Connections to Social Justice Standards: Diversity, Justice, Action
Strategies:
1. Analyzing and Addressing School Policies and Practices
2. Responding to Hate and Bias at School
3. Speak Up at School
4. Leading Beyond the School
5. Leading Through Crisis
While individual actions can support or impede inclusion and equity in schools, systems and policies hold the greatest power to influence social justice in education. Social justice leadership includes regularly assessing and improving systems and structures that promote student well-being and equity—in both experiences and outcomes. After all, as highlighted in the LFJ article “The Curb-Cut Effect and Championing Equity,” research indicates that everyone in the school and community benefits from policies and practices that center the needs of underserved people.
Analyzing and Addressing School Policies and Practices
Education leaders who are invested in equitable and just schooling identify and work to change inequitable policies. Educators Deena Khalil and Elizabeth Brown developed a social justice leadership framework that can guide leaders in addressing these policies. Published in the Journal of Urban Learning, Teaching, and Research, the framework includes:
- Cultural competency. Teachers and administrators are aware of privileges and prejudices within the school that affect diverse student bodies.
- Communication skills. Teachers and administrators honor student perspectives, allow those perspectives to inform policy, and communicate “engagingly and responsively” with all students.
- Commitment to the community. Teachers and administrators demonstrate a commitment to positively affecting the community in which the school resides.
An analysis of school policies and practices for bias and discrimination should look for:
- Sexist, homophobic and anti-trans policies, such as dress codes that restrict the clothing of girls more than boys, prohibit gender-nonconforming dress, or prevent teaching or discussion of LGBTQ+ topics and issues in the classroom.
- Policies that discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion, including dress codes that police hair length and styles, facial hair, and head coverings.
- Zero tolerance discipline policies, which have been shown to disproportionately punish students of color and feed into the school-to-prison pipeline.
Once identified, discriminatory policies should be rewritten with input from students, staff and community members, especially those who have been negatively affected by the previous policies.
Responding to Hate and Bias at School
Schools have plans and protocols in place to respond to fires, severe weather, medical emergencies, fights and weapons possession. But what about school incidents that involve bigotry and hate? Are plans in place to respond to a bias incident or hate crime? Too often, these plans are created in the moment during the actual crisis.
Hate and bias incidents are far too complex for on-the-fly planning; an early misstep can heighten tension and damage chances for long-term success. School leaders need to set expectations, and everyone on staff—from bus drivers and custodians to classroom teachers and the IT department—must know that hate, disrespect and intimidation have no place
on campus.
LFJ’s Responding to Hate and Bias at School resource guide is designed primarily for school administrators, but teachers, staff, counselors, students and others may also find useful information within.
The guide is divided into three sections:
- Before a Crisis Occurs: How can you and other school leaders assess your school’s climate with an eye toward defusing tension, preventing escalation and avoiding problems?
- When There’s a Crisis: What are the key points to consider when responding to a crisis that has been triggered by a hate or bias incident at your school?
- After the Worst Is Over: How can you address long-term planning and capacity-building for the future in responding to hate and bias, including the development of social emotional skills?
Speak Up at School
The LFJ guide Speak Up at School offers extensive guidance for addressing bias. Here are a few examples to use if students, colleagues or families express bias, use slurs or bully others.
- Interrupt. Stop what you’re doing and address the comment without delay. It’s important that you address biased language immediately and consistently. Addressing biased language, bullying and harassment every time is the clearest way to signal your disapproval of these behaviors.
- Question. Try to figure out why the speaker made the comment. The goal is not to be judgmental or to put the speaker on the defensive. Instead, ask questions like “What do you mean?” or “What makes you say that?” to try to understand the roots of the speaker’s prejudices so that you can address them.
- Educate. Sometimes hateful speech is motivated by ignorance rather than hate. When possible, give the speaker the benefit of the doubt and explain why what they’ve said is biased or hurtful.
- Echo. If you’re not the first to speak out against biased language, you can still reinforce the message. By thanking the person or people who have already interrupted and voicing your agreement, you reinforce their message and provide support to others who might be hurt by the comment.
Leading Beyond the School
Educators’ social justice advocacy and leadership can extend beyond the classroom. This can include discussing social justice education in religious or other community spaces, presenting at conferences, and seeking elected office. These efforts can benefit students, families and the broader community.
The following questions provide a starting point for educators seeking to build or expand their leadership efforts:
- What is the role of social justice education in and beyond our school? How can a focus on identity, diversity, justice and action be woven through our community?
- In what ways does our own behavior (and sharing of personal knowledge) model social justice values? How can we do more?
- What relevant community issues would we like our classes or schools to actively address?
- What successes, ideas or lessons from our own work might interest our broader communities?
Leading Through Crisis
Educators can proactively address equity, safety and belonging at school, but unexpected crisis events still occur. Some of these events might happen within the school community, such as a hate incident or an intrusion. Others might happen in the broader world but still affect school, such as a pandemic, violence in the community or political unrest.
Research has found that schools that invest in climate, culture and equity work recover more quickly after an incident occurs, as noted in the LFJ article “We Were Ready,” which highlighted the response of school leaders in Charlottesville, Virginia, following the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally. Effective social justice educators like those in Charlottesville prepare to lead through crises and attend to the physical, mental and emotional needs of students and other members of the school community.
Use these nine key considerations from Responding to Hate and Bias at School to help you prepare to respond to crises:
- Put safety first.
- Denounce the act.
- Investigate.
- Involve others.
- Work with the media.
- Provide accurate information—and dispel misinformation.
- Support targeted students.
- Seek justice and avoid blame.
- Promote healing.
