The Inclusive Practices (IP) Framework At Pierce College
The Inclusive Practices (IP) Framework At Pierce College
Purpose
- Implementing Inclusive Practices is critical to serving our entire community, particularly students from minoritized backgrounds.
- The IP framework is a living and evolving document that aims to build an ecosystem across the institution.
- The IP framework is both aspirational and based on accountability.
- Inclusive Practices acknowledges that all members of our institutional ecosystem are both learners and teachers.
Definitions
Inclusive Practices recognizes that varied backgrounds, physical, intellectual, emotional, and social abilities of historically marginalized communities are center to accurately capturing the complexities of our vast humanity.
Inclusive Practices represent an ecological approach that centers the ways both humans (body, mind, and spirit) and structures (political, economic, cultural, and social) interact and impact each other in the process of creating “balance.” We build collective efficacy that advances equity. Guiding principles include:
- Flexibility
- Intercultural Engagement
- Relationships
- Equitability
- Culturally Sustaining Practices
- Transparency
- Collaboration
- Critical Self-Reflection
Inclusive Practices (IP) In Action
Equitability
Equity – Intentionally tailoring resources that fit the individual with respect to their multi-dimensional perspectives and needs.
Inclusion – Broadening the circle, inviting and welcoming others into interaction by recognizing, valuing and celebrating contributions that provide depth, better outcomes, and lead to transformational change.
Diversity – Celebrating the variety of human realities and recognizing how they intersect with our own lived experiences.
Equitability is explicitly centered within each pillar.
In the classroom and in student interactions
- In instruction, develop counter discourses through storytelling, narratives, chronicles, family histories, scenarios, biographies, and parables that draw on the lived experiences students of color bring to the classroom. (Zamudio, 2011, P91)
- In student-facing interactions, re-examine what we consider “fair” or “equal” in policies and procedures (Student Services and Learning Support teams at Pierce College)
Critical self-reflection
Critical self-reflection refers to the process of questioning one’s own assumption, presuppositions, and perspectives. (Mezirow, 2006)
In the classroom and in student interactions
- In instruction, faculty cultivate critical consciousness among students of color:
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- Students explore their own positionality
- Students name and disrupt the systems of Whiteness
- In student-facing interactions, reflect on how policies and practices impact vulnerable students.
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- Is this policy or practice actively anti-racist? Anti-ableist?
- Does this policy or practice harm students of color, students with disabilities, or other minoritized groups?
Flexibility
Responding and adapting empathetically to students’ [and others’] changing and dive