The Inclusive Practices (IP) Framework At Pierce College
Purpose
- Implementing Inclusive Practices is critical to serving our entire community, particularly students from minoritized backgrounds.
- The IP framework is a living and evolving document that aims to build an ecosystem across the institution.
- The IP framework is both aspirational and based on accountability.
- Inclusive Practices acknowledges that all members of our institutional ecosystem are both learners and teachers.
Definitions
Inclusive Practices recognizes that varied backgrounds, physical, intellectual, emotional, and social abilities of historically marginalized communities are center to accurately capturing the complexities of our vast humanity.
Inclusive Practices represent an ecological approach that centers the ways both humans (body, mind, and spirit) and structures (political, economic, cultural, and social) interact and impact each other in the process of creating “balance.” We build collective efficacy that advances equity. Guiding principles include:
- Flexibility
- Intercultural Engagement
- Relationships
- Equitability
- Culturally Sustaining Practices
- Transparency
- Collaboration
- Critical Self-Reflection
Inclusive Practices (IP) In Action
Equitability
Equity – Intentionally tailoring resources that fit the individual with respect to their multi-dimensional perspectives and needs.
Inclusion – Broadening the circle, inviting and welcoming others into interaction by recognizing, valuing and celebrating contributions that provide depth, better outcomes, and lead to transformational change.
Diversity – Celebrating the variety of human realities and recognizing how they intersect with our own lived experiences.
Equitability is explicitly centered within each pillar.
In the classroom and in student interactions
- In instruction, develop counter discourses through storytelling, narratives, chronicles, family histories, scenarios, biographies, and parables that draw on the lived experiences students of color bring to the classroom. (Zamudio, 2011, P91)
- In student-facing interactions, re-examine what we consider “fair” or “equal” in policies and procedures (Student Services and Learning Support teams at Pierce College)
Critical self-reflection
Critical self-reflection refers to the process of questioning one’s own assumption, presuppositions, and perspectives. (Mezirow, 2006)
In the classroom and in student interactions
- In instruction, faculty cultivate critical consciousness among students of color:
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- Students explore their own positionality
- Students name and disrupt the systems of Whiteness
- In student-facing interactions, reflect on how policies and practices impact vulnerable students.
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- Is this policy or practice actively anti-racist? Anti-ableist?
- Does this policy or practice harm students of color, students with disabilities, or other minoritized groups?
Flexibility
Responding and adapting empathetically to students’ [and others’] changing and diverse circumstances. (Dr. Tazin Daniels)
In the classroom and in student interactions
- In instruction, use Universal Design Principles (UDL) to provide options that optimize what is relevant, valuable, and meaningful to the learner.
- In student-facing interactions:
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- Have an open door/space for students to drop by
- Have materials in multiple formats
- Offer multiple ways to meet
- Minimize barriers and adapt to student needs
- Have more openness to incomplete opportunities
(Student Services and Learning support teams at Pierce College)
Transparency
Making the how and why of academic systems visible so that students unfamiliar with academia can navigate institutional and learning processes.
In the classroom and in student interactions
- In instruction, be clear about the purpose, task, and criteria of learning activities and assignments. (Mary-Ann Winklemes)
- In student-facing interactions, anticipate gaps in students’ understanding of policies and processes, and provide clarity as part of the conversation. (Student Services Team at Pierce College)
Culturally Sustaining Practices
Culturally Sustaining Practices promote equity across racial and ethnic communities and seek to ensure access and opportunity by shifting from deficit-based lens to asset-centered model.
In the classroom
- In instruction and student-facing interactions, embed Community Cultural Wealth model of Yosso .(Coalition of Urban Serving Universities)
- In student-facing interactions, approach student with the assumption that they bring strengths and that these are valuable to them, their community, and the college.
Intercultural Engagement
Centered in relationships, intercultural engagement works to engage people within the complexities of their cultures, identities, and positionalities. It also works to bring cultures into communication with each other. This is connected to our Core Ability Intercultural Engagement.
In the classroom and in student interactions
- In instruction, critically engage learner differences through using an equity-based lens to examine what difference means. Not seeing students’ identities as a problem to overcome.
- In student-facing interactions, honor the complexities of individuals and their cultural wealth by shifting transactional interactions into relationship building opportunities.
Relationships
Relationships are the quintessential human experience. Being in relationships should elevate the I/We relationship instead of the dominant I/You relationship in the West. (Chilisa, 2012, P21) Relationship honors:
- How we see, value, interact and connect with each other;
- A willingness to really connect with others and to give time and heart to their ways of being and their lived realities.
In the classroom and in student interactions:
- In instruction, integrate storytelling and identity metacognitive work into the course
- In student-facing interactions, L.O.V.E students– Listen, Observe, Value & Validate, Embrace & Empower (James Lett)
Collaboration
Collaboration is when people work together to achieve shared goals. Collaboration builds upon relationship-building that honors participants’ authentic selves.
Successful collaboration has the following characteristics:
- Voluntary;
- Parity among participants;
- Mutual goals;
- Shared responsibility for participation and decision making;
- Share of resources;
- Shared accountability for outcomes.
(Friend and Cook)
In the classroom and in student interactions:
- In instruction, co-create course materials with students to honor their ways of knowing;
- In student-facing interactions, invite students to contribute to the decision-making process involving their educational paths.