What would be good inclusivity training?

[downer]

I recently participated in inclusivity training. To be fair, I came with some doubts, and certainly there was some of the stuff I expected -- implicit bias, micro-aggressions, triggering. A lot of that stuff is problematic in lacking a sound evidence basis. Maybe there are some reasonably supported instances, but the ideas were over-used in the training, as if they are ideas that totally understood and well supported.

But what struck me most was that I thought the advice they were giving was wrong-headed. They were saying that faculty need to become more focused on our own identities and how our identities are relevant in the classroom. How students interact with our identities -- which seems to be the checklist of race, ethnicity, religion, ability, sex, gender, sexuality, nationality, class, language, and more.

My main thought that in most cases I work pretty hard to give students as little info about myself as possible. I like asynchonous online teaching because they have even less info about me than in the classroom. I might tell them something about myself -- what fruits I like, or what I did on the weekend. But I keep it innocuous. I focus on the material that it to be taught, and avoid focus on identity. I generally think faculty who talk a lot about themselves with students are probably doing something wrong, if only wasting time.

If there is reason to think that somehow my teaching is discriminating against a population of students, then maybe I would be more concerned to examine how my identity forms my teaching. But I think it is my experience of teaching that forms my teaching. And I see no reason to think that some population of students is discriminated against in my classrooms. Maybe there are some students who sit in the back and don't say much, but that looks to me like it is their choice.

My thought that is doing a personal inventory of one's identity traits and how they affect one's teaching makes the teacher far too self-obsessed. Faculty should be focused on the students and the material to be taught. They should keep their identities mostly in the background.

But that's just my opinion, and I haven't looked at the research. I'm not even sure there is any good research on this stuff. I'm pretty sure there hasn't been any field-specific research in my field.

The people teaching these sessions seem well intentioned, but also really quite clueless, with lots of ideology and not a whole lot of useful experience.

Inclusivity seems like a worthy goal. Are there good ways to promote it in the classroom?

[research_prof]

I also do not like the idea of keeping a record of "identities". I actually believe that this is a way to increase bias, since by keeping a record of "identities", you actually learn to categorize people based on them. It seems to me that actually this is a fundamental reason for discrimination. My argument is that if you learn to not give "identities" to people (who might look different than you), but actually learn to treat everybody equally and with respect (despite of how they look, where they come from, etc.), that's a good way to reduce bias. There are some countries in Europe that actually avoid giving identities to people and are (usually) associated with few(er) instances of discrimination. However, in the US, no matter where you go, you will be asked about your origin, race, etc. You apply for a job--you will be asked about that, you apply for a driver's license--you will be asked about that. Well, if you are being asked all the time, at the end of the day, people will learn to identify others based on their looks, etc. This is more of an observation that I have been debating with myself about for quite some time rather than a scientific conclusion, so I may very well be wrong.

[marshwiggle]

My thought that is doing a personal inventory of one's identity traits and how they affect one's teaching makes the teacher far too self-obsessed.

A major flaw in this idea is that it assumes individuals can correctly evaluate how their own "identity traits" affect them. As all kinds of research shows, including research about all kinds of cognitive bias, humans are notoriously bad at figuring out even the causes of their own behaviour. This is just rife for all kinds of post-hoc rationalization, rather than providing any real insight.

[mamselle]

I find it helps to identify areas where I have a blind spot for bias, by acknowledging my own situation, and how those particular characteristics either help or hinder me in seeing things more dimensionally.

For example, I've always worked to include statements about native American land use and the presence of enslaved individuals in the colonial areas I write, talk, teach, and give tours on.

Just recently, however, a discussion about how those statements can begin to become rote recitations made me realize I was using some of the phrases I'd come up with long ago to cover up for further areas of inequality that needed to be discussed.

I'd been, for example, saying that "the area in which this English town's settlement occurred was not used by native Americans for any permanent inhabitation of their own," without mentioning that until the English arrived, it was an area where passage to the oyster banks and fishing weirs downriver did occur, and where hunting and the transportation of game took place.

In other words, as if it were "OK" that the area was settled by the English (with some reimbursement, but not on any par with the value gained for it), and that cutting of lines of transportation and communication were inconsequential interruptions of Native life.

I was still leveraging, or creating an unspoken apologetic for, the harmful activities of English arrivants over a more covalent acknowledgement of that harm and the responsibilities incumbent on those responsible then to have done better by those they 'inconvenienced,' and on us to listen, learn, and find out how recompense, restitution, or a simple acknowledgement of harm could help societal heirs find peace.

Amendment of life starts with an acknowledgement of harm. Where class, race, gender, and other kinds of group membership have been used to override others, one does (I believe) inherit some of the responsibility for addressing that harm.

And unless I start by looking at myself and understanding what some of those categories are, I'm just going to be playing a 'blame-game' on others.

So, honesty, I think, requires that we start with who and where we are in what has become a kind of food chain of competitive harm.

M.

[marshwiggle]

Amendment of life starts with an acknowledgement of harm. Where class, race, gender, and other kinds of group membership have been used to override others, one does (I believe) inherit some of the responsibility for addressing that harm.

The problem with this is that there is no implicit statute of limitations or restriction of scope.

Should the French be "responsible" for their ancestors conquering Britain?
Should Scandanavians be "responsible" for their ancestors (Angles, Saxons, Danes, Jutes...) conquering Britain?
Should Italians be "responsible" for their Roman ancestors  conquering Britain?
(Britain is an easy example; this kind of question could be asked about all over the world where migrations of groups form one area has resulted in conquest of people in another.)


And further, if some sort of "reparations" are made to Indigenous people and/or descendants of slaves, and especially if part of this comes from expropriation of land owned by private citizens today, then can their descendants (ie. the descendants of people whose property was expropriated) one day hold the descendants of people to whom the property was given responsible and demand some sort of redress from them?

Holding people responsible for actions of others over whom they had no authority, and particularly in the case of actions taken by others who were not even alive when the people being held "responsible" were born, creates a moral hole with no bottom.

[Hegemony]

I can think of some ways in which knowing a professor or senior person's identify can help. If the prof is not a member of any particular minority, then they just seem like a generic prof. But if, say, the prof is an African-American, this could help African-American students who may be wondering if the field is open to people like them. Or it could help non-African-Americans who think, consciously or subconsciously, "This is a field for white people only, I never see other people in this field."

It was not until I went to a women's college and saw the president of the college, a woman and a darned impressive one, that it dawned on me that this was a career choice that might be open to me, a woman. I took courses at three universities during high school, and the profs and everyone I saw was male. It did make a difference when I finally saw women in positions of power.

I also dispute the idea that micro-aggressions are trivial. They may not seem important when you're not on the receiving end of them all the time. I'm finally at the point where I can push back when people give me that kind of guff. But for many years I was in too vulnerable a position to do so. It's tiring even when you can shrug them off. And I know of several talented people who have left the academy because the constant smears and degradations were just not what they wanted to be subjected to every day any longer.

Admittedly the typical inclusion training is dull and probably ineffectual. The real thing is that we need to change people's minds, not just advise them on how to phrase their bigotry more politely. But if there were a sure way to change people's minds, you can bet everyone on every side would be trying it all the time.

[Puget]

There can certainly be a lot non-evidence based stuff in these trainings (my social psychologist colleague who actually studies bias is nearly always driven batty by them), so maybe they really did tell you to share your identity with the class, but that's a misinterpretation on either their part our yours. The point is to be more aware of how your own identity serves as a filter- influencing the types of experiences you have, your cultural assumptions, your expectations of how others will think and behave, etc. Those things can influence your teaching and interaction with students in ways that you may not be aware of, and which you certainly don't intend to introduce biases but can. For example, as someone with college educated parents who grew up in the US I had a lot of knowledge about how US college works that a lot of first-gen students and international students don't, which if I'm not aware of that could cause me to assume things are obvious to them that aren't at all.

[Parasaurolophus]

Amendment of life starts with an acknowledgement of harm. Where class, race, gender, and other kinds of group membership have been used to override others, one does (I believe) inherit some of the responsibility for addressing that harm.

The problem with this is that there is no implicit statute of limitations or restriction of scope.

Should the French be "responsible" for their ancestors conquering Britain?
Should Scandanavians be "responsible" for their ancestors (Angles, Saxons, Danes, Jutes...) conquering Britain?
Should Italians be "responsible" for their Roman ancestors  conquering Britain?
(Britain is an easy example; this kind of question could be asked about all over the world where migrations of groups form one area has resulted in conquest of people in another.)


And further, if some sort of "reparations" are made to Indigenous people and/or descendants of slaves, and especially if part of this comes from expropriation of land owned by private citizens today, then can their descendants (ie. the descendants of people whose property was expropriated) one day hold the descendants of people to whom the property was given responsible and demand some sort of redress from them?

Holding people responsible for actions of others over whom they had no authority, and particularly in the case of actions taken by others who were not even alive when the people being held "responsible" were born, creates a moral hole with no bottom.

It's not nearly as hard as you make out. The operative question is whether the harms perpetrated historically continue to harm the affected community today. If so, then they aren't distant at all.

In the Indigenous case, it surely means respecting extant treaties and treaty rights--which our government still doesn't (remember when Andrew Scheer said, in two federal debates, that consent is not a veto?)--negotiating treaties for lands not covered by them, reparations for residential schools, perhaps compensation for the theft of non-treaty-negotiated lands, etc.


As for the trainings, I don't know. I've taken part in... two?... and wasn't impressed. But I don't know what would have made them better.

On microaggressions, I'm so tired of being misnamed that I can't take it any more. It's several times a day, every day, including from colleagues and students. And it's not even hard to get it right. Frankly, it takes real effort to get it wrong right after I tell you what it is. Uuuuugh.

[downer]

It's not that I think micro-aggressions are necessarily trivial. I get that if people are frequently rude or biased in their interactions, it is discriminatory behavior and causes problems. But there is a big issue in defining what counts as a micro-aggression. A lot of the examples given seem less than convincing. There's also a big difference between micro-aggressions to colleagues in everyday interactions, and forthright debate in a classroom. There is a worry about disagreement being classed as a micro-aggression and so being ruled as impermissible.

I also tend to think that the main problems that some populations experience are macro-aggressions and explicit bias. With students, I tend to find that the main reasons they don't do well in class are much more likely to be struggles they are experiencing in their personal lives and the poor quality of their previous education. Focusing on micro-aggressions and implicit bias as a major cause of student problems -- I haven't seen evidence that is productive. Of course, faculty shouldn't be creating a hostile or awkward atmosphere in a classroom for any group. I thought that was obvious 30 years ago, long before there was any talk of micro-aggressions.

[marshwiggle]

Holding people responsible for actions of others over whom they had no authority, and particularly in the case of actions taken by others who were not even alive when the people being held "responsible" were born, creates a moral hole with no bottom.

It's not nearly as hard as you make out. The operative question is whether the harms perpetrated historically continue to harm the affected community today. If so, then they aren't distant at all.

If people in Wales, who are the descendants of the original Britons, have recent ancestors who died due to working in the Welsh coal mines, why can't they claim that is "continuing harm" due to the Anglo-Saxon invasion, which forced their ancestors to move to that region?

In the Indigenous case, it surely means respecting extant treaties and treaty rights--which our government still doesn't (remember when Andrew Scheer said, in two federal debates, that consent is not a veto?)--negotiating treaties for lands not covered by them, reparations for residential schools, perhaps compensation for the theft of non-treaty-negotiated lands, etc.

With all of the broken treaties, there are vast areas of the country potentially requiring some sort of redress. Even a small city of 100 000 on appropriated lands would probably "cost" at least $1 000 000 per person, including homes, businesses, infrastructure, etc. which works out to 100 BILLION dollars. Thus the "cost" of all disputed land would be in the trillions at least.

If the land were handed back, and all non-indigenous people and businesses were required to vacate the city, it would create a huge refugee crisis. Meanwhile, the value of an empty city to the new owners would be minimal, without people to operate the infrastructure. Bulldozing everything to get back to anything like its original state would be impossibly expensive. So the only way to make any use of the space would be to preserve its non-indigenous residents. In that case, would the municipal government be replaced by completely indigenous leadership, so that the non-indigenous residents have no say over what happens? If so, they'll all leave as soon as they have a chance. The only ones who'll stay are those too poor to go. If the municipal government authority is preserved, then at most indigenous "ownership" of the land will come down to some sort of tax revenue to indigenous groups in perpetuity.


The point of this speculation is that any "compensation" can only be symbolic in any realistic economic sense. Unless and until that is universally recognized then slogans like "landback" will, like "defund the police", generate all kinds of controversy while hindering discussion of any realistic improvements to the status quo. (And like the people in poor neighborhoods most hurt by defunding the police, the people in indigenous communities without clean water or decent housing will continue to be most affected by the delay due to the intransigence of activist ideologues, many of whom aren't even from those communities.)

[apl68]

It's not that I think micro-aggressions are necessarily trivial. I get that if people are frequently rude or biased in their interactions, it is discriminatory behavior and causes problems. But there is a big issue in defining what counts as a micro-aggression. A lot of the examples given seem less than convincing. There's also a big difference between micro-aggressions to colleagues in everyday interactions, and forthright debate in a classroom. There is a worry about disagreement being classed as a micro-aggression and so being ruled as impermissible.

I also tend to think that the main problems that some populations experience are macro-aggressions and explicit bias. With students, I tend to find that the main reasons they don't do well in class are much more likely to be struggles they are experiencing in their personal lives and the poor quality of their previous education. Focusing on micro-aggressions and implicit bias as a major cause of student problems -- I haven't seen evidence that is productive. Of course, faculty shouldn't be creating a hostile or awkward atmosphere in a classroom for any group. I thought that was obvious 30 years ago, long before there was any talk of micro-aggressions.

That, I think, points up the best reason to be concerned about the current major focus on things like micro-aggressions.  They may be a thing, but there are so much bigger problems that require addressing, and this can become a distraction from these.

[bopper]

Not a professor but:

At my large corporation I still hear people referring to a large group as "Hey guys" or "The guys working on..." as if male is the default and also "man hours" instead of "staff hours".

I don't feel included.

[marshwiggle]

Not a professor but:

At my large corporation I still hear people referring to a large group as "Hey guys" or "The guys working on..." as if male is the default and also "man hours" instead of "staff hours".

I don't feel included.

Many women, including servers at restaurants, often refer to a clearly *mixed group of people as "You guys", so to a significant number of women the term "guys" is not gender-specific.

(Since I wouldn't, by definition, be part of an all-female group, I can't say whether these same women would refer to an all-female group as "you guys".)

[downer]

Not a professor but:

At my large corporation I still hear people referring to a large group as "Hey guys" or "The guys working on..." as if male is the default and also "man hours" instead of "staff hours".

I don't feel included.

Can you think of any steps the corporation could take to remedy this?

[mahagonny]

Abolish diversity staff and their condescending seminars and internet presence and let people get along and work together as though you actually trust them.

ETA: These folks are bureaucratic bloat who needlessly drive up costs for the student. An obvious better place for the axe to fall, instead of sending Wahoo back to the adjunct trenches.