Working Towards Equity

In Working towards Equity, Dustin Galer argues that paid work significantly shaped the experience of disability during the late twentieth century. Using a critical analysis of disability in archival records, personal collections, government publications and a series of interviews, Galer demonstrates how demands for greater access among disabled people for paid employment stimulated the development of a new discourse of disability in Canada. Family advocates helped people living in institutions move out into the community as rehabilitation professionals played an increasingly critical role in the lives of working-age adults with disabilities. Meanwhile, civil rights activists crafted a new consumer-led vision of social and economic integration. Employment was, and remains, a central component in disabled peoples' efforts to become productive, autonomous and financially secure members of Canadian society. Working towards Equity offers new in-depth analysis on rights activism as it relates to employment, sheltered workshops, deinstitutionalization and labour markets in the contemporary context in Canada.

Faculty and staff in higher education are looking for ways to address the deep inequity and systemic racism that pervade our colleges and universities. Pedagogical partnership can be a powerful tool to enhance equity, inclusion, and justice in our classrooms and curricula. These partnerships create opportunities for students from underrepresented and equity-seeking groups to collaborate with faculty and staff to revise and reinvent pedagogies, assessments, and course designs, positioning equity and justice as core educational aims. When students have a seat at the table, previously unheard voices are amplified, and diversity and difference introduce essential perspectives that are too often overlooked.In particular, the book contributes to the literature on pedagogical partnership and equity in education by integrating theory, synthesizing research, and providing concrete examples of the ways partnership can contribute to more equitable educational systems. At the same time, the authors acknowledge that partnership can only realize its full potential to redress harms and promote equity and justice when thoughtfully enacted. This book is a resource that will inspire and challenge a wide variety of higher education faculty and staff and contribute to advancing both practice and research on the potential of student-faculty pedagogical partnerships. Presenting a conceptual framework for understanding the various epistemological, affective, and ontological harms that face students from equity-seeking groups in postsecondary education, Promoting Equity and Justice Through Pedagogical Partnership applies this conceptual framework to current literature in partnerships, highlighting the promise of partnership as the way to redress these harms. The authors ground both the conceptual framework and the literature review by offering two case studies of pedagogical partnership in practice. They then explore the complexities raised by their framework, including the conditions under which partnerships themselves may risk reproducing epistemic, affective, or ontological harms. Applying the framework in this way allows them to propose strategies that make it more likely for these mediations to be successful. Finally, the authors focus on the future of pedagogical partnership and share their perspectives on new directions for inquiry and practice. After summarizing the overarching themes developed throughout the book, the authors leave the reader with a set of questions and recommendations for further inquiry and discussion. A Series on Engaged Learning and Teaching Book. Visit the books’ companion website, hosted by the Center for Engaged Learning, for book resources.

This timely and essential book provides a comprehensive guide for school leaders who desire to engage their school communities in transformative systemic change. Sharon I. Radd, Gretchen Givens Generett, Mark Anthony Gooden, and George Theoharis offer five practices to increase educational equity and eliminate marginalization based on race, disability, socioeconomics, language, gender and sexual identity, and religion. For each dimension of diversity, the authors provide background information for understanding the current realities in schools and beyond, and they suggest "disruptive practices" to replace the status quo in order to achieve full inclusion and educational excellence for every child. Assuming that leadership to create equity is a unique practice, the book offers * Clear explanations of foundational terms and concepts, such as equity, systemic inequity, paradigms and cognitive dissonance, and privilege; * Specific recommendations for how to build support and sustainability by engaging colleagues and other stakeholders in constructive dialogues with multiple perspectives; * Detailed descriptions of routines and roles for building effective equity-leadership teams; * Guidelines and tools for performing an equity audit, including environmental scans; * A change framework to skillfully transform your system; and * Reflection activities for self-discovery, understanding, and personal and professional growth. A call to action that is both passionate and practical, Five Practices for Equity-Focused School Leadership is an indispensable roadmap for educators undertaking the journey toward an education system that acknowledges and advances the worth and potential of all students.

Educators must both respond to the impact of trauma, and prevent trauma at school. Trauma-informed initiatives tend to focus on the challenging behaviors of students and ascribe them to circumstances that students are facing outside of school. This approach ignores the reality that inequity itself causes trauma, and that schools often heighten inequities when implementing trauma-informed practices that are not based in educational equity. In this fresh look at trauma-informed practice, Alex Shevrin Venet urges educators to shift equity to the center as they consider policies and professional development. Using a framework of six principles for equity-centered trauma-informed education, Venet offers practical action steps that teachers and school leaders can take from any starting point, using the resources and influence at their disposal to make shifts in practice, pedagogy, and policy. Overthrowing inequitable systems is a process, not an overnight change. But transformation is possible when educators work together, and teachers can do more than they realize from within their own classrooms.

A practical guide for achieving equitable outcomes From Equity Talk to Equity Walk offers practical guidance on the design and application of campus change strategies for achieving equitable outcomes. Drawing from campus-based research projects sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Center for Urban Education at the University of Southern California, this invaluable resource provides real-world steps that reinforce primary elements for examining equity in student achievement, while challenging educators to specifically focus on racial equity as a critical lens for institutional and systemic change. Colleges and universities have placed greater emphasis on education equity in recent years. Acknowledging the changing realities and increasing demands placed on contemporary postsecondary education, this book meets educators where they are and offers an effective design framework for what it means to move beyond equity being a buzzword in higher education. Central concepts and key points are illustrated through campus examples. This indispensable guide presents academic administrators and staff with advice on building an equity-minded campus culture, aligning strategic priorities and institutional missions to advance equity, understanding equity-minded data analysis, developing campus strategies for making excellence inclusive, and moving from a first-generation equity educator to an equity-minded practitioner. From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: A Guide for Campus-Based Leadership and Practice is a vital wealth of information for college and university presidents and provosts, academic and student affairs professionals, faculty, and practitioners who seek to dismantle institutional barriers that stand in the way of achieving equity, specifically racial equity to achieve equitable outcomes in higher education.

Institutions everywhere seem to be increasingly aware of their roles in settler colonialism and anti-Black racism. As such, many racialized workers find themselves tasked with developing equity plans for their departments, associations or faculties. This collection acknowledges this work as both survival and burden for Black, Indigenous and racialized peoples. It highlights what we already know and are already doing in our respective areas and offers a vision of what equity can look like through a decolonial lens. What helps us to make this work possible? How do we take care with ourselves and each other in this work? What does solidarity, collaboration or “allyship” look like in decolonial equity work? What are the implicit and explicit barriers we face in shifting equity discourse, policy and practice, and what strategies, skills and practices can help us in creating environments and lived realities of decolonial equity? This edited collection centres the voices of Indigenous, Black and other racialized peoples in articulating a vision for decolonial equity work. Specifically, the focus on decolonizing equity is an invitation to re-articulate what equity work can look like when we refuse to separate ideas of equity from the historical and contemporary realities of colonialism in the settler colonial nation states known as Canada and the United States and when we insist on linking an equity agenda to the work of decolonizing our shared realities.

This book is the first national study of Canadian educators' perspectives and practices of multicultural and anti-racism education. It explores teachers' perspectives on race and ethno-cultural equity, and offers solutions for some of the most pressing social justice and diversity issues facing educators in contemporary Canadian schools and society. The authors suggest that the ineffectiveness of professional development initiatives to move educators from a posture of resistance to one of transformation points to the need for a more progressive anti-racism teacher education pedagogy. Based on a proven Urban Diversity Teacher Education model, this book provides theoretically driven practices for simultaneous renewal of teacher education in the university, partnership schools and the communities they serve. It links the sensitive issues of race, ethnicity and culture to broader equity, social justice and diversity themes in Canadian society and institutions.

This book presents a powerful model for using relational trust, cultural humility, and appreciation of diverse perspectives to build learning communities that collectively uplift all students and all members of the learning community.