Doing One’s Own Personal Work on Privilege and Oppression
Overview
Inclusive teaching is not defined as a set of practices to implement nor is it a set of boxes to check. As defined by the Center for Research on Learning & Teaching (CRLT):
“Inclusive teaching involves deliberately cultivating a learning environment where all students are treated equitably, have equal access to learning, and feel welcomed, valued, and supported in their learning. Such teaching attends to the social identities and seeks to change the way systemic inequities shape dynamics in the teaching-learning spaces, affect individuals’ experiences of those spaces, and influence course and curriculum design.”
A key component to inclusive teaching is for an instructor to be self-reflexive regarding their relationship to privilege and oppression. This guide is intended for instructors who are preparing to implement meaningful inclusivity practices in their classrooms. It is intended as a starting place for instructors to think through their own relationship to, and experience of, privilege and oppression as a crucial part of the foundational work of inclusive pedagogy. This guide offers reflective questions for instructors to explore and provides suggestions for appropriate ways and forums to work through the personal challenge of anti-oppressive work.
This work is not intended to be a clear-cut path to a finish line. We must regularly address our relationship to privilege and oppression, identifying how they are made manifest in the different contexts of our lives. Although this guide provides resources and strategies, it is not intended to be the one opportunity for you to engage in your personal work. This guide can be used as a primer to fully engage in self-reflexive and exploratory practices regarding privilege and oppression.
Parts of this resource guide are derived from the recommended reading:
Robin DiAngelo & Özlem Sensoy (2010) “OK, I Get It! Now Tell Me How to Do It!”: Why We Can’t Just Tell You How to Do Critical Multicultural Education, Multicultural Perspectives, 12:2, 97-102, DOI: 10.1080/15210960.2010.481199
Resource Goals:
- To encourage instructors to view the personal work they do on privilege and oppression outside the classroom as vital to inclusive pedagogical practices.
- To relieve students who face oppression from the pressure of having to educate their instructors.
- To provide some resources for instructors to begin doing their own work on privilege and oppression.
