The 21CSLA Alameda Regional Academy’s “Leading for Justice Summit: “Realizing Justice” brought more than 90 educators from six school districts throughout the Bay Area for a two-day intensive and collaborative learning event in Berkeley this month.
The second annual summit prioritized reflection and planning time for teacher, site, and district leaders, as well as professional learning sessions pertaining to problems of equity in TK–12 settings. 21CSLA Center Director Rebecca Cheung, Research Coordinator Aki Murata, and Berkeley Professor Jason Okonofua spoke with participants about research and practice.
In her keynote address, Murata emphasized how the co-creation of research processes grounded on localized, practitioner contexts in the field is essential for gathering relevant data and measuring impact.
“How can we be effective educational leaders when our approaches are so different? If I asked you on the spot what equity and justice mean to you, you’d probably have a one- or two-minute explanation. But I just started wondering, maybe words mean less than actions. I want to know what you are doing in schools instead,” Murata said.
Murata notes how factors such as education leaders’ professional context, leadership capacities, and equity in schools are necessary considerations of impact guiding the research that addresses problems of equity. She proposes equity-centered and justice-focused school leadership as a means to close what used to be called the achievement gap, but is more accurately described as an opportunity gap.
Okonofua, Assistant Professor at the UC Berkeley School of Psychology, underscored 21CSLA’s focus on both research and practice as necessary frameworks for examining and addressing the social-psychological processes that lead to inequality.
Okonofua discussed the body of research examining science-based methods for reducing people’s implicit or explicit bias. His research indicates that the effects of typical anti-bias strategies used in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training are short-lived — failing to circumvent the threat of bias returning within 24 hours and ultimately not affecting practices that harm students of color in schools. “Black students make up about 14 percent of the student population in the United States, however, they make up about 40 percent of the students who are suspended in any given year,” noted Okonofua. He discussed how minor infractions (class disruptions, for example) become major infractions as students of color are disproportionately labeled “troublemakers”— a function of systemic bias.
His research indicates that focusing on expanding teachers’ capacity by “sidelining” bias — and not necessarily eliminating it — can help in addressing the problem of equity affecting Black students.
“The sidelining bias approach [assumes] one of [the] identities we might have is a bias identity. But we have other identities, like our professional, empathetic, parent, or pro-social identities. The idea here is to bench the biased identity. It's not getting rid of it or eliminating it, but it's benching it and making it inactive so it does not affect the outcome.”
Okonofua encourages the adaptation of a growth mindset among teachers and leaders as they address student conduct. He says, “Once they misbehave, that's not an indictment of their character but rather, these are kids that are sponges. This is an opportunity, this is actually why we became educators in the first place, to help children learn and grow and become their best possible selves. It works. They’re going through puberty and hormonal changes, identity development, they are understanding how to navigate the world. These are all stepping stones for them.”
The Summit brought forth practical and thought-provoking opportunities for leaders to reflect and realize justice in their school systems, and how they can develop ways to achieve systemic justice so that all students can thrive.