In addition to all the ways that students can experience exclusion at the classroom level, many also face barriers related to food or housing insecurity, insufficient academic preparation, access needs, work obligations, and family care commitments. We often think of these factors as individual circumstances, but they are also tied Continue Reading >>
Many GSIs think of conflict in the classroom as a worst-case scenario. However, bell hooks suggests that constructive conflict makes classrooms more inclusive. She observes that, “few of us are taught to facilitate heated discussions that may include useful interruptions and digressions, but it is often the professor who is Continue Reading >>
While overt bigotry is rare at Berkeley, experiences of exclusion are quite common. Forty-eight percent of Berkeley undergraduates who responded to the 2019 My Experience Survey thought that faculty prejudged their abilities based on perceived identity background. Furthermore, only 39% of Black students reported that their race/ethnicity is respected on Continue Reading >>
In the context of carefully structured and moderated activities (like those described in the previous sections), inviting students to share their experiences can be a powerful way to promote inclusion. However, asking a student from a marginalized group to explain the experiences or perspectives of that group is a harmful Continue Reading >>
GSIs can also foster inclusion in classroom interactions by making space for students’ voices. One way to do this is to borrow bell hooks’ practice of asking students to, “write short paragraphs that they read aloud so that we all have a chance to hear unique perspectives…” (1994: 186). hooks Continue Reading >>
When instructors ask students to create their own small groups, they prompt seemingly casual interactions that can also be loaded with subtle exclusion–especially for nontraditional students and those from underrepresented backgrounds. GSIs can avoid this by placing students into assigned groups. We also recommend taking the steps outlined in this Continue Reading >>
As bell hooks observes, many “professors are more comfortable striving to challenge…biases through the material studied than they are with interrogating how…biases shape conduct in the classroom…” (1994: 187). Indeed, survey data indicates that bias influences interactions in many Berkeley classrooms. Fifty-six percent of Berkeley undergraduates who responded to the Continue Reading >>
In addition to setting clear expectations, GSIs can combat exclusion in their classrooms by sharing representations of marginalized scholars and communities. Course syllabi convey messages about who belongs in the discipline through the identities of the scholars who are assigned and those who are omitted. While GSIs do not usually Continue Reading >>
GSIs can begin to build inclusive classrooms by letting students know what they can expect of the GSI and the learning community they are co-creating. We encourage you to set shared expectations by Making a Statement about Your Commitment to Inclusion, Establishing Community Agreements, and Specifying How Students Can Raise Continue Reading >>
This section describes how GSIs can foster inclusion at the classroom level by: 1) setting shared expectations, 2) sharing representations of underrepresented scholars and communities, 3) promoting inclusion in interpersonal interactions, and 4) soliciting regular feedback.