August, 2021Archive

Aug 17

From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education by
Tia Brown McNair, Estela Mara Bensimon, and Lindsey Malcom-Piqueux is a great book for anyone working in higher education.  It provides a theoretical framework, action steps, and examples.

A few key take a ways from this book:

1) Disaggregate your data in lots of ways (race, gender, course, learning outcomes).  (This made me uncomfortable due to small sizes of subgroups until I realized we aren’t trying to make claims of “statistically significant differences,” but rather looking for actionable patterns.

2) Talking about race is hard, but necessary.

3) Don’t put the responsibility to fix the problem (of difference in outcomes by racial groups) on the very groups who are suffering from it.  They have enough to do.  And also, its our (white people’s) fault due to slavery, land grabs, racist housing policies, etc.

 

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