Anti-racist Teaching

Guiding Definitions

This statement was developed by faculty from four Massachusetts public universities as a part of a project, "Building on Cultural Wealth of Minoritized Students: Anti-racist Community-Engaged Programming, Pedagogies, and Practices," funded by a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education^*.

Drawing on the literature on anti-racist and community-engaged pedagogy and on input from students of color and community partners at each of the four campuses, this statement is designed to serve as a resource for community-engaged faculty adopting anti-racist pedagogy and practices.

1 Anti-racist Pedagogy

Anti-racist pedagogy (or way of teaching) reveals the structural inequalities within U.S. society to explain and counteract the persistence and impact of racism, while fostering students' critical analysis skills as well as their critical self-reflection (Blakeney, 2011, pp. 119). 

2 Critical Service-Learning Pedagogy

Critical Service-Learning Pedagogy fosters a critical consciousness, allowing students to combine action and reflection in classroom and community to examine both the historical precedents of the social problems addressed in their service placements and the impact of their personal action/inaction in maintaining and transforming those problems (Mitchell, 2008). 

3 Critically-Engaged Civic Learning (CECL)

Critically-Engaged Civic Learning (CECL) is an equity-based framework that views all constituent stakeholders as invested partners in co-design, implementation, and evaluation of CECL initiatives, and is founded on redistribution of power and authority to promote civic learning and social change. This approach places the needs of students on an equitable power axis alongside the needs of all other invested stakeholders. (Vincent et al., 2021).

4 Anti-racist Community-engaged Pedagogy (ARCEP)

Anti-racist community-engaged pedagogy (ARCEP) seeks to counteract the persistence and impact of racism on our campuses and in our community engagement through critical reflection on individual and systemic/structural racism (including institutional and government policies); intentional course design that may include anti-racist learning goals, course content, policies, and assessment; and the creation of a compassionate, reflective classroom that critically challenges racism when it happens, acknowledges the cultural wealth of students of color, and meets students where they are. 

*The contributors include Roopika Risam, Joanna Gonsalves, Cindy Vincent, and Cynthia Lynch from Salem State University; Wafa Unus, DeMisty Bellinger-Delfeld, Asher Jackson, David Weiss, and Will Cortezia from Fitchburg State University; Christina Santana, Aldo Garcia Guevara, Nabin Malakar, and Andrew Piazza from Worcester State University; Deborah Keisch, Joseph Krupczynski, Lindi Sibeko, and TreaAndrea Russworm from the University of Massachusetts Amherst; Elaine Ward from Merrimack College; and John Reiff from the MA Department of Higher Education. 

Four Guiding Principles

Now that you know what anti-racist teaching means, here are four guiding principles, each with practical action to take to implement this pedagogy.

1 Counteract Racism On Campus

We must reframe institutional and pedagogic practices to deter racism on campus and in our community. This includes:

• recognizing anti-racist training does not rest only on students and faculty of color; instead, white faculty must develop anti-racist structures.
• collaborating with communities that is responsive to needs identified by community partners.
• reframing working "on" a community to work "with" a community.
• rejecting "white saviorism" or "charity" that position minoritized communities as in need of "saving."
• decentering whiteness by challenging its construction and through highlighting the wealth of knowledge communities of color possess about their own communities.

2 Reflect on Individual & Systemic Racism

Anti-racist teaching must focus on understanding positionality, bias and historic roots of systemic racism. To implement this reflection, we must:

• have regular training of faculty and students to identify and respond effectively to microaggressions.
• develop critical consciousness about white supremacy and racism before and during community engagement, through reflective practices about power and privilege and questioning bias and false narratives.
• consider the forms racism and white privilege in higher education and its impact on knowledge production.
• engage in dialogue with community partners to understand their own histories and issues to better support their work and build their capacity to access campus knowledge resources.
• recognize, reflect on and work towards addressing challenges that marginalized students face on campus alongside working on issues they care about within communities.
• acknowledge intersectionality as important to people's understanding of racial inequity, while maintaining a primary focus on anti-racist goals.

3Implement Intentional Learning/Course Design

Anti-racism must be present in all aspects of our lives; this includes our classrooms. As an educator, develop anti-racist learning goals, course content, policies and assessment. Practical action includes:

• developing specific anti-racist strategies to diversify course content that de-centers whiteness, integrates perspectives that have traditionally been marginalized and emphasizes intersectional ways in which community-based knowledge is valued.
• working with community partners to build an understanding of the community in terms of its assets, spoken languages and highlights the cultural wealth and empowered potential of communities of color.
• equipping students with a robust understanding of communities with which they will work including a trauma-informed perspective, through sources that privilege and value the multilingual voices from the community.
• involving students and/or community partners in the creation of the syllabus and providing opportunities for community/student voice and agency.
• providing the ability for students to provide constructive feedback on the effectiveness of anti-racist teaching practices.

4 Compassionate/Reflective Classrooms

Create a sense of belonging in the classroom by acknowledging student contributions and meeting students where they are, which is achieved through:

• promoting the well-being of students, centering the intersections of their identities, and empowering the communities in which they live and/or serve.
• providing spaces to respond to microaggressions and difficult conversations in ways that facilitate learning and accountability, as well as providing opportunities for repair and healing.
• recognizing community-based work that marginalized students already undertake but still goes unrecognized, such as serving as translators for family and friends and helping family and friends navigate bureaucratic challenges with government agencies.
• featuring collaborative learning that builds on the cultural wealth of marginalized students and creating space for their knowledge and expertise, without looking to them as "informants" who are expected to speak on behalf of a minoritized community.
• decentering higher education and centering the community as an open and reciprocal learning environment.

Additional Resources

Recognizing that anti-racism is a constant state of "becoming," here are more resources to continue your education"

• UW-Green Bay Anti-racist Resources: access a list of resources provided by the UW-Green Bay Social Work program.
• UW-Green Bay Center for First Nations Education Resources: outlines organizations across campus, the community, our state and beyond to engage with First Nations.
• Brown University - Effective Teaching is Anti-Racist Teaching: provides 5 key starting points of anti-racist classrooms.
• The Social Justice Syllabus Design Tool: A First Step in Doing Social Justice Pedagogy (2019), Sherria D. Taylor, San Francisco State University: gives examples of concrete practices to develop an anti-racist classroom.
• Community-Engaged Syllabus: UW-Green Bay Public and Nonprofit Management (Dr. Lora Warner): offers a syllabus example for your teaching. Many of the syllabi can be found on the Campus Compact resources site.