The program offers four workshops for parents, educators and staff intended to provide attendees with concrete strategies to tackle racism in schools. Participants will receive training from experts in the field in the following domains:
CREATING NON-RACIST EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS
- Raising awareness about racism and its implications for education and mental health
- Assessing the racial dynamics of the physical environment and campus climate
- Developing strategies to create non-racist and inclusive environments
- Supplementing courses and programming with consciousness raising activities
BEST PRACTICES TO COMBAT RACISM
- Communicating and collaborating with students, parents, administrators, educators, and service providers in discussing race
- Responding to racism and hate crimes in educational settings across the lifespan
- Identifying racial and cultural factors in educational policies
INTERVENTIONS
- Developing anti-racist preventative interventions to address the psychological effects of racism
- Integrating racial identity into psycho-educational interventions
- Facilitating dialogue among students about hate crimes and racial harassment
WORKSHOP A. Taking Action Against Racism Using Racial Identity Theory
WORKSHOP B. Taking Action Against Cultural Racism and Ethno Violence
This session will analyze and critique the various ways that schools act as sites that allow and promote cultural racism. Topics will include the whitewashing of American history and the attention paid, or lack thereof, to issues such as the depiction of Europeans who landed in North America as settlers and explorers discovering new land instead of as imperialist conquerors that marginalized and oppressed indigenous peoples. We will deconstruct how we purport to celebrate various cultures by placing them aside from the rest of the curriculum, treating them as supplementary. We will discuss how the very nature by which we treat and talk about multiculturalism often serves as a means to further marginalize and differentiate what we deem as outside the mainstream as the other, as inferior. We will ask how to effectively recognize differences without portraying them in a manner that constructs them as exotic. We will examine the fundamental differences in the philosophies of assimilation and acculturation, paying specific attention to whose interests are and are not served by the practice of both. We will ask whose voices are heard in the conversations surrounding multiculturalism and other issues related to culture, and who remains silenced. And finally, we will critically examine how we enact these beliefs as individuals, as well as how they are structured into the fabric of schools as an arm of the state to reproduce an unjust social order. We do this all in an effort to help shed light on what we can do to disrupt these practices and the ensuing real and symbolic violence that accompanies them.
Presenter: Josh Diem
WORKSHOP C. Taking Action Against Racism in School Settings
Racism has an ugly legacy in the United States and no environment or community is exempt from the affects of this form of marginalization including schools. It is interesting that places of learning can be breeding grounds for ignorance. But as many studies report (Cooper, 1989; DeCuir & Dixson, 2004; Varma-Joshi, Baker & Tanaka, 2004) racism indeed has an insidious presence in places of education with students reporting racist experiences as early as elementary school and noting that their very first memory of a racial attack occurred in school. Studies reviewed for and reported in an article by Varma-Joshi et al. (2004) reveal that experiences of racism, demonstrations of discriminatory beliefs, awareness of racial differences and blatant racial preferences occur as early as age four. Comer (1989) further notes that “cognitive development around three years of age permits a child to become aware of racial difference and it is here that he or she can first directly experience the effects of racism” (p. 354).
With this backdrop in mind, an initial general overview of racism in educational environments will be presented and discussed. The presentation will then focus on peer-to-peer racism, teacher-to-student racism, and institutional and environmental racism in the education system. Participants will assess the racial dynamics of the physical environment and campus climate and engage in dialogue via small group discussions on ways to create non-racist and inclusive educational environments and ways to tackle racism in schools.
Presenters: Josh Diem & Omari Keeles
WOKRSHOP D. Community Empowerment to Take Action Against Racism
FRIDAY JUNE 26
9:00 AM
Registration & Continental Breakfast
10: 00 AM
Keynote speaker: Racism, Culture and Racial Identity
12:00 PM
Lunch
1:00 – 2:30 PM
WORKSHOP A, B, C and D taking place concurrently; participants pick one workshop to attend*
2:30 PM
Break
3:00 – 4:30 PM
WORKSHOP A, B, C and D taking place concurrently; participants pick one workshop to attend*
SATURDAY JUNE 27
9:00 AM
Registration & Continental Breakfast
10: 00 AM
Keynote speaker: Racism, Culture and Racial Identity
12:00 PM
Lunch
1:00 – 2:30 PM
WORKSHOP A, B, C and D taking place concurrently; participants pick one workshop to attend*
2:30 PM
Break
3:00 – 4:30 PM
WORKSHOP A, B, C and D taking place concurrently; participants pick one workshop to attend*
4:30 PM
Closing Ceremony and Reception
*The 4 workshops offered through the programs will be offered concurrently at 4 different time slots to allow attendees to participate in all.
