Inclusivity and Cultural Considerations

Adapted from the LD@school article “Inclusive and Equitable Teaching Practices” written by Idrine Matenda-Zambi

Unfortunately, for many racialized students and their families, school is not always a welcoming place. This is where they are sometimes confronted with biases and stereotypes that they need to deal with, such as arbitrary punishments, and intense scrutiny for any perceived act of disobedience, etc. There is significant evidence showing that racialized students, particularly Black students, encounter a number of barriers at school because they face systemic discrimination and do not feel connected to their teachers or school communities (Chadha, et al., 2020). These barriers manifest themselves in various ways, including a feeling of being excluded, abusive suspensions, inappropriate guidance about career choices, racial stereotypes, and occasionally being treated with contempt and deliberately ignored, for some students. This can add strain to the school-family relationship.

 An inclusive teaching practice requires teachers first to understand the individual needs of students, and by extension their families so that they can advocate for them and support them. Educators need to understand that people who come from diverse backgrounds or from marginalized groups may not react or participate in the ways we may expect. For example, parents who were raised in other cultural contexts may not connect with other people or engage in conversations with school staff in the same way that other parents do.  

father and daughter reading togetherHere are a few strategies that we can use to make your teaching practices more inclusive, as well as strengthen school-family relationships with families from diverse backgrounds:

  • Invite parents to participate in school and classroom activities.
  • Invite parents to plan and participate in school initiatives.  
  • Extend sincere invitations to community organizations (Black, Arab, and LGBTQ organizations, etc.) so that they can be involved in school planning committees or events.  
  • Avoid making assumptions based on race, occupation, family status, availability of the parents and their level of education and involvement.
  • Always ask parents for their opinion and create several entry points to enable them to access information as well as to share information with the school.  
  • Intentionally share information about learning and networking opportunities, about the parent council and other parent leadership roles available in our schools or school boards.
  • Evaluate our own biases and prejudices, and question what we have been taught.
  • Learn how to pronounce unknown names and do not try to shorten a name without the permission of the student or parents.
  • Avoid giving the students European first and last names.  
  • Find out about the students’ culture and customs.
  • Check the curriculum (don’t wait for the curriculum to change and, above all, pay attention to the hidden curriculum).
  • Celebrate all experiences and work with other educators who share your ideas to create new content and to come up with new suggestions for lessons.
  • Examine everything from an anti-oppression point of view and determine whether there are rules that promote or favour certain identities over others.
  • Choose a pedagogical approach that values all the cultural and linguistic knowledge of the students by allowing them, in particular Indigenous students, immigrant students and students from immigrant backgrounds, to use their past experience as migrants as a springboard for learning and developing their identity.