DEI Educator Guide

Fostering an Inclusive Classroom Through Intentional Action

An Inclusive Classroom is built through "intentional approaches to curriculum, course design, teaching practice, and assessment that cultivate a conducive learning environment where students feel valued, respected, and supported to flourish" (University of Iowa).

Want to learn more about how to create an inclusive classroom? 

Explore the articles and resources on Iowa State University's "Instructional Strategies: Creating an Inclusive Classroom" webpage.

Listen to the "Inclusive Teaching" episode from the podcast, "Teaching in Higher Ed."

See the Padlet below for additional tools and strategies to help you build an inclusive classroom. 

UC Davis Just In Time Teaching Guide: Creating an Inclusive Classroom

Creating an Inclusive Syllabus

Your syllabus is central to your inclusive classroom. Let's move beyond traditional student-centered language by leveraging resources to ensure all students feel they belong in your course.

How to create an inclusive syllabus?

Read University of Massachusetts' Principles of an Inclusive Syllabus

Explore Stanford's Building an Inclusive Syllabus

Use Online Syllabi Review Guide

Watch How to Build an Inclusive Course

Visit the additional resources on Creating an Inclusive Syllabus from the Padlet below

Building Your Equity Tool Box: Navigating Inclusive and Anti-Racist Resources

Building and sustaining an inclusive classroom and teaching practice is complex work, and will evolve over time.  

Let's commit to:

• Dismantling the impact of oppression within our own lives
• Using multiple resources representative of a variety of perspectives/identities
• Working collaboratively or in community
• Investing in lifelong education around equity-based language
• Using methods to support creating an inclusive classroom
• Adding in diverse perspectives to your coursework 

In the following activity, participants will have the opportunity to explore resources curated by the JWU librarians.

 Building your Equity Tool Box Activity

Ready to learn new terms?

As in many fast-changing fields, the dialogue around diversity, equity and inclusion is ever-evolving. It is our sacred honor and responsibility as educators to continue to seek out resources around terminology,  keeping in mind that the same term may hold several meanings within and between different communities. Much like the guide itself, this list is simply a starting point. If you have a term you would like to add to the list, please use the "Suggest a Resource" tab.

Terms

• Ally: Someone who supports a group other than one’s own (in terms of multiple identities such as race, gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, etc.). An ally acknowledges oppression and actively commits to reducing their own complicity, investing in strengthening their own knowledge and awareness of oppression.
• Bias: A form of prejudice that results from our need to quickly classify individuals into categories.
• BIPoC: An acronym used to refer to black, Indigenous and people of color. It is based on the recognition of collective experiences of systemic racism. As with any other identity term, it is up to individuals to use this term as an identifier.
• Cisgender: A term for people whose gender identity, expression or behavior aligns with those typically associated with their assigned sex at birth.
• Color Blind: The belief that everyone should be treated “equally” without respect to societal, economic, historical, racial or other difference. No differences are seen or acknowledged; everyone is the same.
• Cultural Appropriation: The non-consensual/misappropriate use of cultural elements for commodification or profit purposes – including symbols, art, language, customs, etc. – often without understanding, acknowledgment or respect for its value in the context of its original culture.
• Decolonize: The active and intentional process of unlearning values, beliefs and conceptions that have caused physical, emotional or mental harm to people through colonization. It requires a recognition of systems of oppression.
• Diversity: Socially, it refers to the wide range of identities. It broadly includes race, ethnicity, gender, age, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, language, veteran status, physical appearance, etc. It also involves different ideas, perspectives and values.
• Discrimination: The unequal treatment of members of various groups, based on conscious or unconscious prejudice, which favors one group over others on differences of race, gender, economic class, sexual orientation, physical ability, religion, language, age, national identity, religion and other categories.
• Equity: The fair treatment, access, opportunity and advancement for all people, while at the same time striving to identify and eliminate barriers that prevent the full participation of some groups. The principle of equity acknowledges that there are historically underserved and underrepresented populations and that fairness regarding these unbalanced conditions is necessary to provide equal opportunities to all groups.
• Gender Identity: Distinct from the term “sexual orientation,” refers to a person’s internal sense of being male, female or something else. Since gender identity is internal, one’s gender identity is not necessarily visible to others.
• Gender Non-conforming: An individual whose gender expression is different from societal expectations related to gender.
• Implicit Bias: Negative associations expressed automatically that people unknowingly hold and that that affect our understanding, actions and decisions; also known as unconscious or hidden bias.
• Inclusion: The act of creating an environment in which any individual or group will be welcomed, respected, supported and valued as a fully participating member. An inclusive and welcoming climate embraces and respects differences.
• Institutional Racism: Institutional racism refers specifically to the ways in which institutional policies and practices create different outcomes and opportunities for different groups based on racial discrimination.
• Intersectionality: A social construct that recognizes the fluid diversity of identities that a person can hold such as gender, race, class, religion, professional status, marital status, socioeconomic status, etc.
• LGBTQIA: An inclusive term for those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual.
• Microaggression: The verbal, nonverbal and environmental slights, snubs, insults or actions, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory or negative messages to target persons based solely upon discriminatory belief systems.
• Multicultural Competency: A process of embracing diversity and learning about people from other cultural backgrounds. The key element to becoming more culturally competent is respect for the ways that others live in and organize the world and an openness to learn from them.
• Nonbinary
• Oppression: The systemic and pervasive nature of social inequality woven throughout social institutions as well as embedded within individual consciousness. Oppression fuses institutional and systemic discrimination, personal bias, bigotry and social prejudice in a complex web of relationships and structures.
• Patriarchy: Actions and beliefs that prioritizes masculinity. Patriarchy is practiced systemically in the ways and methods through which power is distributed in society (jobs and positions of power given to men in government, policy, criminal justice, etc.) while also influencing how we interact with one another interpersonally (gender expectations, sexual dynamics, space-taking, etc.).
• People of Color: A collective term for men and women of Asian, African, Latinx and Native American backgrounds, as opposed to the collective “White”.
• Pronouns: she/he/they/ze
• Privilege: Exclusive access or access to material and immaterial resources based on the membership to a dominant social group.
• Queer: An umbrella term that can refer to anyone who transgresses society’s view of gender or sexuality. The definitional indeterminacy of the word Queer, its elasticity, is one of its characteristics: “A zone of possibilities.”
• Structural inequality:  Systemic disadvantage(s) of one social group compared to other groups, rooted and perpetuated through discriminatory practices (conscious or unconscious) that are reinforced through institutions, ideologies, representations, policies/laws and practices. When this kind of inequality is related to racial/ethnic discrimination, it is referred to as systemic or structural racism.
• System of Oppression: Conscious and unconscious, non-random and organized harassment, discrimination, exploitation, discrimination, prejudice and other forms of unequal treatment that impact different groups. Sometimes is used to refer to systemic racism.
• Tokenism: Performative presence without meaningful participation. For example, a superficial invitation for the participation of members of a certain socially oppressed group, who are expected to speak for the whole group without giving this person a real opportunity to speak for her/himself.
• White Supremacy: A power system structured and maintained by persons who classify themselves as White, whether consciously or subconsciously determined; and who feel superior to those of other racial/ethnic identities.

The terms contained in this glossary have been reproduced from University of Washington's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Glossary, which was adapted from the following resources:

• Anti-Violence Project. Glossary. University of Victoria.
• Colors of Resistance. Definitions for the Revolution.
• Cram, R. H. (2002). Teaching for diversity and social justice: A sourcebook.
• Equity and Inclusion. Glossary. UC Davis.
• Potapchuk, M., Leiderman, S., et al. (2009). Glossary. Center for Assessment and Policy Development.
• Center for Diversity & Inclusion. Glossary of Bias Terms. Washington University in St. Louis.
• Ontario Human Rights Commission. Glossary of human rights terms.

Research Guides on DEI and Culturally Responsive Education

Read Conducting Research through an Anti-Racist Lens

Explore Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Culturally Responsive Education

Use Anti-Oppression LibGuide: Anti-racist resources to learn more about anti-racism terms and resources 

Visit additional Research Guides on DEI and Culturally Responsive Education from the Padlet below