Abstract
The Culturally Inclusive Educator is an important and timely addition to the literature exploring campus and classroom inclusivity. The concepts Samuels explores are unlikely to be new or unfamiliar to the sociologist, but the book presents an accessible primer to the importance of diverse backgrounds and identities in educational environments as well as the challenges that this diversity can represent. In addition to being helpful to instructors and other classroom leaders, this book will be particularly useful to members of cross-disciplinary teams that have widely different backgrounds but are working together on diversity issues. Because of its broad appeal, The Culturally Inclusive Educator is a valuable conversation starter for members of faculty and administration alike.
The book follows a clear and compelling organizational structure. It first establishes the importance of the mandate, then addresses the gap in our pedagogy, and, finally, suggests ways in which we can improve as educators. Creating a cogent thesis from a topic as potentially fragmented as cultural inclusivity in institutions of higher learning is a difficult task; however, Samuels ably pulls together theory and practice across the chapters to give the reader a thorough understanding of the subject matter.
Following a helpful and concise introduction, chapter 1 establishes both the objective of the book and the theoretical frameworks with which it engages. As sociologists, many of us are familiar with professed color-blindness as a mechanism for racism—Samuels engages with this idea extensively, allowing readers new to the topic to interrogate the “oppression-blindness” that, she argues, has come to characterize the national discourse and many college classrooms. Samuels demonstrates that by not actively working to include students across lines of gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and class, educators may in effect reproduce existing structures of oppression. Pretending to ignore differences in the classroom will not neutralize them—this is crucial to the premise of inclusive pedagogy. In addition to this treatment of color-blindness, Samuels also details theories in stereotype threat, implicit bias, and microaggressions.
Chapter 2 describes the current lack of education, resources, planning, and accountability invested in inclusive pedagogies. This section serves to highlight the shortcomings with which we have pursued meaningful diversity. It also highlights a dire lack of assessment data. Simply put, we do not know what initiatives effect significantly improved outcomes for students or the faculty educating them. Partially addressing this, the chapter also presents the author’s “Preparedness Survey,” which quantifies levels of readiness to engage in diverse classrooms. This reality is a compelling call to action for readers.
By the third chapter, Samuels critically interrogates current forms of diversity training and their efficacy in helping educators meet the demands of the multicultural classroom of the twenty-first century. How should campus diversity initiatives be organized to maximize outcomes for their participants in faculty, administration, and the student body? In answer to this question, Samuels outlines best practices anchored in the extant literature, allowing readers to envision successful workshops and training programs. She also proposes a series of evaluation criteria applicable to existing individual campus inclusion programs, so that readers can estimate the degree to which they are currently incorporating best practices.
After considering initiatives at the level of the institution, in chapter 4, Samuels considers a variety of techniques for inclusive pedagogy incorporated by educators in the classroom. Understanding that, as teachers, we seek to include all students in learning and maximize outcomes irrespective of social group membership, Samuels presents the reader with a wealth of options to reach this goal. Classrooms can be traditionally or nontraditionally organized, and Samuels details the elements of transformative learning theory that can facilitate increased learning and inclusion in a nontraditional classroom. Moving into concerns of fundamental curriculum design, this chapter provides concrete direction for facilitating inclusive pedagogy by encouraging the reader to actively think through textbook choices, the physical classroom space, and grading procedures.
Chapter 5 challenges readers to examine their own implicit biases and stereotypes. Given the real and demonstrated effects of teacher expectancy on student performance, understanding the ways in which our own positionalities influence the classrooms we lead is crucial to improving the education that we provide to all students. This section introduces the reader to “Eight Transformative Steps,” through which implicit biases and stereotypes can be transcended.
In the sixth chapter, Samuels leads readers through the changes to bring about lasting inclusion. By evaluating and bettering relationships, interactions, reactions, self-awareness, language, and everyday practices, she argues that readers are encouraged to do the hard work necessary to incorporate diverse worldviews and an appreciation for multicultural education into the classroom. With the goal of “learn[ing] to be our authentic selves with everyone with whom we engage” (p. 95), this chapter outlines the steps of becoming not only a better educator but a better friend.
The final chapter of The Culturally Inclusive Educator turns to the role of institutional leadership in facilitating on-campus diversity and an inclusive environment for all students and prospective students. This short section underlines the importance of support at the most senior levels for engendering enduring institutional commitments to educating students across social group membership. Faculty work in the classroom is important, but so is faculty work in committees, collaboration, and administration.
Samuels introduces the results of her “Prepared-ness Study” in chapter 2 but weaves her findings throughout the book. This is, to my knowledge, the most well-honed tool we have at present to assess the degree of faculty preparedness (or lack of preparedness) for facilitating diversity in the classroom. Many of the individual arguments from Samuels’ book have appeared elsewhere, but her comprehensive merging of empirical reality with theoretically anchored methods of pedagogical improvement distinguishes this title.
Making specific suggestions for the incorporation of this book in courses not centered on teaching practices would diminish its import. The book recommends holistic changes in readers’ research, thinking, and lives. Presumably, the deep engagement with transformative techniques that Samuels outlines would lead to a variety of changes in the classroom, but they would be paradigmatic shifts that would change assignments, syllabi, and the entire classroom environment. The assignment of this book in graduate seminars on teaching sociology would, therefore, be an appropriate use of the material and have the potential to significantly enrich student discussion and learning.