The white educators' guide to equity: teaching for justice in community colleges

In: Educational equity in community colleges Vol. 2

Abstract

"In the United States, community colleges are some of the most racially diverse institutions of higher education. And, as such, as we argued in Minding the Obligation Gap...(Sims, et al., 2020), they are uniquely positioned to function as disruptive technologies, i.e., spaces that disrupt institutionalized educational inequity. Pedagogy and curriculum must be liberatory if we hope to engender educational equity precisely because Nationwide, the majority of community college students are students of color and the majority of African American and Latinx college students start their journeys at a community college. The community college professorate is the inverse, as three-quarters of all college professors are white. These demographics create a cultural schism that is preventing students of color and other minoritzed groups from reaching their full intellectual and creative potential. This book fills a gap in the academic literature on how community college educators can more effectively serve their diverse students, from interrogating their own white racial identity, to overhauling their curricula and pedagogy, and later by committing to radical love as praxis. While this book's title explicitly calls on white educators, ultimately, it is for any educator who seeks to dismantle classroom power structures and who strives to create nurturing, justice-advancing curricula"--