes you feel the most uncomfortable and what will you do to tackle that?

What has emerged for you that you can meaningfully act on today?

Where do you feel most alive in this work?

What’s your biggest take-away so far that affirms one of your own values?

Conclusion

Summary

Remember that becoming an equity-centered educator is a process that will happen over time and with conscious effort. You do not need to know and understand everything to do better and do more for your students.

“[P]eople will falter throughout their EDI work, whether they’re an EDI novice or expert, faltering is okay as long as you remain accountable and take the time to learn from those missteps. The primary goal is to keep your students safe and, therefore, taking ownership of your mistakes and continuing to learn and grow your equity practice is critical and will allow you to come back stronger than ever.”

– Jill Provoe, in Equity-Minded Practices in Virtual Learning Communities, NSCC, 2020

We hope the guiding principles and sample promising practices we’ve outlined here provide a road map to make sure your classroom interactions and course design reach all students. When we as faculty members include more students in the learning, we empower them to achieve and show that we care about them and their sense of belonging.

Learn More

Download:

Transforming Teaching and Learning Practices

Read:

The Quiet Revolution. A website that provides resources and stories for and about introverts. Susan Cain

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Diversity Toolkit Diversity Toolkit: A Guide to Discussing Identity, Power and Privilege

Pulling Together: A guide for Indigenization of post-secondary institutions Professional Learning Series, BCCampus [downloadable book]

Online Equity Rubric Distance Education, Peralta Colleges

Review:

CSIE current resources Review the resource list, including “Equality, Making it Happen,” A guide to help schools ensure everyone is safe, included and learning (2016). Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education

Collections of Instructional Strategies

Read:

This list of sample instructional strategies from UBC.

This is a collection of practical ideas collected by York University offered for use by the educational development community. Based on the notion of a cookbook put together by a community we offer Starters (ice breakers), Main Courses (ideas for workshops and events) and Desserts (ways to obtain feedback or evaluation).

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Resources

Read:

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion-Minded Practices in Virtual Learning Environments – Jill Provo, NSCC

Universal Instructional Design, Creating an Accessible Curriculum. AccessAbility Services, University of Toronto https://teaching.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Universal-Instructional-Design.pdf

How to Make Your Teaching More Inclusive – The Chronicle of Education’s Advice Guide by Viji Sathy and Kelly A. Hogan

Strategies for Antiracist and Decolonized Teaching by Anamika Twyman-Ghoshal and Danielle Carkin Lacorazza. Faculty Focus, Higher Ed Teaching Strategies from Magna Publications

“Inclusive Teaching,” published in April 2019, by Bryan Dewsbury and Cynthia J. Brame, as part of the CBE—Life Sciences Education series of “Evidence-Based Teaching Guides.”

“Structure Matters: Twenty-One Teaching Strategies to Promote Student Engagement and Cultivate Classroom Equity,” published in CBE—Life Sciences Education, by Kimberly D. Tanner.

“Getting Under the Hood: How and for Whom Does Increasing Course Structure Work?,” by Sarah L. Eddy and Kelly A. Hogan, published online in 2017 in CBE—Life Sciences Education.

Listen:

On the Teaching in Higher Ed [podcast]. A 2018 episode featured how “interactivity and inclusivity can help close the achievement gap.”

Review:

The University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching has a web page on “inclusive teaching resources and strategies.”

Brown University’s Center for Teaching and Learning offers a helpful web page on inclusive teaching.

References

Black, J.Stone, L., & James, C. (2019). Learning Equity, Learning Excellence Report

Bracken, S.,Novak, K (Eds.). (2019). Transforming Higher Education Through Universal Design for Learning: An International Perspective. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group. https://www.routledge.com/Transforming-Higher-Education-Through-Universal-Design-for-Learning-An/Bracken-Novak/p/book/9780815354734

CAST (2018). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. Universal Design for Learning Framework in Universal Design for Learning Guidelines (version 2.2). Retrieved from http://udlguidelines.cast.org

Center for Research on Learning & Teaching. (n.d.) “Inclusive Teaching Research.” University of Michigan

https://crlt.umich.edu/research-basis-inclusive-teaching

Harris, F., Wood, J.L. (2020) “Employing Equity-Minded and Culturally-Affirming Teaching and Learning Practices in Virtual Learning Communities”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMrf_MC5COk

Hammond, Z. (2013) “Ready for Rigor Framework.” In Culturally Responsive Teaching. https://www.amazon.ca/Culturally-Responsive-Teaching-Brain-Linguistically/dp/1483308014

Provoe, J. (2019) Equity, Diversity and Inclusion-Minded Practices in Virtual Learning Communities. Nova Scotia Community College.

Twyman-Ghoshal, A.,Carkin Lacorazza,D. (2021, March 31). “Strategies for Antiracist and Decolonized Teaching.”

https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/equality-inclusion-and-diversity/strategies-for-antiracist-and-decolonized-teaching/?st=FFWeekly%3Bsc%3DFFWeekly210331%3Butm_term%3DFFWeekly210331&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Strategies+for+Antiracist+and+Decolonized+Teaching&utm_campaign=FF210331

Chapter 10

Transforming Student Services

Learning Objectives

Reflect on your professional approaches to equity and inclusion to identify strengths and areas to improve.

Build on your service delivery approaches by adding promising practices and strategies to your professional toolkit.

Internalize equity-centred guiding principles to provide opportunities for all students to meet high expectations for learning.

Introduction

“Believe it or not, when I walked into this appointment, I was defeated and didn’t believe in myself. With your help, I started believing that I could achieve the things I wanted to achieve.”

“I walked into the room and saw people who looked like me and felt like I belonged.”

“The different options for accessing services on campus is refreshing. I don’t have to ask for what I need all of the time.”

Have you ever heard comments like this from students? These quotes are reminders that our work as educators creates belonging, inspiration, and equity.

Equity-centred education means embracing student diversity in all forms — race, ethnicity, gender, disability, socioeconomic background, ideology, even personality traits like introversion — as an asset. It means designing and delivering services in ways that foster talent in all students, but especially those who come from groups traditionally underrepresented in higher education. These strategies pay off across the range of student services.

In the foundational modules you learned that both universal design for learning (UDL) and culturally responsive/relevant pedagogy and practices (CRP) focus on:

Identification and removal of barriers

High expectations for all learners

Building and maintaining relationships

Fostering the learning process

Connections to the neuroscience of learning

Building on strengths

Attitudinal investment and shifts from educators

CRP and UDL work together to create equitable learning for all students. Both approaches include the use of students’ backgrounds and high expectations for learning. Both CRP and UDL are grounded in neurological science and when implemented, have a positive impact on student learning and wellness.

In addition to CRP and UDL the foundational modules introduced other essential equity-centred approaches and frameworks. This module will use a set of equity-centred guiding principles intended to build on previous modules to offer guidance as you reflect on and implement these approaches in your professional practice. The aim is to break down equity-centred practices into manageable themes and levels of practice.

The goal? Creating inclusive, equity-centred learning environments and prioritizing student learning.

Equity-Centred Example

Let’s start with a few inspiring examples of equity-centred student services.

Sarah may need to register for classes and receive advisement over email after putting her kids to sleep, but these expanded service hours mean that George can also interface with his advisor while he’s studying abroad in Japan, and Aparna can go to her professor’s office hours instead of waiting in line at student accounts to pay her fee.

Service providers are employing technology to allow students to complete transactions online at any hour, using chat as an additional channel for getting help, and increasing visibility and face time with students by offering pop-up service stations at the place and time of need. With the help of new technologies and networks that expand the possibilities of what can be done (as well as when and how), many campuses are already making progress creating more opportunities that are critical for the needs of the few, but beneficial for the student population as a whole.

The Sankofa Scholarships at Dalhousie University were created as an act of reparative justice to help address systemic barriers faced by students from these backgrounds, and, in particular, those from Black communities in the Caribbean, Canada and Nova Scotia.

Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) and Women Unlimited offer a free, 14-week program that allows women to explore their interests in the trades or technologies.

Many institutions across Nova Scotia offer flexible admissions processes for non-traditional applications.

Mount Saint Vincent University (MSVU) offers an Masters of Education in Lifelong Learning with a focus on Africentric Leadership.

NSCC offers an Early Childhood Education Program grounded in a Mi’kmaw worldview.

A group of Mi’kmaq women celebrated their graduation from an early childhood education program offered at the Nova Scotia Community College on Saturday. The program was designed by Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey, an organization that represents the educational interests of 12 Mi’kmaw communities in Nova Scotia, in partnership with NSCC to reflect the unique culture, language and community needs of Mi’kmaq children in the province.

Reflect

Can you think of an example of an equity-centred initiative, program, or practice on your campus or from your own work?

In these examples:

How did student services staff support the process?

What was the impact on students?

What is your biggest take-away?

What are student services?

Transforming Student Services

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Student Services Overview

The foundational modules introduced universal design for learning (UDL); culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP), and other essential equity-centred approaches and frameworks. This set of guiding principles is intended to build on previous modules to offer guidance as you reflect on and implement these approaches in your professional practice.

The Equity-Centred Guiding Principles are not a prescription; they are an evolving set of ideas and practices, based on continuously emerging research and practice. The concepts and language in these principles will continue to evolve. Feel free to mix and match elements of the tool to support specific learning goals, content areas, and contexts.

The goal? Creating inclusive, equity-centred learning environments and prioritizing student learning. To begin, we invite you to first evaluate where you are, and make a plan for where you need to go. The aim is to break down equity-centred practices into manageable themes and levels of practice.

What are Equity-Centered Practices?

“Equity-minded teaching and learning practices, no matter the modality, call on us to look at systemic barriers to achieving educational equity in the learning environment…

Equity is about enacting intentional strategies to address disparities that affect students who are already disproportionately impacted.”

– Jill Provoe, Equity-Minded Practices in Virtual Learning Communities, NSCC, 2020

Equity-centered practices in education consider, incorporate, and make the most of students’ cultures, learning strengths, and accessibility requirements. These strengths-focused approaches build a foundation for all students to achieve equality in educational and life outcomes. They also build our individual and community capacity to dismantle systemic oppression and create a future with equity for all.

Inclusive learning involves deliberately cultivating a learning environment where all students are treated equitably, have equal access to learning, and feel valued and supported in their learning. Such teaching attends to social identities and seeks to change the ways systemic inequities shape dynamics in teaching-learning spaces, affect individuals’ experiences of those spaces, and influence course and curriculum design.

These guiding principles are informed by and adapted from the inspiring work of others, including:

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion-Minded Practices in Virtual Learning Communities (2019). Jill Provoe, Senior Advisor, Educational Equity Nova Scotia Community College.

“Employing Equity-Minded and Culturally-Affirming Teaching and Learning Practices in Virtual Learning Communities” (2020). Dr. Frank Harris III and Dr. J. Luke Wood.

Learning Equity, Learning Excellence Report (2019). Jodie Black, Liz Stone, Cherylanne James.

Ready for Rigor Framework, (2013). Zaretta Hammond.

Transforming Higher Education Through Universal Design for Learning:

An International Perspective, (2019). Bracken and Novak.

Universal Design for Learning Framework, CAST

Equity-Centred Guiding Principles

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You are invited to use these interconnected equity-centred principles to guide your professional practice in student services. These inclusive educational principles are relevant to any learning setting, including one-on-one, group, remote, or hybrid settings.

The Equity-Centred Guiding Principles are not a prescription; they are an evolving set of ideas and practices, based on continuously emerging research and practice. The concepts and language in the principles will continue to evolve. You can mix and match practices to support specific learning goals, content areas, and contexts.

In the following sections of the module, we include examples of practices, aligned with the principles, relevant to inclusive learning in remote or hybrid settings.

Please Note:

When the term system racism is used in this module, it includes systemic, structural, institutional, environmental racism and oppression.

Table Image: Equity-Centered Guiding Principles Checklist

Text table included here for accessibility reasons:

CRITICALLY ENGAGE ACROSS DIFFERENCE	SHIFT ATTITUDES AND MINDSETS	DESIGN THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT	SUPPORT THE LEARNING PROCESS
R E F L E C T	Identify and name your social identities and locations Persistently reflect on your social identities and locations in relation to systemic racism and oppression inside and outside your institution· Acknowledge systemic inequities· Identify your strengths and weaknesses	Challenge your mindset · Recognize that changing attitudes are key to changing actions· Know equity-centred practices can help all students· Integrate an inclusion mindset to foster innovation, performance, academic and personal success, opportunities, and well-being	Be culturally relevant and affirming Know your own cultural and social lens Learn about diverse cultures, lived experiences, and ways of knowing Connect content, assessment, and approaches/strategies to students’ lived experiences and cultures	Centre equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging Engage in personal and professional learning and development Apply a social justice/ decolonizing/anti-racist/ anti-oppressive lens to programs and environments Commit to designing for diverse learners
B U I L D	Be anti-racist and anti-oppressive Learn about the trauma of systemic racism and oppression Support and validate students’ intersectional identities Reduce students’ social/ emotional stress	Expand your view of students Reorient your view to students as co-learners Value students’ diversities as strengths and build on them Commit to identifying and removing barriers for — and challenging all — students	Foster a community of learning Ground decisions in accessibility and equity Welcome courageous conversations Build a learning community that goes beyond the classroom and institution	Build trusting relationships and rapport. Ground relationships in humility, trust, respect, and care Support students’ ownership of their learning and have high expectations for all students Reach out to students often and engage positively
I N T E R N A L I Z E	Adopt an intersectional lens Recognize students as the subject matter experts in their own lives See students as individuals and acknowledge their intersecting identities and communities Honour a range of expression and communication	Embrace intentionality Plan and design for predictable variability in students’ lived experiences, strengths, and needs Formulate proactive approaches, instead of reactive approaches Work to move responsibility for knowledge and healing from the individual to the community	Cultivate safe(r)/brave learning environments Create intellectually and socially safe(r) learning environments Foster student voice and agency Establish a culture of accountability with equal space for culturally relevant conversations	Strategize for inclusive information processing, engagement, and assessment Maximize choice in expression and assessment and encourage self-reflection Connect your practice to the neuroscience of learning Advance digital equity, offer flexible delivery, and ensure access

These equity-centred practices are not intended as a checklist for ensuring your professional practice is equitable, accessible, and inclusive. Rather, they are designed to help faculty reflect on a range of inclusive teaching practices to reinforce practices already in use and identify new ones for exploration. Links to videos, podcasts, and articles are included under each principle to further your learning.

Here is a suggested way to engage with these lists:

Reflecting upon your teaching practice, do you or would you use any of the following strategies?

✓ I regularly use this or a similar strategy in my teaching

~ I sometimes use this in my teaching

X I do not or would not use this in my teaching/this is not applicable in my setting

✩ I would like to try this, though I may need more information or resources

For ease of use beyond this module, all practices are compiled into a downloadable PDF in Learn More.

We hope this reflection provides a useful basis for further exploration of equity-centred teaching practices, through conversation with colleagues, communities of practice or engaging in relevant scholarship.

1. Critically Engage Across Difference

Review Current Practice

We bring our experience and our expertise into our professional practice. We also bring our social identities. Our social identities include our social relationships, both on a micro (personal) and macro (social) level. For example, our personal identities are based on our experiences, or what makes us unique, while our social identities are based on our group affinities, such as age, gender, race, religion, abilities, sexual orientation, or socio-economic status. Some identities are visible, such as race and assumed gender, while others are invisible, such as abilities, socioeconomic status, and education level.

All our social identities intersect, change, and evolve over time.

Reflect

Reflect on your social identities. How do your social identities impact your decisions and the way you interact with the world? Which parts

are apparent or even invisible in your day-to-day life?

are most critical to your personal sense of yourself?

most affect how others perceive you (positively or negatively)?

have the most effect on how you perceive others?

face the most marginalization — or give you the most advantage — in your community?

What do you think your students would want you to know about their social identities and worldviews?

Have you considered the intersectional identities of your students and how that impacts learning?

Practices to Critically Engage Across Difference

Identify and Name Your Social Identities and Locations

Persistently reflect on your social identities and locations in relation to systemic racism and oppression inside and outside your institution

Acknowledge systemic inequities

Identify your strengths and weaknesses

Be Anti-Racist, Anti-Ableist and Anti-Oppressive

Learn about the trauma of systemic racism and oppression

Support and validate students’ intersectional identities

Reduce students’ social-emotional stress

Adopt An Intersectional Lens

Recognize students as the subject matter experts in their own lives

See students as individuals and acknowledge their intersecting identities and communities

Honour a range of expression and communication

Examples of practices that align with this principle include:

Effectively integrate strategies for communication and relationship building skills with students from equity groups

Consider opportunities for respectfully integrating Indigenous perspectives and worldviews within the work of Student Services

Consider opportunities to integrate anti-racist, anti-ableist, and anti-oppressive perspectives within your courses

Understand microaggressions and how they might occur in both in-person and online environments; be ready to address them

Effectively facilitate dialogue about issues of social justice, inclusion, power, privilege, and oppression in one’s practice

Actively increase your interpretation of culture beyond race, language, etc.

Be vulnerable by acknowledging your desire to grow and learn and admitting you are still learning

Examine systemic issues within your institution and develop programs and services that address them

Diversify team members so that more perspectives are considered when making policies or providing supports

Critically reflect on your roles and responsibilities in removing systemic barriers to student success; don’t attribute disparities in outcomes exclusively to perceived deficits in students’ identities, life circumstances, or capabilities

Provide a cohesive list of services so students from diverse abilities or backgrounds can gain relevant, inclusive, and equitable access to all services they require

Engage in continued personal research to better understand student service expectations for different cultures and identities

Be mindful of other identities racialized students bring and be in service of those as well; don’t make assumptions based on race

Be transparent with your students — admit when you don’t know something, and acknowledge you will make mistakes but you’re willing, and working, to actively learn

Provide opportunities to engage with racial and equity issues; give students tools to engage safely and productively

Stay present in the dialogue; monitor it regularly and intervene when necessary

Encourage students to design the solutions

Offer information in various languages, including American Sign Language (ASL)

Ask complex questions about other cultures/social identities, seek out and articulate answers to these questions that reflect multiple cultural perspectives

Watch

Emily Duffett: An introduction

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Emily Duffett: Personal experiences of barriers to accessibility on campus

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Jean-Blaise Samou: Institutional strategies for change

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Kimberlé Crenshaw: What is Intersectionality?

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Mount 101 Your Guide to the Mount

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Read

Diversity Toolkit

University of Alberta Creates Hub for Intersectional Gender Research

Innovative Designs for Accessibility Student Competition

Sample Checklist of Services

Reflect

What other strategies do you use to acknowledge or affirm students’ different identities, strengths, or needs in your courses? What else could you do?

Choose another question from this list that resonates for you:

What is one tiny shift you can make today that would have the most significant impact on your students?

Where do you feel this work is most urgently needed?

What area or topic makes you feel the most uncomfortable and what will you do to tackle that?

What has emerged for you that you can meaningfully act on today?

Where do you feel most alive in this work?

What’s your biggest take-away so far that affirms one of your own values?

2. Shift Attitudes and Mindsets

When staff members from every department are aware of the critical role they play in the educational experience of students and that with each interaction, offer of support, and demonstration, they are seen and heard and are integral to the way students see themselves. In turn, when staff see the power in every position held, students can see the interconnectedness of the institution and that staff are all working toward one goal — student success.

Reflect

Review current practice

Do you recognize that changing attitudes are key to changing action?

Do you see students as co-learners?

Do you consider the life experiences of the students when offering services and consciously create a safer learning environment?

How do you offer multiple options for accessing services so that students may interact in a way that is compatible to their learning needs?

Practices to Shift Attitudes and Mindsets

Challenge Your Mindset

Recognize that changing attitudes are key to changing actions

Know equity-centred practices can help all students

Integrate an inclusion mindset to foster innovation, performance, academic and personal success, opportunities, and well-being

Expand Your View of Students

Reorient your view to students as co-learners

Value students’ diversities as strengths and build on them

Commit to identifying and removing barriers for — and challenging all — students

Embrace Intentionality

Plan and design for predictable variability in students’ lived experiences, strengths, and needs

Formulate proactive approaches, instead of reactive approaches

Work to move responsibility for knowledge and healing from the individual to the community

Examples of practices that align with this principle include:

Embrace learning and inclusive mindsets; accept vulnerability as without it, you miss key that service provision is a teaching and learning interaction: experience in both directions

Hold high expectations for performance — for your students and for yourself

Reject deficit perspectives about students’ intellectual capacities or fit for higher education; validation and positive messaging are critical

Tell students, “you belong;” “you can do the work;” “you can succeed;” “you have the ability;” and “you are intelligent”

Seek opportunities to expand your own knowledge and skills in helping students with specific concerns (e.g., bias, navigating systems of oppression) as well as interfacing with equity groups

Be open to feedback on barriers

Learn student’s names to create the feeling of more than a number

Engage in continual relationship building

Have an “open mic” session for students to ask general/informal questions

Use external community supports (like the Youth Project) to do presentations /training for staff and students on gender identity

Exhibit culturally inclusive active listening skills (e.g., appropriately establishing interpersonal contact, paraphrasing, perception checking, summarizing, questioning, encouraging, avoid interrupting, clarifying)

Allow for creativity when assisting students who feel uncomfortable with current processes. When a student feels intimidated going to a formal meeting invite them to meet in the cafeteria over coffee and allow for pauses so students can formulate thoughts and have a chance to speak without feeling they are interrupting

Establish rapport with students, groups, colleagues, and others that acknowledges differences in lived experiences

Ensure all students feel welcome as an integral part of the institution

Consistently update student information to ensure all populations are included in approaches

Continue to learn about the roles of other departments to foster partnerships and create a holistic experience; visit other departments and meet the staff and find out who they are and what they do so you are able to refer students to a person that can help instead of a department name

Demonstrate culturally inclusive advising, supporting, coaching, and counseling strategies

Design or modify services and programs to support well-being and a positive organizational culture and ethic of care, considering students holistically

Learn more examples

Watch

Bradley Sheppard: Having an inclusive mindset

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Danika Berghamer: Not knowing something is an opportunity to learn and grow

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Emily Duffett: Be open to dialogue about barriers, and how to help

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Bradley Sheppard: The power of learning students’ names

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Read

CAST webinar slide deck on The Language of UDL: Shifting Mindsets. You can also listen to the audio recording of the presentation here.

UDL and Growth Mindsets

Language of Appeasement to learn more about critical perspectives on inclusion.

Engineers Canada creates an inclusive environment for LGBTQ students

Universities across Canada make way for the “non-traditional” student

Reflect

What other strategies do you use to acknowledge or affirm students’ different identities, strengths, or needs in your courses? What else could you do?

Choose another question from this list that resonates for you:

What is one tiny shift you can make today that would have the most significant impact on your students?

Where do you feel this work is most urgently needed?

What area or topic makes you feel the most uncomfortable and what will you do to tackle that?

What has emerged for you that you can meaningfully act on today?

Where do you feel most alive in this work?

What’s your biggest take-away so far that affirms one of your own values?

3. Design the Learning Environment

When students enter into spaces or relationships with support staff at the school, they should feel safe and empowered; it is critical that they can access the services they need through people who take the time to listen to their concerns, help them find answers, and do so with the least amount of stress possible.

Reflect

Review current practice

Is the learning environment welcoming and accessible to all individuals of differing skills and abilities?

Do you foster student voice and agency?

Are you open and engaging to all students and share a belief in their equitable treatment?

Do you welcome and inclusively navigate courageous conversations?

Do you connect content, assessment, and approaches/strategies to students’ lived experiences and cultures?

Practices to Design the Learning Environment

Be Culturally Relevant and Affirming

Know your own cultural and social lens

Learn about diverse cultures, lived experiences, and ways of knowing

Connect content, assessment, and approaches/strategies to students’ lived experiences and cultures

Foster A Community of Learning

Ground decisions in accessibility and equity

Welcome courageous conversations

Build a learning community that goes beyond the classroom and institution

Cultivate Safe(R)/Brave Learning Environments

Create intellectually and socially safe(r) learning environments

Foster student voice and agency

Establish a culture of accountability with equal space for culturally relevant conversations

Examples of practices that align with this principle include:

Recognize the importance of students’ physical, emotional, spiritual, and social well-being in learning, development, and success

Demonstrate a willingness and capacity to generate, critically examine, and change policies and practices that privilege one group of students or educational stakeholders over another

Communicate the learning orientation of student services/affairs to the campus community

Understand that cultural contexts are intersectional; in addition to international students and BIPOC students, students with disabilities, Deaf, and 2SLGBTQI+ communities have their own rich, distinct, and beautiful cultures

Acknowledge and leverage the cultural strengths and assets of your students

Mirror diverse students in programming, physical spaces, course content, perspectives, and materials

Honour the lives and backgrounds of the students you serve; this addresses students’ unique cultural experiences by enhancing their growth, learning, and success, and contributes to the learning of all students

Select inclusive resources and texts that validate the experiences of all learners as much as possible

Create a one-stop shop where students can access entrance points for all services

Communicate clear up-to-date office hours and modes of contact available to all students

Invite staff from other departments for regular brainstorming sessions to discuss services offered and ways of combining, supporting and streamlining delivery to utilize resources to their maximum

Create bridging programs to post-secondary learning

Collaborate across departments to ensure student success

Ensure enrollment processes are clear with a step-by-step outline or checklist that gives potential students assurance in completing all necessary components

Utilize Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) guides to answer commonly asked questions enabling students to easily access information

Create and communicate protocols across all departments so students can easily and accurately find the services they require

Create culturally appropriate and welcoming spaces, this includes spaces for students to congregate, Indigenous student centres that allow smudging, etc.

Include student feedback to inform your practice

Flexible services delivered in multiple formats to students (in person, online, hybrid)

Perceive and analyze unspoken dynamics in a group setting

Learn more examples

Watch

Bradley Sheppard: Perspective taking – Asking yourself how you would feel in the same situation

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Lessons from a One-Stop Shop

Student-led McGill camp promotes diversity in health care professions

Student Voice inside Higher Ed.

Reflect

What other strategies do you use to acknowledge or affirm students’ different identities, strengths, or needs in your courses? What else could you do?

Choose another question from this list that resonates for you:

What is one tiny shift you can make today that would have the most significant impact on your students?

Where do you feel this work is most urgently needed?

What area or topic makes you feel the most uncomfortable and what will you do to tackle that?

What has emerged for you that you can meaningfully act on today?

Where do you feel most alive in this work?

What’s your biggest take-away so far that affirms one of your own values?

4. Support the Learning Process

Developing a relationship with students requires an openly welcoming beginning with a continued acknowledgement of ongoing needs and a follow-through on promised actions. It is important that student services professionals take the opportunity to encourage trust and care for the entire student, not only the educational pursuit. Offering services that provide an inviting and friendly atmosphere gives them courage and confidence to further seek services they need.

Reflect

Review current practice

How do you centre equity, diversity, and inclusion in your practice?

How do you ground relationships in humility, trust, respect, and care?

What are your strategies for inclusive information processing, engagement, and assessment?

How do you maximize choice in expression and assessment and encourage self-reflection?

Practices to Critically Engage Across Difference

Centre Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Engage in personal and professional learning and development

Apply a social justice/decolonizing/anti-racist/anti-ableist/anti-oppressive lens to programs and environments

Commit to designing for diverse learners

Build Authentic Relationships and Rapport

Ground relationships in humility, trust, respect, and care

Support students’ ownership of their learning and have high expectations for all students

Reach out to students often and engage positively

Strategize For Inclusive Information Processing, Engagement, and Assessment

Maximize choice in expression and assessment and encourage self-reflection

Connect your practice to the neuroscience of learning

Advance digital equity, offer flexible delivery, and ensure access

Examples of practices that align with this principle include:

Incorporate strategies for anti-racist, anti-ableist and decolonized education

Facilitate student access to services by all departments being aware of what other departments do, reducing replication and allowing easier access; invite other departments to do a show and share of what their department does to ensure there is no overlap and combining best practices

Create more student-centred services to streamline access. (e.g., MSVU students can book career counselling and accessibility appointments online)

Facilitate educational interventions that are based upon research, trend data, and needs assessments of students

Provide alternative models that explore student learning and development from an inclusive paradigm

Humanize yourself by sharing your story

Learn at least one thing about each student

Share your pronouns with your students, if you’re comfortable, and invite your students to do the same. (Avoid the term preferred pronouns; pronouns are not a preference, but a statement of fact.)

Online, invite students to create short videos about themselves as a way to start building meaningful relationships; in person, find safe ways for students to meet and get to know each other

Convey unconditional positive regard; see your students as being fully capable of succeeding; approach them in non-judgmental ways

Set up a peer mentoring process to guide new students

Create a system of hand-off/follow-up that allows all students to be supported throughout the process of accessing services to address any potential misunderstandings of next steps; approach the hand-off as a learning event, teaching students about self-sufficiency

Ensure students have a person to help them navigate systems (e.g., peer support programs, advising programs, lots of different models)

Offer support in multiple ways that best meet the individual student’s need, including choice of phone calls, emails, one-on-on meetings, group meetings, text, social media, appointment, drop-ins, office, or coffee house meeting

Ensure information is created in multiple formats

Make your documents, presentations, and websites accessible (there are website accessibility guidelines)

Make your online meetings more accessible (see the Nova Scotia Accessibility Directorate‘s guide online for tips)

Make videos accessible (e.g., use closed captions, have ASL interpreters, create transcriptions)

Learn more examples

Watch

Cynthia Bruce: Why it’s important to provide learning materials in multiple accessible formats

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Read

Strategies for anti-racist and decolonized teaching

Why I put pronouns on my email signature

Reflect

What other strategies do you use to acknowledge or affirm students’ different identities, strengths, or needs in your courses? What else could you do?

Choose another question from this list that resonates for you:

What is one tiny shift you can make today that would have the most significant impact on your students?

Where do you feel this work is most urgently needed?

What area or topic makes you feel the most uncomfortable and what will you do to tackle that?

What has emerged for you that you can meaningfully act on today?

Where do you feel most alive in this work?

What’s your biggest take-away so far that affirms one of your own values?

Conclusion

Summary

Remember that becoming an equity-centered student service provider is a process that will happen over time and with conscious effort. You do not need to know and understand everything to do better and do more for your students.

“[P]eople will falter throughout their EDI work, whether they’re an EDI novice or expert, faltering is okay as long as you remain accountable and take the time to learn from those missteps. The primary goal is to keep your students safe and, therefore, taking ownership of your mistakes and continuing to learn and grow your equity practice is critical and will allow you to come back stronger than ever.”

– Jill Provoe, in Equity-Minded Practices in Virtual Learning Communities, NSCC, 2020

We hope the guiding principles and sample promising practices we’ve outlined here provide a roadmap to make sure your service environments reach all students. When we as student services professionals include more students in the learning, we empower them to achieve and show that we care about them and their sense of belonging.

Learn More

Download:

Transforming Student Services Practices

Read:

CACUSS is a comprehensive organization consisting of networks and Communities of Practice representing many topical and functional areas of Student Affairs and Services.

The Global Community for Academic Advising

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion-Minded Practices in Virtual Learning Environments – Jill Provoe, Senior Advisor, Educational Equity Nova Scotia Community College

The Quiet Revolution.Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. Susan Cain.

Diversity Toolkit – Suzanne Dvorak-Peck School of Social Work, University of Southern California

Pulling Together: A guide for Indigenization of post-secondary institutions – BCCampus

Do:

Free online courses from NS Human Rights Commission https://humanrights.novascotia.ca/education-training/free-online-training

KOGNITO training LGBTQ on campus – Healthy Minds Nova Scotia

Open Online Course by University of Alberta – Indigenous Canada: https://www.coursera.org/learn/indigenous-canada

Open Online Course by University of Toronto – Aboriginal Worldviews and Education: https://www.coursera.org/learn/aboriginal-education

References

Black, J.,Stone, L. & James, C. (2019) “Learning Equity, Learning Excellence Report.”

Bracken, S.,Novak, K (Eds.). (2019). Transforming Higher Education Through Universal Design for Learning: An International Perspective. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group. https://www.routledge.com/Transforming-Higher-Education-Through-Universal-Design-for-Learning-An/Bracken-Novak/p/book/9780815354734

CACUSS Student Affairs and Services Competency Model (n.d.). CACUSS/ASEUCC. https://www.cacuss.ca/Student_Affairs_and_Services_Competency_Model.html

CAST (2018). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. Universal Design for Learning Framework in Universal Design for Learning Guidelines (version 2.2). Retrieved from http://udlguidelines.cast.org

Hammond, Z. (2013) “Ready for Rigor Framework.” In Culturally Responsive Teaching. https://www.amazon.ca/Culturally-Responsive-Teaching-Brain-Linguistically/dp/1483308014

Harris, F., Wood, J.L. (2020) “Employing Equity-Minded and Culturally-Affirming Teaching and Learning Practices in Virtual Learning Communities”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMrf_MC5COk

Provoe, J. (2019) Equity, Diversity and Inclusion-Minded Practices in Virtual Learning Communities. Nova Scotia Community College.

1

Glossary List

The following glossary provides the definition of the words or terms used throughout the modules. These definitions are adapted from University of British Columbia (UBC), Ontario Human Rights Code and the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre, “Racism and Power” (2018)/ “CARED Glossary” (2020).

These terms are crucial to the system of thought that works to combat individual, institutional and systemic inequities. This list is by no means exhaustive. Moreover, history has shown us that terminology tends to shift over time, particularly as marginalized groups and individuals are increasingly heard.

2SLGBTQ+: An acronym for Two-spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans (can be used for Transgender, Transsexual, Transitioning, Transman and Transwoman), Queer/Questioning +

Ability: capacity or power; cleverness, talent; mental power (natural athletic ability, has many abilities) (excerpt from Canadian Oxford Dictionary)

Ableism: discrimination or social prejudice against people with disabilities or who experience barriers to accessibility, such as those who identify as Deaf or neurodivergent, based on the belief that typical abilities are superior. Disclosing a disability can be stigmatizing. Disability, like other kinds of difference, is not well understood. People with disabilities or who experience barriers to accessibility face constant, daily barriers to participation in education, recreation, and employment.

Accessibility: a general term for the degree of ease that something (e.g., device, service, physical environment and information) can be accessed, used and enjoyed by persons with disabilities. The term implies conscious planning, design and/or effort to make sure something is barrier-free to persons with disabilities. Accessibility also benefits the general population, by making things more usable and practical for everyone, including older people and families with small children.

Accessible: does not have obstacles for people with disabilities – something that can be easily reached or obtained; facility that can be easily entered; information that is easy to access.

African Nova Scotian: With a history that spans more than 400 years, African Nova Scotians have unique historical migration pathways to Nova Scotia. The first large group of immigrants were the Black Loyalists who came as refugees after the American Revolution between 1782 and 1785. A group of 600 exiled Jamaican Maroons followed in 1796. Roughly 2000 Black Refugees seeking freedom arrived in Nova Scotia between 1813 and 1816 after the War of 1812. The early 1900s saw the last historic group of black settlers arrive in Nova Scotia as hundreds of Caribbean immigrants, known as the “later arrivals”, came to Cape Breton to work in the steel mills and coal mines.

Ageism: Discrimination based on age.

Ally: A person of one social identity group who stands up in support of another group; typically a member of a dominant group standing beside a member(s) of a group being discriminated against or treated unjustly.

Anti-Black Racism: “Anti-Black racism is prejudice, attitudes, beliefs, stereotyping and discrimination that is directed at people of African descent and is rooted in their unique history and experience of enslavement and its legacy. Anti-Black racism is deeply entrenched in Canadian institutions, policies and practices, to the extent that anti-Black racism is either functionally normalized or rendered invisible to the larger White society. Anti-Black racism is manifest in the current social, economic, and political marginalization of African Canadians, which includes unequal opportunities, lower socio-economic status, higher unemployment, significant poverty rates and overrepresentation in the criminal justice system” ” (Gov’t of Ontario, “Glossary”).

Anti-Indigenous Racism: “Anti-Indigenous racism is the ongoing race-based discrimination, negative stereotyping, and injustice experienced by Indigenous Peoples within Canada. It includes ideas and practices that establish, maintain and perpetuate power imbalances, systemic barriers, and inequitable outcomes that stem from the legacy of colonial policies and practices in Canada. Systemic anti-Indigenous racism is evident in discriminatory federal policies such as the Indian Act and the residential school system. It is also manifest in the overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in provincial criminal justice and child welfare systems, as well as inequitable outcomes in education, well-being, and health. Individual lived-experiences of anti-Indigenous racism can be seen in the rise in acts of hostility and violence directed at Indigenous people” (Gov’t of Ontario, “Glossary”).

Anti-oppression: an active and consistent process of change to eliminate individual, institutional and systemic racism as well as the oppression and injustice racism causes.

Bias: a predisposition, prejudice or generalization about a group of persons based on personal characteristics or stereotypes.

Black: a social construct referring to people who have dark skin colour and/or other related racialized characteristics. The term has become less of an indicator of skin colour and more of racialized characteristics. Diverse societies apply different criteria to determine who is Black.

BIPOC: An acronym that stands for “Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour.” Some see the term as inclusive as it acknowledges that “POC” (People of Colour) alone does not accurately represent the disparate ongoing and historical experiences of both black and Indigenous people. On the other hand, some argue that using an all-encompassing term like “BIPOC” is lazy, homogeneous and a “product of colonialism” (Luger qtd. in Garcia).[1] The term can be used generally to represent the non-white experience, however, many “BIPOC” individuals agree that using specific language when referring to racialized groups or experiences is ideal. Suggested Reading: Sandra E. Garcia’s article “Where Did BIPOC Come From?”

Cisgender: Someone whose gender identity matches the sex and/or gender they were assigned at birth.

Culture: ways of knowing and being. It goes much deeper than ethnicity, race, or faith and beyond surface expressions of culture like dress, food, and traditions. Culture is reflected in students’ multiple social identities and ways of knowing, learning, and being in the world. Culture is not monolithic or static; it is complex and tied to the intersectionality of identities that students have.

Culturally Responsive/Relevant Pedagogy and Practices (also CRP): a rich, intentional approach woven into every aspect of student learning; it identifies students’ assets and uses them to create rigorous, student-centered instruction. CRP is not about “cultural celebrations,” nor is it aligned with traditional ideas around multiculturalism. It involves careful acknowledgement, respect and an understanding of difference and its complexities.

Decolonization: active resistance against colonial powers, and a shifting of power towards political, economic, educational, and cultural independence and power that originate from a colonized nation’s own Indigenous culture. This process occurs politically and also applies to personal, societal, cultural, political, agricultural, and educational deconstruction of colonial oppression.

Disability: The word disability is very broad. It can refer to:

Physical disability

Cognitive disability

Sensory disability such as hearing or visual

Mental health-related disability

Learning disability

Intellectual disability

Neurological diversity such as autism spectrum disorder or ADHD

There are different ways of looking at disability and barriers to accessibility. The social model of disability says disability is caused by the way society, supports, and the built environment are set up. The medical model of disability says people are disabled by their impairments or differences. It focuses on what’s wrong with the person, not what barriers the person faces.

Discrimination: treating someone unfairly by either imposing a burden on them, or denying them a privilege, benefit or opportunity enjoyed by others, because of their race, citizenship, family status, disability, sex or other personal characteristics (note: this is not a legal definition).

Diverse: of various kinds, forms, characters, etc.; varied.

Diversity: the presence of a wide range of human qualities and attributes within an individual, group or organization. Diversity includes such factors as age, sex, race, ethnicity, physical and intellectual ability, religion, sexual orientation, educational background and expertise.

Dominant culture: In Canada, dominant culture results from patterns of learned behaviours and values that are shared among members of a group, and are transmitted to group members over time; these behaviours and values distinguish the members of one group from another. Even with the extent of racial and ethnic diversity in Canada, the prevailing cultural values are of Christian, European (Western) origin and are perceived as the norm.

Dominant narratives: stories told by the dominant culture to uphold and reinforce a dominant social group’s interests and ideologies. For example, if a student starts talking about fisheries disputes in Nova Scotia from the dominant narrative of white fishermen, this could create a hot button moment when it comes up against the counter-narrative that asserts Treaty rights and looks at how they are being violated. The danger of dominant narratives is that they are typically accepted as “truth”.

Economic Status: includes relating to the wealth of a community or nation (excerpt from Canadian Oxford Dictionary)

Equity: Fairness and impartiality. Equity is different from equality (equality means everyone gets the same thing: treatment, resources, support, etc.); equity recognizes that people may need different things to ensure their opportunities are the same as others’.

Equity-centered practices: to consider, incorporate, and make the most of students’ cultures, learning strengths, and accessibility requirements. These strengths-focused approaches build a foundation for all students to achieve equality in educational and life outcomes. They also build our individual and community capacity to dismantle systemic oppression and create a future with equity for all.

Equity-seeking groups: groups of people that experience oppression and exclusion from society, the economy, and education based on social, physical, cultural, religious, or personal characteristics. The terminology for these groups is constantly evolving. You might also see equity-seeking groups referenced as equity groups, equity-deserving groups, or equity-denied groups.

Ethnicity: The word “ethnic” is often used to denote non-dominant or less-powerful cultural identities in Canada. In Western Canada (e.g., Alberta), “ethnicity” is typically, and problematically racialized as non-white. However, communities of white people comprise ethnic communities (e.g., Irish Canadian).

Eurocentric: The tendency to view others through the filters and assumptions of European (primarily Northern European) perspectives, and to assume European practices and perspectives to be the best, the ideal, the norm. One need not be of European ancestry to be Eurocentric. A Eurocentric view considers history according to European experiences and paradigms (i.e., the assumption that history in Canada “began” with the arrival of Europeans).

Gender: A culturally specific set of characteristics that identify the social behaviour of individuals, the relationship between them, the way this relationship is socially constructed, and the way individuals are treated or viewed.

Gender identity is the sense of being female, male, both, neither, or somewhere along the gender spectrum.

Gender expression: How we act, dress and express our genders.

Generalizations: Generalizations are grand sweeping statements. Stereotypes are the most common hot button generalization. They are often rooted in the misconception that all members of a social identity group share common characteristics, views, or practices.

Heteronormativity: A frame of reference that positions heterosexuality as the default and assumes that a man/woman romantic or sexual pairing is the norm.

Homophobia: the irrational aversion to, fear or hatred of 2SLGBTQIA+ people and communities, or of behaviours stereotyped as “homosexual.”

“Hot button”moments: sneak up on us in the form of microaggressions, stereotypes, myths, personal attacks, generalizations, and the dominant narratives people bring with them into a conversation. Dominant narratives are stories told by the dominant culture to uphold and reinforce through repetition the dominant social group’s interests and ideologies. “Isms” like racism, ableism, and classism are rooted in these dominant narratives, which come to be accepted as objective truths. Hot button moments can provoke strong reactions and disagreements, and though we might not feel qualified to even take a position or have an opinion about some of these issues, we still need to do our best to facilitate a courageous conversation.

Implicit bias: (also sometimes called unconscious bias) refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that unconsciously affect our understanding, actions, and decisions. These biases include assumptions about other people that affect:

our expectations of them,

our assessment of their work or behaviour, and

our judgments about their characteristics as individuals or as a group.

Inclusion: can refer to the policy or practice of providing equal access to opportunities and resources to people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized. Inclusion also requires us to challenge and dismantle systems of oppression, racism, and inequity to make a new and better space for everyone.

Inclusive design: taking into account differences among individuals and groups when designing something, to avoid creating barriers. Inclusive design can apply to systems, facilities, programs, policies, services, education, etc.

Inclusive teaching and learning: involves deliberately cultivating a learning environment where all students are treated equitably, have equal access to learning, and feel valued and supported in their learning. Such teaching attends to social identities and seeks to change the ways systemic inequities shape dynamics in teaching-learning spaces, affect individuals’ experiences of those spaces, and influence course and curriculum design.

Inclusive learning: involves deliberately cultivating a learning environment where all students are treated equitably, have equal access to learning, and feel valued and supported in their learning. Such teaching attends to social identities and seeks to change the ways systemic inequities shape dynamics in teaching-learning spaces, affect individuals’ experiences of those spaces, and influence course and curriculum design.

Indian Act: Canadian legislation first passed in 1876 and amended several times since, most recently in 1985. It sets out certain federal government obligations and regulates the management of reserve lands, Indian monies and other resources.

Indigenous: generally used in the international context, refers to peoples who are original to a particular land or territory. This term is very similar to “Aboriginal” and has a positive connotation.

Intergenerational: existing or occurring between different generations of people; involving more than one generation.

Intersectionality: a way of thinking about and understanding how we and our students are shaped and affected when our multiple identities interact and intersect within systems. It allows us to see people, groups, and social problems in the context of multiple discriminations and disadvantages.

Internalized oppression: is a concept in which an oppressed group uses the methods of the oppressing group against itself. It occurs when one group perceives an inequality of value relative to another group, and desires to be like the more highly valued group.

Marginalized groups: Marginalized groups or populations are communities that are systematically discriminated against and socially, politically, and economically excluded by the dominant group or culture.

Microaggressions: subtle forms of abuse that target people or groups through hostile, derogatory, or negative messages based on their group membership. Microaggressions can be based on any aspect of identity: socioeconomic status, ability, sex, gender, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, racialized identity, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. They often constitute a pattern of behaviour, and the cumulative effects of these “small” attacks can be devastating.

Mi’kmaq and Mi’kmaw (‘Meeg Mah’): The Indigenous peoples of Mi’kmaki. Mi’kmaw people have lived throughout Mi’kma’ki for over 10, 000 years. There are currently 13 Mi’kmaw communities, and over 16, 000 Mi’kmaw people, throughout Nova Scotia. “Mi’kmaq is used as a plural term for the people. Mi’kmaw is the adjectival form and is also used for a single person….The language is also Mi’kmaw.” (Mi’kmawe’l Tan Teli-kina’muemk: Teaching about the Mi’kmaq, The Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre)

Mi’kmaki: The traditional and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq, which includes Nova Scotia, PEI and large parts of New Brunswick, the Gaspé Peninsula, Newfoundland and part of Maine.

Nationality: the status of belonging to a particular nation; the condition of being national; distinctive national qualities; an ethnic group forming a part of one or more political nations; existence as a nation; nationhood; patriotic sentiment. (Canadian Oxford Dictionary)

Oppression: The systemic, institutionalized or individual subjugation of one individual or group by a more dominant individual or group; it can be overt or covert. Put simply, it is an abuse of power that is justified by the dominant groups’ explicit ideology. To uphold this unequal dynamic, physical, psychological, social, or economic threats or violence are often used. The term also refers to the injustices suffered by groups that have been marginalized in everyday interactions with members of the dominant group.

Patriarchy: The structure of a society in which men have power over women. The unequal power relations that exist between women and men permeate all realms of society – social, legal, political, religious, and economic – thereby systematically disadvantaging women as a whole. Men’s violence against women is a key element of patriarchal structure.

Persons with disabilities, Deaf persons and neurodivergent people, or those who experience barriers to accessibility: persons with one or more long-term or recurring disability (see disability).

Position: a place occupied by a person or thing; the way in which a thing or its parts are placed or arranged; a posture; proper place; state of being advantageously placed; an attitude or policy concerning a question or issue; a person’s situation in relation to others; rank or status; high social standing; paid employment (Canadian Oxford Dictionary)

Power: the ability to influence others and impose your beliefs. All power is relational, meaning you have power only in relationship to other people. Different relationships either reinforce or disrupt power. Discrimination, including racism, ableism, sexism, and homophobia, cannot be understood without accepting that power is both an individual relationship and a cultural one, and that power relationships are shifting constantly. Power is not always used malignantly and intentionally. Individuals in one culture often benefit from power over another or others they don’t even know they have.

Prejudice: to “prejudge” an individual or group, consciously or unconsciously, often without legitimate or sufficient evidence. Oftentimes, prejudices are not recognized as stereotypes or false assumptions and through repetition, become accepted as “common sense.” When backed with power, prejudice results in acts of discrimination and oppression against groups or individuals.

Privilege: A special advantage, right, or prerogative possessed by an individual or group. Privilege is often gained by birth or social position, but can also be acquired through effort and accomplishment.

Pronouns: How we want to be referred to: she/her, he/him, they/them, and more.

Race: There is no such thing as race – instead, it is a “social construct.” This means that society forms ideas of race based on geographic, historical, political, economic, social and cultural factors, as well as physical traits, even though none of these can legitimately be used to classify groups of people. See Racialization.

Racialization: the process by which societies construct races as real, different and unequal in ways that matter and affect economic, political and social life.

Racial profiling: any action that relies on stereotypes about race, colour, ethnicity, ancestry, religion or place of origin, or a combination of these, rather than on a reasonable suspicion to single out a person for greater scrutiny or different treatment.

Racism: stems from the belief, either conscious or unconscious, that one race is better than another (or than all others). This belief can result in acts of racism, such as racial discrimination at work, school, or in a healthcare setting. Although racism can happen between individuals, it also takes place on a systemic level. Racism is systemic, intentional, and a layered approach to dehumanize people.

Racialization: describes the processes by which a group of people is defined by their “race.” Put very simply, racializing people categorizes them according to their perceived “race” and imposes “racial character” on that group as a whole. This racial meaning is then attributed to people’s identity as they relate to social structures and institutional systems, including housing, healthcare, employment, and education. These stereotypes, biases, and prejudices are socially constructed and have no scientific or biological basis. Typically, a subordinate or oppressed group is racialized BY a dominant group in order to preserve the interests of that group.

Resilience: means using personal and collective strengths to protect ourselves and our communities in the face of great stressors and/or oppression and build a better future. It is the capacity of individuals and communities to build and recover their strength, spirit, and emotional well-being. Resistance — active and passive acts that fight back against oppression — is an important part of resilience.

Sexism: discrimination based on sex.

Sexual orientation (also sexual preference): Emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attraction we feel towards others.

Social identity: Identity is our image of ourselves and our beliefs about the kind of person we are. Examples of social identities are race/ethnicity, gender, social class/socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, abilities, and religion/religious beliefs.

Stereotype: incorrect assumption based on things like race, colour, ethnic origin, place of origin, religion, etc. Stereotyping typically involves attributing the same characteristics to all members of a group regardless of their individual differences. It is often based on misconceptions, incomplete information and/or false generalizations.

Student agency: is defined as the capacity to set a goal, reflect and act responsibly to effect change. It is about acting rather than being acted upon; shaping rather than being shaped; and making responsible decisions and choices rather than accepting those determined by others.

Student voice: In education, student voice refers to the values, opinions, beliefs, perspectives, and cultural backgrounds of students. Voice can also mean the degree to which those values, opinions, beliefs, and perspectives are considered, included, listened to, and acted upon when important decisions are being made.

Supercharged topics: the topics you know without a doubt will provoke debate and elicit strong emotional reactions. While these reliably controversial topics do require careful preparation, they have the advantage of being predictably difficult — so you can be ready to responsibly and effectively facilitate the conversation.

Systemic barrier: a barrier embedded in the social or administrative structures of an organization, including the physical accessibility of an organization, organizational policies, practices and decision-making processes, or the culture of an organization. These may appear neutral on the surface but exclude members of groups protected by the Human Rights Code.

Systemic oppression: a series of barriers that disadvantage particular groups of people based on race, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, ability, age, and more. Systemic oppression is often made invisible to those who don’t experience it. It is embedded in social norms and formal institutions such as the police, law, education, and health systems.

Systemic/Institutional racism: racism that consists of policies and practices, entrenched in established institutions, that result in the exclusion or advancement of specific groups of people. It manifests itself in two ways: (1) institutional racism: racial discrimination that derives from individuals carrying out the dictates of others who are prejudiced or of a prejudiced society; (2) structural racism: inequalities rooted in the system-wide operation of a society that excludes substantial numbers of members of particular groups from significant participation in major social institutions.

Systems of Oppression: The term “systems of oppression” helps us better identify inequity by calling attention to historical and organized patterns of marginalization, abuse, and exploitation. In Canada, systems of oppression (like systemic racism) are woven into the very foundation of Canadian culture, society, and laws. Other examples of systems of oppression include but are not limited to sexism, heterosexism, ableism, classism, ageism, and anti-Semitism. Society’s institutions, such as government, education, health, and culture, all contribute to or reinforce the oppression of social groups that have been marginalized while elevating dominant social groups.

Transgender: having an identify which does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender, esp. undergoing or having undergone sex change procedures (excerpt from Canadian Oxford Dictionary) Sometimes shortened to “trans,” the term refers to people whose gender identity is different from the social expectations for the physical sex they were assigned at birth. It is important to note the difference between biological sex (genitals, chromosomes) and social gender (perceptions and ideologies about masculine and femininity). (The CARED Collective)

Transexual: Transexual refers to a person who identifies as the opposite sex they were assigned at birth. A transexual indidivudal may undergo medical treatment to change their physical sex to match their sex identity (throughout hormone treatments and/or surgery). Not all transexual individual can have, or desire, this treatment (The CARED Collective)

Two-Spirit: according to ancient teachings, “two-spirited” people were considered gifted among all beings because they carried two spirits: that of male and female. It is told that women engaged in tribal warfare and married other women as there were men who married other men. These individuals were looked upon as a third gender in many cases and in almost all cultures they were honoured and revered. Today, the term refers to Aboriginal people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans-gendered, other gendered, third/fourth gendered individuals that walk carefully between the worlds and between the genders.

Universal Design for Learning (also UDL) is an approach to improve and optimize teaching and learning that helps give all students an equal opportunity to succeed. UDL is an evidence-based educational framework based on research in the learning sciences.

White Fragility: “White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress … White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable [for white people], triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium.” (The CARED Collective).

White supremacy: the racist belief that people who see themselves as white are superior to Black, Indigenous, and people of colour and should therefore dominate them. White supremacy perpetuates and maintains social, political, historical, and institutional domination by white people. For example, white supremacy justified the transatlantic slave trade and colonization around the world. Today, it is used to justify entrenched systemic and institutional racism. White supremacy also refers to the political and socio-economic systems that give white people structural advantages over racialized people — both collectively and individually.

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Course Assets

Introduction

This work is intended to be used as a course or set of modules for institutes to deliver to faculty and staff. To assist the adoption process for everyone, we have included here a link to all of the digital assets that were developed as a part of this project. The following information details what digital assets are available.

LMS Packages

This project identified that Nova Scotia had at the time of the work’s development two Learning Management Systems in use at its 11 post-secondary institutions; Moodle and Brightspace. The entire course has been developed completely in both Brightspace and Moodle, and exported and made available.

Note that Brightspace at the time of development had a character limit to the alternative text for added images. Alternative text was added as a linked document to all images as a work around.

The following packages are offered in the asset download folder:

Moodle (version) export

Moodle Common Cartridge export

Brightspace course package export

Brightspace Common Cartridge export

Simply add the required package via import tool to an empty course shell in your institutional LMS.

Video

There are two groups of videos that were created as part of this project:

22 Module videos

36 Interview videos

Module videos

The module videos folder assets include, SRT files, MP4 video files, the PPT files used to create the videos, the audio files, text scripts, and an excel file including YouTube links to hosted videos with CC.

Interview videos

The interview video folder assets include SRT files, MP4 video files, text scripts, and an excel file including YouTube links to hosted videos with CC and ASL picture in picture.

Images and Infographics

A full list of the included images and infographics in this work are contained in the “Image and Infographics” folder. In addition to the images provided, there is an Alternative Text for Images and Infographics document that describes each image for accessibility purposes.

Module Translations

All of the modules have been translated to French. Though the videos nor infographics have been translated as assets, the Module documents contain the Module video script translations in French.

Link to Assets

This is a link to the assets. They are only able to be downloaded from this link.

Download Assets Here