Abstract
If you are teaching a diversity and/or social justice course, are considering teaching one, are looking to implement new content, are involved in evaluating faculty, or are even interested in leading diversity and/or social-justice type discussion groups, this is the book for you. Kite, Case, and Williams pulled together a strong group of diversity and social justice educators, representing a wide array of identities and career stages, to provide a peer mentoring approach in handling difficult topics that arise in (e.g., emotionally-charged media coverage; Chapter 9, Pickering) and related to (e.g., course evaluations; Chapter 17, Boysen) the classroom. By taking an approach of pedagogical humility and having each chapter open with the authors’ first-person account of actual faced dilemmas, their experiences are relatable and come across directly as intended: peer mentoring and shared empathy for current situations.
The editors (and chapter authors) succeed in their goal to provide mentorship to those who are isolated in their roles as social justice educators. To best support peer mentoring via the book chapters, Kite, Case, and Williams encouraged the authors to follow a chapter structure of “summary of dilemma, faculty reflections, considerations of context and intersectionality, best practices, structural implications (if relevant), resources, [and] chapter references” (p. 12). This chapter development structure makes it easy for the reader to (a) follow along with the information presented and (b) have an accessible reference guide by knowing exactly where to turn for guidance in the future. For instance, Wagner and Garrett-Walker (Chapter 5) discuss their first-person experiences of being targeted with anonymous threats for their work. They then provide best practices for dealing with the threats (from physical to psychological safety), and resources that threatened faculty can utilize or share with others in a similar position. Reading through these chapters feels as if you have a mentor at your immediate fingertips.
While the editors make it clear that they could not include a comprehensive list of all difficult experiences one might have in the classroom, this book provides a sound starting place for any social justice instructor to learn the best tips, tricks, and practices and feels at the same time surrounded by empathy and people who want them to succeed. The fact that many of the chapters cross-reference themselves throughout the book also speaks to how entwined the nuances in teaching diversity and/or social justice are. For instance, many chapter authors directed readers back to Chapter 2 by Eaton and Warner on how to engage in self-care for psychological healing. Others link back to how to set up one’s classroom for constructive discussions on diversity and social justice (Chapter 2, Goldstein; and Chapter 7, Brody and Bernal), including use of student freedom of speech in the classroom (Chapter 16, Warner), the use of inclusive terminology (Chapter 13, Wyrick) while teaching, and how to recover when our own instructor errors may influence the classroom (Chapter 4, Kite, Colbert, and Barrera). This book also helps faculty from all backgrounds, such as Rios, Case, Brody, and Rivera (Chapter 5), discussing what to do when facing stereotype threat as a faculty member, and another focused on identifying privilege in the classroom when discussing a group of which you are not a member (Chapter 11, Warner, Wagner, and Grzanka).
From my perspective, this edited collection is a must-read for anyone working in the diversity and social justice sphere. I anticipate referencing it often.
