Education Commons^™

President's Message On Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion, Janet M. Riggs

Reports from the President’s Office

Last spring I announced that we would take time this year to focus some of our thinking and conversation on the topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion. There are many reasons for us to direct our efforts to this topic: the changing demographics in our society and the need to provide a welcoming environment to a diverse student body, faculty and staff; our responsibility to prepare students for living in diverse communities and working in diverse workplaces; and our desire to prepare citizens who will be sensitive to social injustices and motivated to right them. In addition, we cannot dismiss …

Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion: Thinking Beyond Access, Janet M. Riggs

Reports from the President’s Office

Last spring I announced at a faculty meeting that a major theme for our campus this year would be diversity and inclusion. I’d like to add equity to that framework as well. This year I hope that we can develop a shared understanding of these topics and some goals to which we can aspire as a community.

Five years ago Gettysburg College established a set of four strategic directions to guide our planning and decision-making: Engagement, Distinction, Access, and Connection. At that time we described Access as our aspiration to “increase the diversity of the student body and create a …

(Un)Packing Your Backpack: Educational Philosophy, Positionality, And Pedagogical Praxis, Yvette Prinsloo Franklin

Doctoral Dissertations

In this philosophical research project, the author examines the question: How can the case be made that there is an imperative need to change the trajectory of current efforts to reduce “achievement gaps” in the United States and (re)vision a transformation of our school settings through conscious-raising sensitivity regarding issues of equity towards equality amongst educators that harnesses the work of philosophy of education scholars? She engages the reader in a theoretical hike through a philosophical argument for attending to philosophical theories of education, extending the work of Jane Roland Martin regarding sensitivity and drawing heavily on the scholarship of …

Moving Beyond Seeing With Our Eyes Wide Shut. A Response To “There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here”, Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner, Vanessa Dodo Seriki

Democracy and Education

A struggle exists to engage in culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) that authentically represents the voices and interests of all across the K–20 spectrum, from higher education institutions, to teacher preparation programs, and into U.S. classrooms. This article responds to Hayes and Juárez's piece “There Is No Culturally Responsive Teaching Spoken Here” by extending the conversation with the suggestion that one of the major problems in speaking CRP has to do with a disconnect between articulated commitments and actual practices. This response article takes a critical look at the landscape in which educators work to reveal the nature of overrepresentation of …

Inclusion, Signing, Socialization, And Language Skills, Virginia Heslinga Ed. D., Erica Nevenglosky

Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education

21st-century education finds schools challenged to increase the inclusion of students with widely varying learning abilities, language backgrounds, social diversity, and skills. Educators and administrators acknowledge a need for interactive learning that engages visual, auditory, linear, spatial, tactile, and kinetic learning styles. Students’ styles for learning vary in combinations and intensity and teachers need to combine flexibility and creativity to present material and practices that will build enthusiasm for learning. Adding sign language to a classroom of heterogeneous learners that includes English language learners (ELL) will aid in generating a positive learning environment, inclusive and interactive for varied learning needs …