From Assimilation to Inclusion: How White Educators and Educators of Color Can Make Diversity Work

By Michael Brosnan, Editor, Independent School Magazine

If we want real racial equality, we need to look at race honestly from all perspectives–including the perspective of whiteness. The fact that the conversation may be difficult for white educators, especially those considering the topic for the first time, should not discourage schools from pushing ahead with a sense of urgency.
– Michael Brosnan

Click on Assimilation to Inclusion to download the publication. Or see below to order copies.

AISNE’s third diversity publication, From Assimilation to Inclusion, a companion piece to The AISNE Guide to Hiring and Retaining Teachers of Color and Thriving in Independent Schools: A Guide for Educators of Color is now available for all interested educators. The goal of this publication is to help independent schools gain greater clarity about their diversity goals–what they want and need to achieve, as well as how they can best achieve these goals. The genesis of this project was the conviction that unless schools and individual educators address and work through the twinned issues of white identity and white privilege, our institutions will not be able to get beyond the assimilation model (“Outsiders are included, but only if they behave like insiders.”) and become truly inclusive.

Drawing on extensive research and in-depth interviews with a wide range of independent school educators and other diversity professionals, Michael Brosnan has done an extraordinary job of pulling together material that is, at once, informative, concrete, challenging, affirming and firmly rooted in the realities of independent schools. The first section, “What’s in a Mission Statement,” emphasizes the importance of clarity about why a school sees diversity as central to its work. In the second section, “Starting the Dialogue,” Brosnan explores the different imperatives for diversity and traces some of the broad lines of America’s history of racial inequality. “The Work of White Educators” then argues that the sustained involvement of white educators is the sine qua non for real progress in moving toward the goal of inclusiveness, and Brosnan provides ten specific suggestions for exploring white identity and white privilege. In this same section, educators of color define what they want and need from white colleagues who want to be seen as white allies (e.g., “They do not dismiss the concerns of people of color or the potential for situations to have racial overtones.”). In the final section, “What Schools Can Do to Ensure Inclusion,” Brosnan shares twenty-six different strategies for helping your school to become more inclusive.

Additional hard copies of From Assimilation to Inclusion are available as follows:

AISNE MEMBERS:
Please order in multiples of ten only for the cost of postage and handling ($1.50 per copy; 10 copies = $15). Please send a check made out to "AISNE" for the appropriate amount or call and give us your credit card information. We cannot ship your copies until we receive payment. If you stop by the AISNE office in Braintree, you can have as many copies as you want for no charge.

NON-MEMBER SCHOOLS:
The cost per copy is $5, with a minimum order of ten copies. Please send a check made out to "AISNE" for the appropriate amount or call and give us your credit card information. We cannot ship your copies until we receive payment.

AISNE
222 Forbes Road, Suite 106
Braintree, MA 02184

For questions about ordering please contact Karen Neary at AISNE at 781-843-8440 or email her at Karen Neary.

Remember you can download the pdf version of the publication and make your own copies. Click on Assimilation to Inclusion to download the publication.

Previous AISNE Diversity Publications:

Click on The AISNE Guide to Hiring and Retaining Teachers of Color to download this publication.

Click on Thriving in Independent Schools: A Guide for Educators of Color to download this publication.

Other Resources:

Go to Framing the Work of Diversity Directors (Word)for an overview of the different pieces of a school's diversity work, prepared by a group of diversity professionals from AISNE member schools.