This chapter presents synthesized insights from rich and varied literatures about pedagogies in higher education for equity and justice. The authors summarize key empirical, theoretical, and best practice literature about designing and implementing socially-just pedagogies in higher education. The synthesis is organized into three sections that mirror the varied foci (e.g., personal classroom, university, etc.) of equity and justice literature. The individual faculty domain summarizes literature about self-work required of faculty. The instructional domain explicates the varied strategies faculty can use to design equitable classroom environments and deliver socially just curriculum and praxis. Finally, the institutional domain summarizes the less voluminous, but important, body of work situating equity pedagogy within the broader literature about social justice and equity in higher education.
TopIntroduction
Historical and contemporary struggles for justice remind us that much transformation is necessary before educational systems in the United States, including higher education, are equitable and socially-just. The Association for the Study of Higher Education, or ASHE, (2020) released a position statement agreeing with AERA’s prior statement and firmly committed to research and practice that advances racial justice. Inspired by these professional calls for advancing racial justice in education, as well as a commitment to enact equity praxis in our own work with future educators, the authors looked to the higher education literature for insight. The authors quickly realized that there were a multitude of sources about promising practices for equitable and socially-just pedagogy available. The authors were inspired, but also overwhelmed, by the sheer volume of writings designed to help educators enact equity and justice via pedagogy. The authors also wondered if other educators, hoping to enact equity pedagogy, might also feel stymied by the multitude of perspectives, suggestions, and strategies offered in those writings. Given the continued backlash to diversity and resistance to equity work (Patel, 2015), educators are often pressured to justify the scholarly roots of their pedagogical and curricular choices. As such, the authors set out to synthesize some common wisdoms from the multiple bodies of higher education teaching literature to offer college educators an introductory understanding of multiple equity and social justice pedagogies.
Due to space limitations, the authors do not delve deeply into any particular pedagogical strategies or their theoretical underpinnings. Instead, the authors have chosen to synthesize overlapping concepts from these varied perspectives to provide a basic overview of key insights for educators looking for a place to start learning about, and enacting, equity pedagogies. Educator knowledge and enactment of equity pedagogy is important because faculty may contribute to cultural, racial, and gendered microaggressions in the classroom despite their best intentions to support equitable practices (Delpit, 2006; Pidgeon, 2014; Suárez-Orozco et al., 2015). The journey toward socially just praxis is ongoing and this review should be considered a mere starting point for educators who can (and should) delve more deeply into particular pedagogies and perspectives in the future.
The literature summarized in this manuscript is situated within a large and diverse context of paradigms, terminology, and issues. The authors found varied approaches to pedagogy that seek to create conditions for students that can be described as culturally-sustaining (Cole, 2017; Ladson-Billings, 2014; Paris, 2012), Indigenizing or decolonizing (Brayboy & Castagno, 2009; Cupples & Glynn, 2014; Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2012; Grande, 2004; Tejeda, Espinoza, & Gutierrez, 2003; Tuck & Yang, 2012; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999), transgressive (hooks, 1994), and/or grounded in critical race theory (Delpit, 2006; Lewis et al., 2019, Smith-Maddox & Solórzano, 2002; Solórzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000; Tuitt, 2012, 2016), critical Latin@ studies (Delgado Bernal, 2002; Figueroa & Rodriguez, 2015; Villalpando, 2004), and critical whiteness theory (DiAngelo, 2011, 2018; Frankenberg, 1997; Gillborn, 2007; Leonardo, 2002), among others. The authors recognize that these terms represent critically different concepts and cannot be used interchangeably.