As a new department on campus, we have been working diligently to ground ourselves in the values that guide our work. We'd like to introduce the second of three umbrella values: social justice education & development. Social justice education & development often solely focuses on the accumulation of knowledge in a unidirectional manner. However, our desire and intention is that social justice education & development connects head & heart; that we connect embodied and experiential ways of knowing to intellectual study. We must make intentional connections between thinking and feeling in the ways we plan, organize, and work with one another.
Read through this post, engage in your own reflection, and join us in our journey to creating space for radical love and belonging on our campus and beyond.
This post was written by Lisa Gray, Associate Director of Initiatives for Identity, Inclusion & Belonging. She is a passionate and committed educator that loves chocolate, salsa & bachata dancing, and the entire Star Trek Universe.
Social Justice Education & Development is about…
- Joining our head with our heart - which requires intentional effort. This effort first involves gaining knowledge through doing self work (ex. reading, seeking and researching trusted and verified sources for oneself). It involves actively listening to those with lived experiences that are different from our own. It means we must strive to be open to learning formally (ex. a classroom or lecture) and informally (ex. Casual dialogue and personal interaction).
- Actively pausing and slowing down to create moments to reconnect with our five senses.
- Cultivating a space for individual and community growth by being willing to say “I don’t know” and “seeking to understand as well as be understood”.
- Doing self-work while being open to growing with others.
“We believe that social justice is both a process and a goal. The goal of social justice is full and equal participation of all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs. Social justice includes a vision of society in which the distribution of resources is equitable and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure.”
-Theoretical Foundations for Social Justice Education, Lee Anne Bell, Co-Editor, Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, 2016
Educating and developing oneself with a social justice lens is challenging when one pursues it as an individual, solo endeavor without inviting the encouragement and support of others. Socially just education is challenging to pursue within environments that value and reward keeping the status quo to protect the comfort of a few rather than disrupting it for the common liberation of the many.
"We envision a society in which individuals are both self-determining (able to develop their full capacities) and interdependent (capable of interacting democratically with others). Social justice involves social actors who have a sense of their own agency as well as a sense of social responsibility toward and with others, their society, and the broader world in which we live. These are conditions we wish not only for our own society but also for every society in our interdependent global community.”
-Theoretical Foundations for Social Justice Education, Lee Anne Bell, Co-Editor, Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, 2016
Social Justice and Education in Practice
“There’s no such thing as neutral education. Education either functions as an instrument to bring about conformity or freedom.”
- Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
- Reflect….Examine and assess the ways you learn and how that has impacted your view of other people and cultures. How have you developed your awareness and knowledge about your own values, worldview and beliefs?
- Recognize… Pay attention to the awareness, knowledge and experiences of others, both direct and indirect.. Get comfortable with multi-directional learning - learning with as well as from oneself and others.
- Engage…. With cultural humility, seeking to understand from a place of openness and curiosity. Honor one’s own and other people's stories and recognize the power of cultural storytelling as a tool to disrupt harmful narratives and build cross-cultural connections rooted in empathy.
- Unlearn and Learn - Actively strive to unlearn and reject oppressive, colonized, supremacist practices and knowledge systems, taking an explicitly anti-supremacist stance. Learn and acknowledge systems of power, privilege and oppression and how they impact various campus communities.
- Practice....Slow down and consider the intent and impact of your words and behaviors - on those in our personal networks and across our campus communities.
- Reflect - Recognize - Engage - Unlearn and Learn - Practice - Shift toward Justice for All.
“If you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them you will not know them and what you do not know, you will fear. What one fears, one destroys.”
– Chief Dan George, Tsleil-Waututh Nation, British Columbia, Canada
"We have to continue to learn. We have to be open. And we have to be ready to release our knowledge in order to come to a higher understanding of reality." - Thich Nhat Hanh
In Reflection:
- How does social justice show up in your definition and pursuit of education?
- How do you create space in your life for your beliefs about inclusion and social justice?
- How do you connect your “head” with your “heart” everyday?
- What would your relationship with yourself and others be like if you worked to better align what you say about social justice with what you do about it?
For Further Social Justice-Centered Learning and Growth:
To Read:
- Book - Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice - Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, Pat Griffin
- Toolkit - Indigenous Ways of Knowing: A Tribal Equity Toolkit
- Webpage - A Guide to Activism in the Digital Age - Maryville University
- Handout - Tips for Naming, Intervening, and Addressing Systemic Power - AORTA
To Listen:
To Watch:
- Star Trek Discovery
- Pose
- Mohawk Girls
- Queen Sugar
- This is Us
- LoveCraft Country
- The Expanse
- Grownish