Inclusive Excellence, Diversity, and Multicultural Education

1. Inclusive Excellence, Diversity, and Multicultural Education By Paul C. Gorski August 2009

2. I. Introduction: Who We Are • Who is in the room? • My background and lenses

3. I. Introduction: Primary Arguments • At its heart, inclusive excellence is about creating equitable and just learning and working environments for all members of a community • Much of what we do in the name of equity and justice is inequitable and unjust • Being more authentically equitable and just requires attention to several core principles

4. I. Introduction: Agenda • Introductory Stuff • Moving Toward “Inclusive Excellence” • Key Concepts • Key Principles • What We Can Do

5. II. Moving Toward “Inclusive Excellence”

6. Campus Approaches to Multicultural Education • Celebrating Diversity • Cultural Competence • Human Relations • Equity and Justice

7. 1. Celebrating Diversity Characterized by: • Surface-level cultural activities and programming (fashion shows, food fairs) • Stereotypical minimalizations of “cultures” (Taco Night) • Institutional resistance to addressing diversity concerns in ways that don’t feel good to most privileged groups

8. 2. Cultural Competence Characterized by: • Focus on learning about cultures, often in ways that minimize or essentialize cultures (“Native American culture”; “African American culture”) • Focus exclusively on those in the “minority” while ignoring systemic power and privilege • An expectation that those in disenfranchised groups will “teach” those in privileged groups about their “culture”

9. 3. Human Relations Characterized by: • Structured opportunities for community members to come together across differences to hear each other’s experiences (Mix It Up Lunch; intergroup dialogue) • Interpersonal focus rather than institutional focus

10. 4. Equity and Justice Characterized by: • Institutional commitment to creating an anti-racist, anti-sexist, etc., campus through policy and practice • Continual institutional assessment of the extent to which equity and justice or present • Full cultural, social, political, and other access by all community members

11. Part III Key Concepts

12. Concept 1: Inclusive • Physical inclusiveness is not the same as social or cultural inclusiveness • An organization is only as inclusive as its most excluded member experiences it to be

13. Concept 2: Equity v. Equality • The difference • Building policy for equity rather than equality

14. Concept 3: Implicit Culture • Sometimes called “hidden curriculum” • What are the underlying values and hidden messages that form the culture of UW-Superior? Who benefits from these and who do they hurt? * * *

15. IV. Key Principles for an Equitable and Just Campus

16. Principles • Authentic “inclusion” and equity cannot be achieved through cultural programming • Resources committed to equity and diversity should not be used for “celebrating diversity,” but instead for eliminating inequities

17. Principles • Inclusive excellence begins with creating an equitable and just environment for all members of a community, which means we must be against all inequity and injustice • Racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism/homphobia, and so on…

18. Principles • Exclusion is not just an interpersonal issue. It’s a systemic issue, often buried in “tradition” or “just the way things are” • This is why it’s so important to understand the implicit culture and who it serves

19. Principles • Acting in support of inclusive excellence requires that we spend our “institutional likeability” • Must be willing to upset people and the institution

20. Principles • Inclusion and equity require a comprehensive assessment and approach • So we can’t simply add this or that program or class to an otherwise inequitable campus • Must think about the curriculum, co-curriculum, policies, hiring, leadership, and so on

21. Principles • In order for a campus to move authentically toward inclusive excellence, leadership must be actively and authentically involved • It never works without a combination of shifts in (1) expectations, (2) policy, (3) accountability, all from leadership

22. Principles • Equity advocates on campus must be empowered to fight the fight • Too often, the biggest advocates are marginalized within a university, but the real shift comes when those who support inequity are marginalized

23. Principles • Diversity is not about validating all perspectives • Appreciating diversity doesn’t mean respecting somebody’s homophobia; it means eliminating homophobia

24. Principles • Equity requires us to prioritize justice, not peace • Peace or conflict resolution without justice is injustice and privileges those already in power * * *

25. V. What I Can Do

26. What I Can Do Know and work to eliminate my own biases.

27. What I Can Do Teach and learn about racism, poverty, homophobia, and other atrocities.

28. What I Can Do Challenge each other. Strengthen “the choir.”

29. What I Can Do See and work at intersections: • Racism and sexism • Sexism and heterosexism • Heterosexism and classism • Classism and environmental destruction

30. What I Can Do Organize • Build coalitions among your colleagues or classmates when you see change that needs to happen

31. What I Can Do Move Beyond the Dialogue • Dialogue helps us educate and organize ourselves, but dialogue, in and of itself, never creates change * * *

32. Final Thought: The Two Corridors

33. Thank you. Paul C. Gorski gorski@edchange.org http://www.edchange.org