Today, Amber Heidbrink was the presenter at the NIST FALCoN session entitled “Faculty Conceptions of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” Heidbrink started by asking us to think about what diversity means and post thoughts on a Jamboard. Then, we discussed why we should care about diversity in higher education. Their research team interviewed 30 full-time and part-time instructors from 2- and 4-year minority-serving institutions. The research team used semi-structured individual interviews designed to explore conceptions of diversity. In breakout groups, we discussed quotes from instructor(s) thinking about student diversity. We had great conversations about how instructors have different ways of thinking about diversity and acknowledging it. Being supporting and empathetic is essential too, and in the main room, we talked about other ways of being reasonable and “accommodating” a diverse student population. We talked about being aware of diversity but maybe not necessarily appreciating it and valuing it. There are choices we can make in our classroom to allow for inclusion without necessarily mentioning “accommodating people.” Heidbrink presented different aspects of diversity that instructors attend to:
- Student identities: how an instructor interprets the diversity of students.
- Intelligence mindset: how an instructor views intelligence
- Student engagement: how an instructor perceives the impact student diversity has on engagement
- Instructor actions, and
- Legitimized membership.
Amber Heidbrink and colleagues (including Stanley Lo!) created three conceptions of diversity: essentialist, functionalist, and existentialist, with static, malleable, and experiential student identities. Heidbrink mentioned these three conceptions are part of a continuum in a way. Katie Furniss recommended: Black, Brown, and Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation by Ebony O. McGee.
Several attendees mentioned that it was good to realize that we were not at the table’s last “level” or column. Furniss noted starting with this important article. We also talked about using the inclusive teaching checklist as a starting point to question yourself and be a teacher.
I look forward to learning more about the framework developed by Heidbrink and colleagues (including Lo). They mentioned student outcome and community data and will synthesize all this. The research team used the classroom and school community survey to look at psychological and non-psychological forms of community, according to Heidbrink. It would be interesting to know how student perceptions of their classroom align with what instructors think they are doing!
