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This article discusses bias that might be present in a special education classroom and how teachers can work to avoid these biases. This article discusses how children with disabilities are often stereotyped by those disabilities rather than who they are as a person. This article discusses some strategies that teachers can use to avoid these biases. One of the strategies that this article discusses is connecting with others in the school and community who are from different backgrounds. This article helps to challenge teachers to take a stand against bias in a special education classroom.

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This article discusses teaching strategies that teachers can use to confront gender bias at school. This article gives teachers activities that they can ask their students to help avoid gender bias in a classroom. One of the activities is to have the students interview each other and discuss different gender and racial obstacles that their classmates have compared to the obstacles that they have. Doing this exercise with students can help them to reflect on the challenges that someone might face because of their gender or race. Helping students to understand gender bias can help them to avoid it in a classroom. This article gives strategies for teachers to help them avoid gender bias in a classroom.

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Following a new report that found disconcerting levels of gender bias among teen boys, teen girls, and even the mothers of teen boys and girls, HGSE's Making Caring Common project has now released a toolkit for educators [PDF] who want to spur discussion about gender stereotypes and discrimination in their school communities.

The toolkit offers questions and activities to help middle- and high school students begin to notice and confront gender bias. These can be challenging conversations, says MCC co-director and HGSE senior lecturer Richard Weissbourd, the lead author of the report. "For some young people, this is a very personal topic that brings up questions of equality and privilege. Some of them may question whether gender biases even exist," he says. "And the idea that biases can be implicit or unconscious is something many teenagers may never have thought of before."

But by allowing young people to explore these ideas, educators can foster empathy and encourage (and empower) students to see themselves as problem-solvers who have an active role to play in creating a classroom culture that includes and supports every one of their peers.

A Focus on Girls

The MCC's report, called Leaning Out: Teen Girls and Leadership Biases [PDF], suggested that despite the gains that women have made in professional and political life, teen girls face a powerful barrier to leadership: the biased perceptions held by their own peers. In a survey of nearly 20,000 students, the report found that 23 percent of girls and 40 percent of boys preferred male political leaders to female. Only 8 percent of girls and 4 percent of boys preferred female political leaders.

And in terms of students' preferences for leadership on their school's student council, students overall were least likely to support giving additional power to the student council when it was led by white girls, and most likely to support giving more power when the council was led by white boys. The report also found that mothers' average level of support was higher for a student council led by boys than one led by girls.

Resources for Teachers

The Educator Toolkit offers a path to navigate all this by leading students through a series of 10 questions based on their reading of the Leaning Out report.

After discussion, educators can:

Have teens interview each other across gender and racial groups about their aspirations for leadership of various kinds. Have them write a report or present what they find. Ask them to consider:

If you could be a leader, what would you want to be a leader of? Why?

What obstacles might you face and how might you overcome them?

Have teens participate in a series of reflective writing exercises about what is it like to be a girl, or, for boys, what they think it must be like). Try the same activity asking students to reflect on what it is like to be a boy. Allow them to share their writing, if they feel comfortable.

Challenge teens to think about how gender roles have continued to evolve over time. Invite them to interview a person of a different generation. How were women treated when they were growing up? Has society changed its expectations of women? What challenges do women still face today?

The toolkit also presents three case studies - stories about a teen girl, a teen boy, and a high school guidance counselor - that describe scenarios of bias and discrimination that are common in many high schools.

There are discussion questions about each case, along with tips for teachers on how to overcome potential obstacles to a constructive and engaging discussion with high schoolers.

Finally, the toolkit includes an easy-to-use guide to help parents and educators find high quality girls' leadership programs. In addition to listing effective programs, it outlines the components of those programs, including:

career exploration and opportunities to meet female leaders in various fields

development of skills like public speaking, networking, and problem-solving

collaborative project experiences

mentorship and peer leadership opportunities

opportunities for girls to work on projects that are meaningful to them, with high expectations attached

Additional Resources

***

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Following a new report that found disconcerting levels of gender bias among teen boys, teen girls, and even the mothers of teen boys and girls, HGSE's Making Caring Common project has now released a toolkit for educators [PDF] who want to spur discussion about gender stereotypes and discrimination in their school communities.

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This article discusses the awareness of socioeconomic diversity in a classroom. This article gives practical advice for teachers who are looking to avoid socioeconomic bias in their classrooms. One strategy that this article gives is to provide students with an open door policy. This policy allows students to know that the teacher is available to help them outside of class. If teachers make themselves available to help their students, these students can get more help that they need. By giving students the extra help that they need, teachers can help to give students the same education opportunities. This article gives teachers advice to help them avoid implicit bias due to socioeconomic status.

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Examples

An instructor includes classroom policies in the syllabus that underscore respect, attentive listening, civil dialogue, honesty, and patience, regardless of background or appearance. The instructor addresses these policies on the first day, emphasizing that human worth informs intellectual exploration in class.

A mathematics instructor actively includes a diversity statement in her syllabus which acknowledges the various SES of students in class and reaffirms the value of diverse experiences for the learning environment.

A philosophy instructor provides pop-cultural examples and various revisions and representations to clarify sections of a dense philosophy text.

Rather than hold voluntary office-hour meetings which low SES students often avoid, a biology instructor requires one-on-one meetings with each student to discuss learning progress and personalized strategies for improvement.

Rather than assume students know how to succeed in the course, an art history instructor establishes clear class-participation norms, states explicit assessment expectations, and provides recommended resources/steps to improve performance.

Rather than ignore SES, a psychology instructor reminds students to measure, report and control for SES in research activities related to academic achievement.

A sociology instructor encourages students to contribute to the body of research on the educational and societal barriers experienced by students from various SES communities and the impact of these barriers on academic achievement and psychological well-being.

An English instructor allows for multiple paper rewrites and resubmissions so that students can focus on developing their writing skills.

Recommendations

Establish an Open Door Policy - Instructors can explicitly state, in class policies and in class, their willingness to support student learning outside of class. Instructors may structure out-of-class and in-class time to work with students, offer open office hours, or require students to meet at least once in office hours to make individual connections and affirm their commitment to each student's growth.

Variegate Representation - For many disciplines that involve the study, thought, or expression of human beings (history, English, philosophy, anthropology), traditional or canonical bodies of text and practice can remain culturally or economically homogenous while continuing to hold sway in the discipline. Instructors can integrate diverse cultures and peoples into curriculum content, ensuring that a variety of perspectives and representations are available in readings, case studies, and class examples. This approach can help all students recognize and imagine themselves within course content.

Variegate Difficulty - Instructors can consider offering popular, simplified, and varied language to explain important concepts. While learning styles have been proven to be a popular myth, offering several approaches to difficult content can improve student comprehension while meeting various levels of SES and academic preparedness.

Clarify Grading Expectations - Instructors can make expectations for performance, grading, and assessment clear in the syllabus, on the first day of class, and throughout term, by covering the syllabus and classroom policies, providing a rubric, and mixing formative and summative assessments. Doing so can obviate usual student complaints, while illuminating academic procedure for less familiar students.

Clarify Classroom Expectations - In addition to covering syllabus and classroom policies (see first bullet point), instructors can emphasize respect and the value of all earnest student opinion and commentary by moderating effective class discussion. Effective expectations and moderation protect all variety of student comments, from the "simple" to the "overly complicated," while helping all students improve their reasoning and articulation. A set of modules from Harvard's Instructional Moves provides techniques for responding to student comments.

Promote Collaborative Work - Instructors can activate diverse perspectives and experiences in class by staging collaborative projects and activities that get students engaging with each other. Group work, case studies, and team-based learning all provide opportunities for students to learn from each other via the zone of proximal development, to practice communication, and to consider other perspectives from their own.

Protect Emotion - Instructors can consider how to incorporate students' personal responses into course discussions. This tactic enables student honesty, reveals valuable insight, and enriches academic discussion with personal experience. Reading logs, reflective essays, careful moderation, and turn-based presentation can invite and protect individual student responses to class discussion.

Additional Resources

Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. (2012). Effective teaching and support of students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds: Practical advice for teaching staff.

Devlin M and O'Shea H. (2011). Teaching students from low socioeconomic backgrounds: A brief guide for University teaching staff. Higher Education Research Group (HERG) Deakin University.

References

American Psychological Association. Education and Socioeconomic Status.

Spencer B. and Castano E. (2007). Social Class is Dead. Long Live Social Class! Stereotype Threat among Low Socioeconomic Status Individuals. Social Justice Research 20(4): 418-432.

Stephens N., Hamedani M., and Destin M. (2014). Closing the Social-Class Achievement Gap: A Difference-Education Intervention Improves First-Generation Students' Academic Performance and All Students' College Transition. Psychological Science.

Yee A. (2016). The Unwritten Rules Of Engagement: Social Class Differences in Undergraduates' Academic Strategies. The Journal of Higher Education 87(6): 831-858.

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Examples An instructor includes classroom policies in the syllabus that underscore respect, attentive listening, civil dialogue, honesty, and patience, regardless of background or appearance. The instructor addresses these policies on the first day, emphasizing that human worth informs intellectual exploration in class.

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This website discusses how teachers can teach about religion in their classrooms in a public school. By understanding how to teach religion in a classroom, teachers can better understand how to reduce implicit bias due to religion. This website addresses separation of church and state and discusses how teaching about religion in public schools should be academic not a devotional. This website also discusses the importance of teaching about all religions to help students understand the similarities and differences. This article provides teachers with teaching strategies that can help them be able to avoid implicit bias towards religion in their classrooms.

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"How did Christianity help shape the foundation and development of the early United States?" asks David Fulton, a social studies teacher at Green Valley Middle School in Fairfield.

"Americans felt it was their God-given right to have independence," replies eighth-grader Parisa Samadi, citing a sentence in the Declaration of Independence that the "Creator" grants Americans inalienable rights.

The Fairfield-Suisun Unified Teachers Association (F-SUTA) member is discussing the "Great Awakening," which was a series of emotional religious revivals across the American colonies in the late 1730s and 1740s. Religion has been a driving force throughout American history, says Fulton. He notes that women demanding equal rights have used the argument that all people are equal in God's eyes, and that religion continues to influence U.S. history.

For many years his school always put up a Christmas tree, but several years ago staff decided not to, to honor the separation of church and state.

"I don't have any problem with that," says Fulton. "We have Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and Jews, and I can see why the district doesn't want to appear to endorse one religion over the other."

His students may not have a Christmas party at school, but they enjoy learning about the major religions of the world and are extremely inquisitive, he comments. "Religion has influenced how we behave and what we value, and I couldn't imagine teaching history without including it."

Can schools really teach about religion? It's a common perception that schools are not allowed to teach about religion, says Fulton, but students have been studying religion's role in the historical, cultural, literary and social development of the U.S. and the world for decades. And in today's divisive world, increasing understanding about world religions has never been more important.

Teaching students about religion in an objective, balanced and factual manner has been incorporated into California's History-Social Science (HSS) Content Standards since 1998, and is also part of the new HSS Framework, points out Juliana Liebke, a social studies curriculum specialist for San Diego Unified School District, who says people are constantly surprised by this.

"Teaching about religion is not the same as teaching religion, because we are not proselytizing. We are just teaching facts about belief systems of various religions, to understand how the narrative of world history has unfolded," says Liebke, San Diego Education Association.

"But you have to walk a fine line. We can't tell the students what they should believe. But we answer their questions and make it clear to students that they can ask whatever they want, although not all of their questions can necessarily be answered."

For example, a student can ask whether Christians, Jews and Muslims believe in God and receive an answer. If a student asks Liebke if she believes God exists, she will say, "My personal religion is not for including "the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as described in the New Testament" (standard 6.7).

In 2016, the State Board of Education adopted a new HSS Framework to provide guidance on implementing the standards. It added content on Sikhism to the chapter on seventh-grade curriculum, "World History and Geography: Medieval and Early Modern Times."

Students, says Liebke, are encouraged to read primary sources, which may include excerpts from the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible and the Quran.

Religion and civil liberties High school students in In Rob Bonifacio's U.S. government class at the Public Safety Academy in Fairfield are knowledgeable about their constitutional rights - which includes freedom of religion. Sometimes students discuss what it means for a school to ask for a "moment of silence," or if students should be compelled to say "under God" when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

"A good number of students feel that no one should be forced," says F-SUTA member Bonifacio, who says teachers must be sensitive to the beliefs of all students, including atheists, and not let their own biases show.

His students discuss U.S. Supreme Court cases that cover civil liberties and religious freedom, and appreciate that as Americans, they have the right to worship - or not worship - as they please.

As his school becomes more diverse, the halls are no longer decked. Out of deference to Native Americans and indigenous people, Thanksgiving is now called "Turkey Day" in his classroom. He comments that younger students at his school are no longer taught that Christopher Columbus "discovered America," but instead that he enslaved Indians to convert them to Christianity.

"We're very secular in that regard and try to make sure we don't put any religion on a pedestal as we become more inclusive," says Bonifacio. "That way we are not just a school, but a family."

Parents may need explanations. Fulton and Liebke say that some parents have expressed concern upon learning seventh-graders study about Islam.

When educators explain it is part of a continuum of studies about many religions' influence on history, culture, and the arts - and necessary to enhance students' understanding of the world - most parents seem to understand. (Islam is included in HSS standard 7.2.)

"It opens up discussions about our differences and how to respect those differences," Fulton says. "I have Muslim students who feel that Islam has been wrongly associated with terrorism. Presenting facts avoids having people in one religion being painted with a broad brush."

Liebke explains to parents: "It is necessary for children to understand our world and the people in it before they grow up and cast their votes and make decisions about the world."

Ayisha Benham sends a letter to parents of her 12th-grade American government class and her ninth-grade cultural geography elective at Sylvester Greenwood Academy School in Richmond at the beginning of the year. She believes the letter, which explains how and what she will be teaching about religions, helps prevent misconceptions.

Providing a global perspective Benham, a member of United Teachers of Richmond, takes pride in not presenting information in her class from a Western point of view when it comes to how religion, race, and culture have influenced politics and culture. But she keeps a small Christmas tree on her desk every year to maintain holiday cheer.

Recently, she asked a Muslim student (privately, without pressure) if he would explain why Muslim women wear a hijab to cover their hair. He agreed and explained to classmates that in his culture, wearing a hijab was a source of pride for many women, including his mother. Benham says she and her students learned a great deal, and many changed their perspective.

She recently went to a training called "Faith to Face," a program that connects students in the classroom of one country with students in another to discuss how their cultural beliefs impact their lives

During the training, students from America discussed with students from a Middle Eastern country how they show appreciation and give thanks. Americans described Thanksgiving and stuffing themselves, while the Middle Eastern students spoke of Ramadan and fasting.

"It was interesting to see two cultures giving thanks in very different ways," she laughs. "And it was a valuable opportunity for interesting discussions in the classroom."

Separation of Church and State

Two years ago, a teacher in the Central Valley was accused of handing out "Bible Cookies" to students. The story went viral, and the school community was up in arms.

Eventually, the cookie story crumbled. The cookies were not Bible-shaped - nor did they contain Bible verses. They were store-bought cookies the teacher's wife donated to the school-authorized Christian Club, which the teacher, a California Teachers Association member, advised. He was later vindicated.

Yes, religion in public schools is a sensitive and hotly debated issue.

The First Amendment reads in part: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Today that clause is associated with the separation of church and state. The challenge for schools has been to balance that separation with religious freedom, which can be a fine line.

The U.S. Supreme Court protects students' individual rights to pray, wear religious symbols, and express their religious beliefs at school, yet prohibits such practices if they are perceived as disruptive, discriminatory, or coercive to peers who don't share the same beliefs. Prayer at public school graduation ceremonies and sporting events has been eliminated for creating a coercive environment.
The Pledge of Allegiance
In 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that "the First Amendment prohibits public schools from forcing students to ... say the Pledge of Allegiance."

The words "under God" were added to the pledge by Congress in 1954. Several unsuccessful challenges to reciting "under God" have been made. Most schools in California encourage students to recite the pledge every morning but do not require it.

In 1963, the Supreme Court outlawed mandatory Bible study courses in schools, but ruled that schools may teach objectively about religion - as opposed to teaching religious indoctrination - in history classes and "Bible as literature" classes. Under the federal Equal Access Act of 1984, public schools that allow extracurricular clubs must also allow extracurricular religious clubs, such as the one with the cookie controversy.

In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that public schools must allow outside religious groups to use their facilities during nonschool hours if they provide the same use to other organizations. President George W. Bush's controversial faith-based executive order allowed religious groups to apply for federal grant money for social or educational services in after-school programs. President Obama left the initiative in place, but made changes to prohibit discriminatory hiring practices in these organizations.
Science-based Curriculum, with a Caveat
Early in this decade, schools in California and elsewhere sought to teach a doctrine called "intelligent design" that is a form of creationism. A series of lawsuits challenged the right of schools to do so, and today scientifically verified curriculum is the focus of the Next Generation Science Standards.

Despite this focus, educators should always be respectful of students' rights and beliefs. In 2009, a teacher in Orange County was found to have violated the First Amendment when he spoke negatively about creationism to a student in his classroom who held strong religious beliefs.

In June 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that a Missouri church preschool was entitled to a grant from a state program to improve its playground. The ruling found that denying funds to religious groups to be used for secular purposes such as a playground violates the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion.

Education experts, including analyst and author Diane Ravitch, have criticized the decision to force the public to pay for religious schools, saying it violates the Constitution and widens the opening to vouchers, which funnel public money to private schools, including private religious schools. This is something U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has set as a goal.

Many schools today steer clear of religious holiday references, citing the "winter" break and avoiding references to religious celebrations, instead focusing on multiculturalism to be more inclusive of diverse populations.

It should be noted that faith-based organizations can be great allies to public schools, offering supplies, tutoring, and mentorships for students. Some California Teachers Association chapters, such as Associated Pomona Teachers, engage in community outreach with faith-based organizations on a regular basis to promote socially progressive issues, including equity and providing adequate funding for public education.

Guidelines for Teaching About Religion

* The approach is academic, not devotional.
* Educators strive for student awareness of religion, but do not press for student acceptance of any religion.
* The class educates about religions, but does not promote or denigrate any religion.
* The school may inform the student about religious beliefs, but does not seek to
conform a student to any particular belief.
* Students should not be put on the spot to explain their religious or cultural
traditions, or asked to be a spokesperson for his or her religion.
Source: National Council for the Social Studies
Article posted courtesy of California Educator magazine.

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"How did Christianity help shape the foundation and development of the early United States?" asks David Fulton, a social studies teacher at Green Valley Middle School in Fairfield. "Americans felt it was their God-given right to have independence," replies eighth-grader Parisa Samadi, citing a sentence in the Declaration of Independence that the "Creator" grants Americans inalienable rights.

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This website discusses teaching race to students in a classroom. The website discusses common challenges to teaching race and how to overcome those challenges. This website also give several teaching strategies that teachers can use to be able to teach race in their classrooms. One of these teaching strategies includes encouraging students to think reflexively. This allows students to be aware of implicit bias due to race.

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Cite this guide: Thurber, A., Harbin, M.B., & Bandy, J. (2019). Teaching Race: Pedagogy and Practice. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/teaching-race/.‎

From history to health fields, from sociology to school counseling, a wide range of disciplines address the historic and ongoing manifestations of racial inequality and injustice in the curriculum. These efforts are part of a broad educational movement of social justice education wherein educators equip students to analyze, understand, and intervene in systems of oppression in order to advance equity for all people.

Social justice education has implications for what we teach (curriculum) and how we teach (pedagogy). Despite an increasing number of instructors bringing a critical analysis of racial in/justice to their curriculum, many report challenges in teaching this content effectively. To begin to address this need, this guide summarizes some of the common challenges instructors may encounter and offers five broad pedagogical principles for teaching racial justice, and three possible strategies for implementing each strategy in the classroom.

For the purpose of this guide, we are using 'teaching race' and 'teaching racial injustice' interchangeably, and using both terms as shorthand for courses that incorporate content related to race, racism, racial injustice, and movements for racial justice.

Definitions

Race: Although there are vest variations in human ethnicity and culture, there is no biological basis for racial categories (for more on the what human genetics research tells us about race, see this blog post). Race is a social construction that has largely served to justify inequitable, and often inhumane, treatment of some populations by others, such as the forced removal and genocide of indigenous populations, enslaving of Africans, and the Jewish Holocaust. Because racial groups are socially constructed, their meanings have not been fixed over time, may differ across social contexts and geographies, and are often contested. Furthermore, how one identifies racially may differ from how one is perceived.

Racism: Following Tatum (1992), we understand racism as "a system of advantage based on race" that is perpetuated through institutions, policies, practices, ideologies, and interpersonal interactions. In the U.S. context, racism has and continues to benefit people perceived as "white" and to disadvantage those perceived as "people of color." As such, though race is "made up," racism powerfully shapes life experiences and life chances (for more information, see Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality's 2017 State of the Union report documenting racial disparities in employment, poverty, safety net, housing, education, incarceration, health, earnings, wealth, and intergenerational mobility).

Common Challenges to Teaching Race

For many of us, teaching racial courses related to racial justice are simultaneously among the most rewarding and most demanding parts of our academic life. In the words of Higher Education professor Michalinos Zembylas, "So many things can go horribly wrong" (2012, p. 120). The course content may challenge student's deeply held beliefs and assumptions about themselves and society. It may raise questions regarding who has the right to speak or teach about issues related to race, evoke a wide range of emotions, and foment interpersonal conflicts.

Even seasoned educators can be confounded when confronted with student's reactions to racial justice content, resistance to learning, microaggressions towards others, and/or aggressive comments or behaviors. Some instructors report freezing up in the face of emotionally charged moments in the classroom. Others, wary to 'shut down' dissenting views, are hesitant to challenge flawed logics embedded in student's claims. Still other instructors adopt a paternalistic approach to teaching racial justice. In a thought-provoking essay considering teaching white students who are resistant to learning about racial in/justice, one instructor noted she had "retreated into didactic, inactive, unengaged pedagogy..." and another confessed to "sarcastic needling as pedagogy" (Lichty & Palamaro-Munsell, 2017, p.16).

Given the breadth of challenges to effectively teaching racial justice, Lichty & Palamaro-Munsell conclude, "We need concrete strategies for...ethically sitting with tensions that press against our identities, our histories, power, and privilege. We need strategies for minimizing harm to all students, for fostering dialog and reflexivity in the college classroom" (2017, p. 9).

Addressing Challenges Through Course Design

Many of the challenges instructors encounter in teaching race can be addressed, in part, through intentional course design. Following best practices in course design, instructors must first identify the "enduring understandings" we hope students will take with them at the end of the class, determine how they will assess student learning toward those goals, and then construct productive learning experiences (see Wiggins & McTighe, 2005).

Courses related to racial justice may have any number of learning goals, such as: to increase empathy, to challenge misconceptions, to expand theoretical perspectives, to cultivate analytic skills, or to develop tools for productive dialogue.

To assess student learning, it is crucial to determine how progress may be evident. For some learning goals, traditional assessment strategies (e.g. quiz, exam, or research paper) may be appropriate, while other goals may require performance-based assessments. For example, if equipping students with tools for intergroup dialogue is a key learning objective, assessment might include self-and peer reflections on student participation in large and small group dialogue in class.

Finally, an instructor's choice of content-the constellation of texts, media, lectures, labs, and learning activities in a given class-should be designed to support student learning and their ability to demonstrate that learning through the planned modes of assessment. In the current era, many departments are reevaluating their curriculum in order to increase representation of previously marginalized knowledge or underrepresented perspectives (O'Neill & Miller, 2015; Lichty & Palamaro-Munsell, 2017). For example, in every course in Seattle University's Master of Social Work program, at least 50% of the required readings are authored by scholars of color or other marginalized groups.

Although intentional course design can set the stage for creating a productive learning environment, it alone is insufficient for addressing unexpected challenges that can arise in teaching race. Any number of events can spark strong reactions in the classroom, such as an offhand remark from a student, a racially-motivated attack in the community, an act of hate speech on campus. Such moments require instructors to be nimble in their facilitation, yet preparation to handle these moments is often neglected in teacher training programs (Sue, Lin, Torino, Capodilupo & Rivera, 2009). Note, the following pages present guiding principles and corresponding pedagogic strategies, synthesized from a comprehensive review of literature related to teaching race (Harbin, Thurber and Bandy, in press).

Principle 1: Encourage Reflexivity

Encouraging student reflexivity is a core tenant of racial justice education (Bozalek, Carolissen, Leibowitz, Nicholls, Rohleder & Swartz, 2010; Smele, Siew-Sarju, Chou, Breton & Bernhardt, 2017; Zembylas, 2012). Reflexivity is broadly understood as the ability to consider one's own feelings, reactions, and motives and how they impact behaviors. In the context of racial justice education, reflexivity suggests the ability to critically evaluate one's own social location and racial socialization, to become increasingly aware of racial biases, and to be willing to investigate the ways internal perspectives about race inform our interactions and relationships.

Strategies for encouraging reflexivity include:

Modelling reflexivity. Instructors can interrogate their own experiences of marginalization, privilege, and internalized dominance, and share these reflections with students as an example of the kind of rigorous self-reflection expected in the course (Delano-Oriaran & Parks, 2015; Rothschild, 2003; Smele, Siew-Sarju, Chou, Breton & Bernhardt, 2017). In some settings, such modelling may require relatively little vulnerability. Yet in other settings, instructors may feel some discomfort making such disclosures. Acknowledging these feelings can be a way to normalize discomfort.

Addressing instructor positionality. While it is true that instructors of all backgrounds can be equally effective (or ineffective) in leading racial justice content, it also true that students will respond differently to instructors-at least initially-on the basis of their perceived race and other identities (Housee, 2008). An instructors' positionality may generate in students various reactions - trust, affinity, authenticity, hope, as well as distrust, alienation, skepticism, or isolation. Rothschild (2003) encourages students to reflect on their reactions to an instructor's perceived positionality, assigning a written reflection to the prompt: "What concerns they may have about taking this course from a ___ professor?"

Assigning autobiographical journaling/essays. Providing assignments that require students to make connections between the course content and their lived experiences is another way to encourage reflexivity. Instructors may offer a range of prompts related to course content, such as:

What/how did you first learn about race?

When do you first learn that you were a member of a racial group? What/how did you learn about your racial group?

When do you first learn that there were racial groups other than your own? What/how did you learn about this/these groups?

How do you perceive your own race, and how is your race is perceived by others?

Select a significant institution in your life (ie. educational, religious, media/cultural, etc.). What have you learned from this institution about race? How might this have impacted relationships and identity?

Scan your relationships with people who have been socialized into a different racial group than yourself. Thinking back to your childhood, what have been the nature of these relationships (i.e. friends, family, teachers, service providers, mentors/coaches, charity recipients, etc.)? Have the types of changed over time? What do you notice about the relationships in your life today?

Instructors have experimented with a range of uses of these written reflections, including assigning them as homework, using them as in-class discussion prompts, and having students review and comment on their initial reflections later in the semester (Danowitz & Tuitt, 2011, Rothschild, 2003; Estrada & Matthews, 2016; Matias & Mackey, 2016; and Winans, 2005).

Principle 2: Prepare for and Welcome Difficulty

It is arguable that all education-especially when challenging hegemonic beliefs-is necessarily a discomforting process. This is particularly true with racial justice education, which involves grappling with individual, cultural, and national identities (Housee, 2008). In this context, conflict can be a sign of intellectual growth (O'Neill & Miller, 2015). Although educators should not aim to create discomfort as an end it itself, it is critical for instructors to expect, welcome, and prepare for conflict (Danowitz & Tuitt, 2011; Ford, 2012; Housee, S., 2008; Kumashiro, 2000; Lichty & Palamaro-Munsell, 2017; Matias & Mackey, 2016; O'Neill & Miller, 2015; Simpson, 2006; Smele, Siew-Sarju, Chou, Breton & Bernhardt, 2017). As such, Kumashiro notes that "Educators should expect their students to enter crisis," and in doing so, "provide space in the syllabus for students to work through their crisis in a way that changes oppression" (2000, p.7). Instructors should also be prepared to respond to microaggressions in the classroom in ways that facilitate learning and accountability, and wherever possible, repair ruptures in relationships (Thurber & DiAngelo, 2018).

Strategies for preparing for difficulty include:

Normalizing difficulty. Instructors may choose to include a statement on the syllabus reminding students that while repetition is comforting, learning new things-especially things that challenge previously held beliefs, is not (Kumashiro, 2000). This also can be said in class, as appropriate. Instructors may also choose to initiate a meta-dialogue about discussions within the course, for example asking students to reflect on what constitutes a productive classroom conversation, and in so doing challenging the notions of safety, risk, and comfort (Leonardo & Porter, 2010; Matias & Mackey, 2016).

Assigning meta-cognitive reflections. As part of normalizing discomfort, instructors can ask students to write down concerns they have about talking about race/racism in class (e.g. appearing racist, or being a target of other's microaggressions), or their feelings about the topic (Estrada & Matthews, 2016; Rothschild, 2003). These reflections can be shared in pairs or triads and then discussed among the class as a whole as a way to acknowledge and normalize the concerns students bring to the prospect of talking about race.

Utilizing critical learning journals. Smele, Siew-Sarju, Chou, Breton & Bernhardt (2017) suggest the use of a "critical learning journal," a place for ungraded reflections that are not shared with other students or the professor but which encourages self-reflection when hot moments arise in the course. Critical learning journals can be a useful tool for students as they process their learning, while also encouraging students to be responsible for understanding their own emotional responses to course content and interactions.

Principle 3: Meet Students Where They Are

In considering how to teach racial justice content, instructors must consider the overall campus context as well as their individual students. In some contexts, it is not uncommon for white students never to have had a black peer or instructor; never to have deeply considered the impact of racism on their own identity, relationships, or broader social conditions; and consequently, to lack language to talk about race and racism (Delano-Oriaran & Parks, 2015; Santas, 2000; Simpson, 2006; Rothschild, 2003). Even in contexts where students have been exposed to a diversity of perspectives on race, research indicates that the vast majority of white people carry beliefs and understandings rooted in misinformation, bias, or internalized beliefs in white superiority (Sue, 2010).

Meeting students where they are poses a pedagogical challenge, as students in a given class may be in a range of different places. Not unlike a conversation among people with different levels of fluency in a given language, there is ample room for error and misunderstanding. Thus, meeting students where they are requires considering student's knowledge base, providing tools for constructive engagement with the course material, and helping students develop new understandings.

Strategies for meeting students where they are include:

Assessing student knowledge and preconceptions. This can be done in the first day of class via an ungraded pre-test, with short-answer questions related to the core concepts of the course (for example, this may include concepts such as racial socialization, racial disparities, and/or whiteness). The autobiographical journaling described above also functions as an assessment of student preconceptions.

Providing skills for dialogue. There is debate around the usefulness of discussion guidelines, with a number of scholars arguing that such guidelines often function to privilege white students' sense of comfort and safety over critical self-reflection (Leonardo & Porter, 2010; Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2014). That said, numerous scholars suggest allotting time and content in the course to discuss and develop skills for productive conversations about race (Lichty & Palamaro-Munsell, 2017; Smele, Siew-Sarju, Chou, Breton & Bernhardt, 2017; Leonardo & Porter, 2010). For example, Matias & Mackey (2015) introduce students to Bonilla-Silva's (2006) study of white students 'semantic moves'[2] and encourage them to notice when these discursive tactics are employed in class. As another example, Sensoy and DiAngelo coach students to reframe their claims as questions, providing a list of 18 possible prompts designed "to engender humility, develop critical thinking skills, interrogate what we think we know, and practice grappling with new information" (2014, p.194). For instance, when a student responds to a reading with the statement, "I don't agree that only whites can be racist-that's not true," an instructor might coach them to inquire, "The author is arguing that only whites can be racist (etc.) ... Can you help me understand that?"

Engaging students' arguments, even when they are flawed. Students who have not thought deeply about issues of race and racism, or who have not been exposed to alternative viewpoints, may voice arguments that are problematic in a number of ways. For example, a student may contend that racism is a phenomenon that exists only in the past or attribute a stereotype to all members of a particular ethnic group. Zembylas (2012) suggests the use of "strategic empathy." In practice, strategic empathy requires resisting the urge to correct misinformation and adopting instead a stance of inquiry into the complex and contradictory motivations of students in order to promote self-reflection and critical thinking, a strategy that is advocated by others (Delano-Oriaran & Parks, 2015; Lichty & Palamaro-Munsell, 2017; Winans, 2005; Zembylas, 2012). This might look like asking questions about a particular statement. For example, in response to a student's statement that undocumented immigrants are "taking jobs away from Americans," an instructor might consider some of the following prompts:

Tell me more about that...

It sounds like you have strong views on this - have you had some personal experience that might help us understand where you are coming from?

I'm glad you brought this up, because this sentiment is something we hear a lot in popular culture, and it's important to understand and unpack. What are the concerns underlying this statement?

Other scholars suggest "calling out while calling in" by directly identifying flaws in argumentation or factual errors, while still drawing students into inquiry about the function of the argument in perpetuating racism (Smele, Siew-Sarju, Chou, Breton & Bernhardt, 2017). Using the previous example, an instructor might offer evidence of seasonal labor shortages in agricultural industries that have relied on migrant workers for decades and introduce the history of U.S. governmental policies that have brought non-resident workers into the country to meet that demand (i.e. the Bracero program) or cite statistics on the jobs that immigrants create through their consumption and taxes, in addition to other growth effects. They may then ask students to consider why the narrative of immigrants taking American jobs has persisted.

Whether an instructor adopts a stance of "strategic empathy" or "calling out while drawing in", the recommendation is to meet students where they are, not leave them where they are.

Principle 4: Engage Affective and Embodied Dimensions of Learning

It is critical that instructors use lecture and text to provide students with relevant empirical knowledge related to course content. This often involves providing the historical context needed for students to understand patterns and trends and developing students' intellectual capacity for engaging in social analysis (Santas, 2000; Estrada & Matthews, 2016). Yet, racial justice education requires much more than simply correcting misinformation or developing and applying a racial justice analysis. Racial justice content is highly affective; indeed, part of the problematic nature of racial categories is the ways they have been constructed to evoke feeling states and emotions (e.g. safety, fear, distrust). Further, students experience a great deal of feelings in response to the course content and classroom interactions.

Relatedly, racial justice courses engage students lived experiences as people who have been impacted by race and racism; and participating in classroom interactions is yet another way that race and racism become embodied, through who they choose to sit next to, who they elect to partner with in class or small group activities, when they choose to speak and when they remain silent. As such, it is essential to engage the affective and embodied dimensions of learning (Bozalek, Carolissen, Leibowitz, Nicholls, Rohleder & Swartz, 2010; Danowitz & Tuitt, 2011; Housee, S., 2008; Estrada & Matthews, 2016; Ford, 2012; Kumashiro, 2000; Lichty & Palamaro-Munsell, 2017; Matias & Mackey, 2016; Rothschild, 2003; Simpson, 2006; Smele, Siew-Sarju, Chou, Breton, & Bernhardt, 2017; Zembylas, 2012).

The call to "put the body back into knowledge making" (Sutherland, 2013, p. 739) begins with normalizing the affective and embodied dimensions of learning (Estrada & Matthews 2016) and helping students to develop emotional literacy. As Matias & Mackey contend, students must "learn to take ownership of their own emotional responses to learning about race, racism, white supremacy, and whiteness" (2016, p. 37). At the same time, students must be willing to consider the emotional responses of others, which may be similar to or different from their own. This learning takes place through encounters with the course content, and also through peer-to-peer teaching and learning. Scholars of social justice education recommend that instructors leverage student's lived experiences as sources of knowledge and learning (Danowitz & Tuitt, 2011; Lichty & Palamaro-Munsell, 2017; Smele, Siew-Sarju, Chou, Breton & Bernhardt, 2017). In practice, engaging the affective and embodied dimensions of learning takes a variety of forms, including: pairing cognitive and experiential activities; slowing down to allow time for students to more deeply engage course content; and incorporating sensory ways of knowing, such as including rituals/mindfulness practices (Danowitz & Tuitt, 2011; Estrada & Matthews 2016; Housee, 2008; Ford, 2012; Rothschild, 2003; Shahjahan, 2015; Sutherland, 2013; Waring & Bordoloi, 2012).

Specific strategies for engaging the affective and embodied dimensions of leaning include:

Diversifying course content. Although many racial justice courses rely heavily on academic articles or books, these are not the only sources of knowledge. Other possibilities include analyzing (auto)biographical narratives/memoirs that can surface feelings, experiences, as well as new understandings (Delano-Oriaran & Parks, 2015; Winans, 2005). Theatre, video, spoken-word, social media, music, web video clips, visual art, advertisements, and games are other examples of often affectively charged 'texts' that provide another way to learn about the social construction of race and systemic manifestations of racism.

Diversifying forms of engagement. While participation can be a challenge in any course, this can be particularly the case in courses exploring content than challenges students' beliefs and perspectives. Starting class conversation in pairs or small groups can increase engagement in large group discussions (Santas, 2000; Waring & Bordoloi, 2012). As noted by Barkley, Cross and Major (2014), incorporating active and collaborative learning activities-including meaningful individual, group, or whole class experiences- makes classes more accessible to students of color, women and first-generation students while at the same time drawing on embodied dimensions of learning. For example, the use of theatre/performance, in which students actively take on various perspectives, has been shown to facilitate shifts in students' understandings of race (Sutherland, 2013).

Diversifying forms of assessment. Many racial justice courses assess student learning only in terms of cognitive development, for example through quizzes, exams, or research papers. Including other modes of assessment allows instructors to assess affective and social development as well. As examples, Matias & Mackey (2016) assign preservice teachers to create videos and digital stories that integrate and apply course learning, Finn (2016) describes a multi-media positionality montage assignment for social work students to reflect on how their own identities inform their social work practice, and Bozalek, Carolissen, Leibowitz, Nicholls, Rohleder & Swartz (2010) use an array of visual mapping activities to guide students to reflect on their individual and community contexts.

Principle 5: Build a Learning Community

Creating a sense of belonging within a classroom is increasingly recognized as a critical element to learning; students learn best when they feel connected, cared for, and that their perspectives are valued (Samuel, 2017). This is particularly true when teaching racial in/justice, where building community within class increases comfort and willingness to engage in "threshold" learning (Delano-Oriaran & Parks, 2015; Lichty & Palamaro-Munsell, 2017; Santas, 2000; Smele, Siew-Sarju, Chou, Breton & Bernhardt, 2017). While we highlight a number of strategies for building a learning community below, it also is important to acknowledge the differential risks of students (and faculty) of participating in such communities (Smele, Siew-Sarju, Chou, Breton & Bernhardt, 2017). Leonardo & Porter caution that some "whites turn racism into an intellectualist problem, rather than a lived one" (2010, p. 149). The intellectualization of race and racism by some students, while others intimately grapple with the lived experience of racism, creates uneven ground upon which to build a learning community. Though it is still possible to do so, it requires greater intentionality on the part of the instructor.

Specific strategies for building a learning community include:

Making yourself accessible. Building community within a course often starts with building student-instructor rapport. Endeavor to learn students' names and use them. Create a low-stakes assignment for students to visit your and/or your teaching assistant's office hours during the first two weeks of the semester to begin to build rapport. Be transparent about your commitment to racial justice, while also reflecting humility and your stance as a life-long learner. Let students know that you welcome hearing about their experience in the course, and how you can be more effective.

Designing opportunities for meaningful peer-to-peer learning. When designing small groups, it is critical to be mindful of who the conversation is "for." In racial justice courses, too often the knowledge and experience of students of color is exploited to advance the learning of white students. At times, an instructor may elect to use intragroup caucusing wherein students who share some aspects of social identity (e.g. black students, first generation students, white students, etc.) explore similarities and differences among their experiences, offer peer support, and learn from and challenge one another's perspectives (Leonardo & Porter, 2010). At other times, intergroup dialogue may be most appropriate, and an instructor may intentionally create small groups that are diverse along any number of axes, including ethnicity, gender, or geography. Creating meaningful intergroup dialogue on issues of race can be challenging for instructors working in ethnically homogenous settings. Some instructors have experimented with cross-institutional course design, bringing together students from two universities in both online and face-to-face sessions (Leibowitz, B., Bozalek, V., Rohleder, P., Carolissen, R., & Swartz, L., 2010). Groups that meet over time have the potential to form deeper bonds while also providing greater intellectual challenge. Suoranta and Moisio (2006) describe the use of a 'Study Circle' wherein students are divided into groups of four to eight participants. These small groups meet a given number of times over the term to discuss readings, taking turns presenting summaries and leading discussions, while documenting their collective work. The group represents the products of their collective inquiry in the form of a portfolio turned into the instructor.

Seeking a learning community for yourself. Just as our students are more likely to engage in transformative learning when they feel a sense of connection and belonging, instructors bring our best to teaching racial justice content when we are part of a learning community that offers ongoing support, challenge, and innovation. Some universities and colleges offer formalized learning communities for instructors. For the last several years, Vanderbilt University's Center for Teaching has facilitated multiple year-long learning communities related to topics of teaching, difference, and power, with interested faculty meeting monthly to share experiences and gain skills. The Smith University School of Social Work offers a weekly workshop titled "Pedagogy and Diversity" where faculty gather to share strategies to integrate antiracist content and practices into their courses, and troubleshoot teaching dilemmas (O'Neill & Miller, 2015). Where such formalized networks do not exist, interested faculty can self-organize a reading/discussion group, skill-sharing workshops, or other convenings to discuss racial justice pedagogy and enhance their professional development.

Conclusion

There is significant momentum in higher education to integrate social justice education into the curriculum in a broad array of disciplines. While there is a burgeoning field of literature related to best practices in teaching racial justice, there remains much for all of us to learn. Inevitably, there will continue to be situations that stump us, moments when we are not sure the most effective way to respond, where we cannot see the best path toward serving our students' diverse needs. At times, student learning may be modest, and uninformed perspectives may remain entrenched. In any given course, our students will walk away with less or more than we may have hoped, both as a result of and in spite of our contributions. As Simpson concludes, "Given the opportunity, our students learn in ways that make sense to them, and often in ways that we cannot predict. Likewise, it is our students who will decide what to take and leave from our classes..." (2006, p. 89). As instructors, we too need to increase our comfort with not knowing the answers and to embrace humility, just like we ask of our students (Simpson, 2006; Lichty & Palamaro-Munsell, 2017; Leonardo & Porter,2010). Indeed, teaching is an emergent process. Even with the best laid plans, we cannot always anticipate the challenges and possibilities that will arise in a given course.

References

Arao, B., & Clemens, K. (2013). From safe spaces to brave spaces. The art of effective facilitation: Reflections from social justice educators, 135-150.

Bandy, J., Harbin, M.B., Thurber, A. 2021. Teaching Race and Racial Justice: Developing Students' Cognitive and Affective Understanding. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 9 (1).

Barkley, E. F., Cross, K. P., & Major, C. H. (2014). Collaborative learning techniques: A handbook for college faculty. John Wiley & Sons.

Bozalek, V., Carolissen, R., Leibowitz, B., Nicholls, L., Rohleder, P., & Swartz, L. (2010). Engaging with difference in higher education through collaborative inter-institutional pedagogical practices. South African Journal of Higher Education, 24(6), 1023-1037.

Bonilla-Silva, E. (2006). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Danowitz, M. A., & Tuitt, F. (2011). Enacting inclusivity through engaged pedagogy: A higher education perspective. Equity & Excellence in Education, 44(1), 40-56.

Delano-Oriaran, O. O., & Parks, M. W. (2015). One black, one white: Power, white privilege, & creating safe spaces. Multicultural Education, 22(3/4), 15-19.

Estrada, F., & Matthews, G. (2016). Perceived Culpability in Critical Multicultural Education: Understanding and Responding to Race Informed Guilt and Shame to Further Learning Outcomes among White American College Students. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 28(3), 314-325.

Finn, J. L. (2016). Just practice: A social justice approach to social work. Oxford University Press.

Ford, K. A. (2012). Shifting White ideological scripts: The educational benefits of inter-and intraracial curricular dialogues on the experiences of White college students. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 5(3), 138-158.

Harbin, M.B., Thurber, A., and Bandy, J. (2019). Teaching Race, Racism, and Racial Justice: Pedagogical Principles and Strategies. Race and Pedagogy Journal, 4(1).

Housee, S. (2008). Should ethnicity matter when teaching about "race" and racism in the classroom? Race Ethnicity and Education, 11(4), 415-428.

Kumashiro, K. K. (2000). Toward a theory of anti-oppressive education. Review of Educational research, 70(1), 25-53.

Kumashiro, K. K. (2000). Teaching and learning through desire, crisis, and difference: Perverted reflections on anti-oppressive education. The Radical Teacher, (58), 6-11.

Leonardo, Z., & Porter, R. K. (2010). Pedagogy of fear: Toward a Fanonian theory of 'safety' in race dialogue. Race Ethnicity and Education, 13(2), 139-157.

Lichty, L. F., & Palamaro‐Munsell, E. (2017). Pursuing an ethical, socially just classroom: Searching for community psychology pedagogy. American journal of community psychology, 60(3-4), 316-326.

Matias, C. E., & Mackey, J. (2016). Breakin'down whiteness in antiracist teaching: Introducing critical whiteness pedagogy. The Urban Review, 48(1), 32-50.

O'Neill, P. & Miller, J. 2015. Hand and Glove: How the Curriculum Promotes an Antiracism Commitment in a School for Social Work. Smith College Studies in Social Work, 85(2): 159-175.

Rothschild, T. (2003). "Talking race" in the college classroom: the role of social structures and social factors in race pedagogy. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 31(1), 31-38.

Santas, A. (2000). Teaching anti-racism. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 19(4), 349-361.

Sensoy, Ö., & DiAngelo, R. (2014). Respect differences? Challenging the common guidelines in social justice education. Democracy and Education, 22(2), 1.

Shahjahan, R. A. (2015). Being 'lazy' and slowing down: Toward decolonizing time, our body, and pedagogy. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47(5), 488-501.

Simpson, J. S. (2006). Reaching for justice: The pedagogical politics of agency, race, and change. The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 28(1): 67-94.

Smele, S., Siew-Sarju, R., Chou, E., Breton, P., & Bernhardt, N. (2017). Doing feminist difference differently: intersectional pedagogical practices in the context of the neoliberal diversity regime. Teaching in Higher Education, 22(6), 690-704.

Samuel, K. (2017). Creating More Caring University Classrooms. Meaningful Education in Times of Uncertainty, 75. Brookings. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/creating-more-caring-university-classrooms/

Sue, D.W. (2010). Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation. Wiley.

Sue, D. W., Lin, A. I., Torino, G. C., Capodilupo, C. M., & Rivera, D. P. (2009). Racial microaggressions and difficult dialogues on race in the classroom. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 15(2), 183.

Suoranta, J., & Moisio, O. P. (2006). Critical Pedagogy as Collective Social Expertise in Higher Education. International Journal of Progressive Education, 2(3), 47-64.

Sutherland, A. (2013). The role of theatre and embodied knowledge in addressing race in South African higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 38(5), 728-740.

Tatum, B. (1992). Talking about race, learning about racism: The application of racial identity development theory in the classroom. Harvard Educational Review, 62(1), 1-25.

Thurber, A., & DiAngelo, R. (2018). Microaggressions: Intervening in three acts. Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 27(1), 17-27.

Waring, C. D., & Bordoloi, S. D. (2012). " Hopping on the Tips of a Trident": Two Graduate Students of Color Reflect on Teaching Critical Content at Predominantly White Institutions. Feminist Teacher, 22(2), 108-124.

Wiggins, G., Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Winans, A. E. (2005). Local pedagogies and race: Interrogating white safety in the rural college classroom. College English, 67(3), 253-273.

Zembylas, M. (2012). Pedagogies of strategic empathy: Navigating through the emotional complexities of anti-racism in higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, 17(2), 113-125.

[1] This guide has been adapted from Harbin, B., Thurber, A., and Bandy, J. (in press). Teaching Race, Racism, and Racial Justice: Pedagogical Principles and Classroom Strategies for Course Instructors. Race and Pedagogy Journal.

[2] Bonilla Silva defines 'semantic moves' as the rhetorical strategies or patterns of speech used by white people to express their views on race.

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By Amie Thurber, M. Brielle Harbin, and Joe Bandy [1] Print Version Cite this guide: Thurber, A., Harbin, M.B., & Bandy, J. (2019). Teaching Race: Pedagogy and Practice. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/teaching-race/.‎ From history to health fields, from sociology to school counseling, a wide range of disciplines address the historic...

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This article discusses important strategies for teachers to discuss bias against disabilities. This article discusses how to address differences due to disabilities and how teachers can discuss these disabilities with students. For example, the article discusses accommodations and how to help students to understand that it is fair that these students have these accommodations. This article gives teachers tips to help reduce bias due to disabilities in a classroom.

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Last week, I wrote about teacher bias against special education students: a topic that struck a chord for many teachers for a variety of reasons. How can we achieve equity in education with biases in place? The answer? We can't. But there are ways to help deal with biases, whether our own or someone else's. This time, let's go through each bias one-by-one and determine solutions that are realistic for teachers. But first, you must address your own implicit biases and own them so that you can take positive steps forward. Ready? Okay. Let's go.

Addressing Teacher Bias in Beliefs about Rewards

Many teachers are against reward-systems even for regular education students, but add that system to a child with an IEP who has behavioral challenges, and feathers get ruffled pretty quickly. The truth is, when it comes to rewards, the right types of rewards communicate a pressure for a person to engage in specific behaviors according to Ryan, Mims, and Koestner (1983). So, what are the right types of rewards? Verbal rewards, where you give explicit positive feedback, can actually enhance competence and increase intrinsic motivation, according to Deci, Koestner, and Ryan (2001). Tangible rewards, say Deci, et al., such as prizes, pizzas, candy, etc., would work only if the student is actually engaged in the behavior being rewarded, and can be given under certain contingencies, such as the student engaging in a certain task over a certain period of time. However, the most positive impact occurs with verbal rewards provided that they are explicitly stated and not just general, "good job" types of reward statements. Your best bet is to find as many positive (true) things to say about all students, but especially those with behavioral or learning difficulties in order to keep them motivated. As such, they are just as deserving of academic and social praise as any other student and should be rewarded at reward ceremonies as much as any other deserving student, regardless of whether or not they hold an IEP that keeps them at an equity standpoint with their peers.

[bctt tweet="Verbal rewards can actually enhance competence and increase intrinsic motivation" username="EducatorsRoom"]

Addressing Biases in Relation to Accommodations

Some teachers hesitate when it comes to accommodations and modifications on a child's IEP and may balk at the idea of it. However, this should be addressed from an equity standpoint, not an equality standpoint. So, Johnny might not receive any accommodations and make a 90 in the class while Jimmy receives a few accommodations that allow him to also make a 90 in the class. Is that so wrong? What if you worked your hardest and all you could ever make was a 70 while someone else, with greater capability than you, worked less hard and made a 90? Is that fair? The statement in my classroom is that fair isn't always equal. It's like if I went to a concert and stood behind a bunch of tall people (I'm super short). Is it a fair and equitable experience for both of us? NO. In fact, it's quite annoying and makes me less likely to attend future concerts. Do you want your students to feel like it's pointless to attend your class because, at their best, they will achieve far less than their peers? I doubt it. And if you're short like me, you'll understand the reference. Providing accommodations and modifications makes for an even playing field where all "concert-goers" get to see the concert and experience it with, hopefully, the same amount of joy.

Addressing Beliefs about Ability Levels and Behaviors

Finally, teacher bias is observed in teachers' beliefs about the ability levels and behaviors of students with disabilities. There are teachers who believe students with academic and behavior problems will increase their workload and reduce the efficacy of teaching. While there is no doubt that students with behavioral difficulties can present a challenge in the classroom, that does not mean that you will not reap rewards from teaching these children. Nor does it mean that these students don't belong in the classroom. According to research conducted by Nelson, et al. (2004), it is true that academic achievement deficits often exist in students with emotional/behavioral difficulties. They also state that effective interventions must be presented for these students early on to help ameliorate the deficits that will occur over time without effective interventions. Fortunately, there are some great websites out there that provide fantastic interventions for students with behavioral challenges. Intervention Central is my personal favorite website because you can search practically any behavior and find numerous interventions to attempt to help the student find success in the classroom. To help track academic growth for all students, easyCBM is a free resource that can be used for any grade level in reading and math. If you want to pay, it unlocks more features, but I find tracking growth and showing the students their charts to be an effective way to encourage academic success over time. With both of these resources, the interventions and resources are good for all students and should be a regular part of your classroom instruction, not just something extra to do. In fact, plenty of students without IEPs experience behavioral and academic difficulties that can be addressed through these resources and more.

Final Notes

None of these points are meant to express that teachers do not want the best for their students. In fact, a vast majority of teachers believe they are doing what is best for their students, but may need some extra training to help with those students they are less comfortable teaching. In order to get to that place where extra training is effective, though, teachers must first decide they need a little extra help. These articles are meant not to undermine teachers but to ensure we all address the biases that occur everyday in our lives. Without us carefully monitoring our own biases, we can do very little to fix them.

References:
Deci, Koestner, & Ryan (2001). Extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation in education: Reconsidered once again. Review of Educational Research 71(1), 1-27. Nelson, J. R., Benner, G. J., Lane, K., & Smith, B. W. (2004). Academic achievement of K-12 students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Council jor Exceptional Children, 71 (1), 59-73. Ryan, Mims, and Koestner (1983). Relation of reward contingency and interpersonal context to intrinsic motivation: A Review and test using cognitive evaluation theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(4), 736-750.

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Conquering Teacher Biases Against Disabilities: Important Strategies

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There are ways to help deal with biases, whether our own or someone else's. This time, let's go through each bias one-by-one...

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This article addresses ways that teachers can reduce gender bias in a classroom. The article discusses the importance of having discussions with students about gender, and prejudice against different genders. This article also discussed the importance of showing men and women doing jobs that are not "traditional" to their gender. For example, a teacher could read a book in class that shows a man being a nurse or a woman as a construction worker. This article provides practical tips to help teachers address bias towards gender in their classrooms.

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This post is the 11th in a blog series published in 2019 in the context of a collaboration between the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).
In 1995 at the World Conference on Women in Beijing, countries unanimously adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action - the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing the rights of not only women but girls. The Beijing Declaration is the first to specifically call out girls' rights.

On December 19, 2011, United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/170 to declare October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognize girls' rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world.

The International Day of the Girl Child focuses attention on the need to address the challenges girls face and to promote girls' empowerment and the fulfilment of their human rights.

This year, under the theme, "GirlForce: Unscripted and unstoppable", we celebrate achievements by, with and for girls since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

Impact of teachers on a child's life

Teachers are often significant players in the early development of children. They are key to achieving equitable and inclusive education systems that deliver learning. They also take up the guardian role when children attend school right from early childhood education to university.

This essentially means that teachers have the power to influence how children think, act, perceive, interpret, and articulate thoughts and experiences in the early stages of life. Even in adulthood, people will remember a punishment or praise that their teachers gave them in their school days.

In the book ' Michelle Obama - former US first lady and founder of the Let Girls Learn Initiative - recalls how embarrassed she felt when she could not pronounce the word 'white' in an English class prompting her teacher to order Michelle to sit back down.

"I was sure my teacher had now pegged me as someone who could not read or, worse, did not try to" writes Michelle Obama. A hot-cheeked young Michelle further narrates how the two best pupils in her class could literally read everything correctly, making her conclude that her inability to read 'white' appropriately could have been "a sign that the two were marked for greatness when the rest of them were not."

Closer to home in Africa, renowned author and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her book 'We should all be Feminists' underscores how African education systems have reinforced gender biases and discrimination towards girls.

"We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the men", writes Ms. Adichie.

While some may disagree with Chimamanda and other writers on the gender bias of the education we deliver to children, and especially in Africa, it is imperative that we do not ignore teaching practices that may consciously or unconsciously ingrain gender discrimination, bias and reinforce patriarchy in children's way of life and thinking.

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Fighting teaching practices that reinforce gender bias in school

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This post is the 11th in a blog series published in 2019 in the context of a collaboration between the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).

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This article discusses ways that teachers can address socioeconomic gaps in their classrooms. This article discusses addressing these students' physical and and social needs. By addressing these needs in a classroom, a teacher can help to address socioeconomic gaps in classrooms. The article also discussed getting creative to teach students how are of a low socioeconomic status. This article gave practical tips for teachers to help eliminate socioeconomic gaps in their classrooms.

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5 Ways Teachers Can Address Socioeconomic Gaps in the Classroom - Social Studies

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For my first permanent teaching position, I was lucky enough to fill a history position at a small K-8 school in a rural community.

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This article discusses ways that teachers can discusses religious diversity in a classroom without violating the separation of church and state. One suggestion that is given in this article is to build lesson plans that reflect on the students' religious beliefs, and help students to see the similarities and differences between these religions. This article helps teachers to be aware of how they can legally address religion in their classrooms and eliminate implicit bias due to religion.

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Learning for Justice, then Teaching Tolerance, and the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding teamed up to offer educators a free webinar series: Religious Diversity in the Classroom. The five-part series and accompanying resources (described in detail below) examine how awareness of religious diversity affects global citizenship, and how teaching about religion across grade levels and subject areas can help meet academic standards.

Webinar 1: What's Law Got To Do With It?

There's a lot of misinformation about what teachers are allowed to do when it comes to discussing religion in public school. But the truth is it's both legal and important to teach about religion and the diversity of religious and nonreligious worldviews. What's Law Got To Do With It? helps educators build a deeper understanding of the legal parameters relevant to including religion in the classroom.

After-session pack: A PDF with activities and lessons.

Follow-up blogs: A four-part series that responds to participants' questions and comments.

Webinar 2: Fostering a Culture of Respect

How do you help students of all religions-or no religion-feel safe, supported and accepted? By creating a classroom culture in which religious diversity is respected. That may sound complicated, but Fostering a Culture of Respect offers suggestions on how to do just that.

After-session pack: A PDF with activities and lessons.

Follow-up blogs: A three-part series that responds to participants' questions and comments.

Webinar 3: Applications for Elementary Educators

Are you looking for practical suggestions on how to explore religious diversity with elementary students? Applications for Elementary Educators offers recommendations on how to teach about religion and religious differences through critical literacy strategies and developmentally appropriate lesson plans and classroom activities-all while promoting empathy and respectful curiosity among students.

A transcription for this webinar can be found here.

After-session pack: A PDF with activities and lessons.

Follow-up blog: Agree to (Respectfully) Disagree

Webinar 4: Applications for Middle Level Educators

Turn what's often called "a tough age" into an age of opportunity by actively promoting respect for differences, including religious differences. Applications for Middle Level Educators offers recommendations on how to implement lesson plans that enable students to express their own identities while learning about diverse religious and nonreligious beliefs and how to use a variety of resources to explore common themes among different religious traditions.

A transcription for this webinar can be found here.

After-session pack: A PDF with activities and lessons.

Follow-up blog: Families Have Much to Share

Webinar 5: Applications for High School Educators

This webinar, designed for high school educators of all subjects, offers practical suggestions for teaching about religious diversity in ways that reduce prejudice, promote mutual respect and help students prepare for college and career. High school students will soon enter a wider world where they will engage with individuals from vastly different religious and cultural backgrounds. Applications for High School Educators can help you get them ready!

Classroom materials available in the Resource List within the webinar.

Follow-up blogs:

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Teaching Tolerance and the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding teamed up to offer educators a free webinar series: Religious Diversity in the Classroom.

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This article helps describe how teachers can reduce implicit bias due to race. This article describes practical ways that teachers can help students to be aware of their biases. For example, this article suggests reducing implicit bias by making students aware that implicit bias exists. Having these discussions in a classroom can help students to be more aware of their implicit bias, and can help to eliminate it. This article gives practical tips for teachers as they strive to eliminate implicit bias due to race.

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A friend of mine recently told me about an incident involving students at Berkeley High School. On the first day of classes, African-American juniors and seniors were being asked by their honors course teacher to show him their schedule when they entered the classroom. The teacher, who was white, apparently assumed the black students were lost and in the wrong room, and his gesture made them feel unwelcome and humiliated.

This is an example of implicit bias-a behavior that arises from subconscious associations, which may even contradict someone's explicit values. Implicit racial bias plays a role in many classrooms and schools with potentially devastating effects. In one recent experiment with preschool teachers, researchers found that when teachers were primed to look for behavioral problems while watching a classroom video with black and white children (none of whom were misbehaving), teachers gazed much longer at black children than white children, as if anticipating the behavioral problems would come from the black children.

In another experiment from the same study, teachers read a vignette about a behavioral problem with a preschooler randomly identified as a black boy, black girl, white boy, or white girl, and then were given details about the child's background or not. Providing the background information on the child increased the severity of suggested disciplinary actions when the race of the teacher didn't match that of the child, supporting the idea that we are more inclined to punish those who look different from us.

In fact, disciplinary actions are more likely to be perpetuated against African Americans-boys and girls alike-than any other group of students, regardless of the infraction. And while it's understandable that teachers would want to prevent disruptions in the classrooms and take actions to avoid them, some seem to have little idea of how to do that without turning to ingrained biases.

Of course, teachers are not alone in having racial biases. Their behavior reflects how social messages are hard to escape, even for people of color. But studies like these show how racial disparities can be perpetuated in classrooms, too. If left unchecked, this kind of biased treatment can haunt a student well into elementary school and beyond, making the promise of "schools as the great social equalizers" a false one.

The good news is that teachers can learn to combat their prejudice, even the implicit kind, if they become more aware of it and take steps to actively fight it in themselves. Here are some of the ways that might help educators treat all of their students with dignity and care.

1. Cultivate awareness of their biases

Teachers are human and therefore influenced by psychological biases, like the fundamental attribution error, when we assume that others who behave in a certain way do so because of their character (a fixed trait) rather than in response to environmental circumstances. In-group bias leads us to assign positive characteristics and motivations to people who are similar to us.

Biases like these are natural, used as cognitive shorthand for making quick social judgments in ambiguous situations, especially those involving people from unfamiliar ethnic or social groups. They become a problem when we're not aware of their impact on other people. And if we're part of a majority group with more social, economic, or political power than a minority one, then accumulated unconscious bias can be extremely destructive, limiting the life opportunities and hurting the well-being of the minority group.

Many researchers believe that becoming more aware of our biases can help us improve our interactions with others, decrease our sense of unease in interracial contexts, and make better decisions. Though most of this research has been done with other professional groups or the general public, the same lessons are likely to apply to teachers.

However, many teachers feel pressures not to cop to those biases, perhaps out of fear they will be accused of racism. This leaves them blind to the ways that biases work at an unconscious level. Pretending to be colorblind is not helpful and in fact adhering to a color-blind philosophy has been shown to increase implicit bias, at least in college students. Admitting that we are all subject to biases creates a safer space to examine them more carefully and to take steps to fight them.

2. Work to increase empathy and empathic communication

Empathy -the ability to understand another's perspective and emotions-is important in all human social encounters, including teaching. Yet, often teachers have little understanding of the communities where their students live and have trouble understanding their perspectives, leading them to treat these students more harshly.

One solution: learning about the lives of students and showing that you care. At least one study has found that actively trying to take the perspective of another person-as opposed to trying to be "objective"-increased one's ability to not fall prey to stereotypical views of others. Actively inducing empathy for another person has been tied to a willingness to consider environmental circumstances more closely when handing out punishments for misbehavior. And, one recent study has found that training teachers in empathy cut down student suspension rates in half.

Though perhaps more research has been done on empathy in other professionals (such as physicians and police officers), teachers may want to take note of the ways that they have learned to increase their empathy through a combination of stress reduction, learning how to manage difficult emotions, and practicing empathic communication. Treating students with kindness and consideration is a sure way to bring out kindness in them, too.

3. Practice mindfulness and loving-kindness

Mindfulness practices-such as paying attention in a nonjudgmental way to one's breath or other sensations-has been shown to decrease stress in teachers, which can indirectly have an effect on reducing bias. But according to some research, mindfulness may also have a direct effect on bias reduction as well.

In one study, young white participants who listened to a 10-minute audiotape with instructions in mindfulness showed less implicit bias towards blacks and older people than those who listened to a 10-minute discussion of nature. This suggests that nonjudgmental awareness, even when not specifically focused on reducing prejudice, can help reduce unconscious biases.

Loving-kindness meditation-a practice that involves consciously sending out compassionate thoughts toward others-may also help. In a recent study, the random assignment of a short-term loving-kindness meditation reduced implicit bias toward a targeted group, though it didn't decrease implicit bias for other groups not targeted by the meditation.

4. Develop cross-group friendships in their own lives

While it's important to take steps in the classroom, the relationships we form outside of the classroom can also have an impact on bias.

Cross-group friendships have been shown in several studies to decrease stress in intergroup situations, to decrease prejudice toward outgroup members, and to decrease one's preference for social hierarchy or domination over lower-status groups. These findings alone might encourage teachers to seek out cross-group friendships in their lives so that they can be more receptive to the diverse students they find in their classrooms.

Another reason for teachers to consider developing cross-group friendships is that they may influence their students to do the same. When people see cross-group friendships working out in positive ways, they tend to be more willing to engage in cross-group friendships themselves.

In addition, positive cross-group friendships can have contagion effects in other people within social groups, turning whole communities into warmer, more receptive spaces for cross-group interactions. All of this bodes well for teachers role-modeling the kind of behavior they want to see in their students.

Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean teachers should indiscriminately approach someone just because they are from a different racial group. Instead, teachers can reach out to colleagues at work, or get involved in activities or perhaps attend events where people with different backgrounds and perspectives come together for a common cause. Developing friendships can be one of the best ways to break down barriers of prejudice, and it's more easily done when people have some common interests.

Is this a lot to ask, given all the burdens our society heaps on teachers? Perhaps. Teachers should get more support than they do, and, ideally, school districts should make reducing implicit bias a priority backed up with money, policy, and training. Individual teachers can only do so much.

Luckily, the teaching profession tends to attract altruists who want to teach in a way that helps their students. By working at countering implicit bias in themselves, they can truly make a difference in the lives of their students, making them feel safe, cared for, and welcome in the classroom.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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Four Ways Teachers Can Reduce Implicit Bias

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We're all subject to bias. Here are tips to help teachers treat all of their students with dignity and care.