Abstract
Diversity, inclusion, and equity (DEI) practices positively impact students. Historically, teachers created their own structures, curricula, programs, and strategies before DEI existed. This chapter's goal is to highlight innovative teacher leaders' (TLs) DEI practices that supported equity for their students. Noted TLs whose work contributed to DEI include Mary McLeod Bethune, Salvador B. Castro, Judith Heumann, Barbara Henry, Maria Montessori, and Shinichi Suzuki. Their efforts helped students feel safe, seen, and inspired to pursue academic achievement. This chapter highlights these TLs' accomplishments as well as research of teacher leadership today.
TopIntroduction
How Teacher Leadership Structures Paved the Way for DEI
There is little doubt that today’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies benefit students significantly (Friesen & Brown, 2022; Jacobs et al., 2014; Lac & Diamond, 2019; Lopez, 2021). The policies were created thanks to legislators, school administrators, and, perhaps most of all, classroom teachers who pressed for early reforms (Petre, 2020; Theoharis et al., 2023).
DEI is rooted in the Civil Rights Movement and its impact on equitable and inclusive education (Devins et al., 2004). The movement sparked impassioned debates, activism, legal battles, and eventual legislation directing schools to embrace more inclusive practices. Many teachers and teacher leaders (TLs) still see inequities and want to take the reforms further (Berry & Eckert, 2012; Devins et al., 2004).
Most teachers agree that schools without inclusivity have low student success, measured broadly, and without DEI many students struggle at school (Datnow et al., 2017). This chapter, which explores the idea and practice of teacher leadership, is organized into the following sections: an introduction, background information, examples of teacher leaders, a brief literature review, strategies, implementation, and a discussion on how TLs pushed innovation in DEI practices. DEI expanded when teacher leaders went beyond the call of duty to engage in research, activism, and support for students in ways seldom considered, let alone tried, before.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Discrimination: The practice of withholding services, or differently treating others based on their ethnicity, skin color, race, sexual orientation, age, abilities, and socio-economic status.
Section 504: A law that protects individuals from education discrimination or employment discrimination based on their disability. Many schools may have either an IEP or 504 plan for students based on what type of services are available to them within a district and what their specific handicaps or delays are.
Action Research: Research of pedagogy, theory, management systems, and curriculum used by teachers and professionals to examine issues and find improvements.
Equity: The concept of equal needs being met for students, staff, and citizens based on their various circumstances that may differ from one person to another.
Legislation: National or state laws, court rulings, supreme court rulings, or other legal rulings that determine what is legal in public schools.
Segregation: The act of separating students based on skin color or race that was in place in the United States until the Brown versus Board of Education ruling in 1954.
Inclusion: For education settings, inclusion refers to environments, teaching methods, classroom management, and other ways teachers and schools help students feel seen, heard, included, and cared for in a way that meets their needs.
Socio-Economic Status: The financial status of a family determines their tax bracket, affordability, and access. This is the term used for academic purposes and is more correct than referring to peoples and populations as a lower, middle, or upper class (20th and 19th-century terms).
Qualitative Research: Research that uses qualitative data from observations, field collections, and interviews.
Learning Environments: Classrooms, systems, school culture, and the physical spaces in which students learn.
Title IX: The legal proceeding from the Education Amendments of 1972 which ended discrimination in any education program or activity involving federal financial assistance against people’s gender, sexual orientation, or pregnancy.