Considerations for Seeking Equity and Justice through Pedagogical Partnership

Abstract

Student-faculty pedagogical partnership has recently been understood to have the potential to contribute to equity and justice in postsecondary education. Nevertheless, important equity-related concerns about partnership have also been raised. In a presentation at a previous Symposium on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, one of the co-authors of this article proposed a series of "tentative principles" for working toward equity in and through student-faculty partnership, which synthesized and foregrounded some of these possibilities and critiques. In this article, we share these "tentative principles," as well as a series of critical responses to them, offered by the three co-authors. In so doing, we aim to offer an expanded set of significant considerations for those interested in student-faculty partnership and equity, and to invite and encourage further discussion and critique rather than reify singular principles.

Humanizing STEM education through student-faculty pedagogical partnerships

“…It is important to provide support structures, including remuneration for student partners' work and guidance in developing and implementing confidence, language, and strategies for engaging in such demanding emotional and intellectual roles (see Cook-Sather et al, 2019a for guidelines). In particular, regular meetings of student partners and partnership program coordinators constitute a form of professional development (Cook-Sather et al, 2021) that nurtures partnership skills and endeavors to avoid reproducing the harm many equitydenied students experience (de Bie et al, 2021). The importance of affirmation, deep listening, and striving to gain perspective are all integral to this partnership work (Smith, 2023) and need to be practiced (Cook-Sather et al, 2021).…”

“…We propose that one way to address the exclusionary culture, the lack of student voices in developing inclusive learning environments, and the overall dearth of humanism in STEM education is through the human and humanizing engagement that student-faculty pedagogical partnerships enact and support. As Bunnell et al (2021) suggest, "learning from, partnering with, and highlighting the lived, subjective experiences of students in the classroom is a potentially powerful step towards inclusive education (de Bie et al, 2021;Cook-Sather, 2015, " and student-faculty pedagogical partnership "may be particularly well suited" to addressing challenges "related to inclusive education in STEM" (28). The transformative potential of the now-global practice of pedagogical partnership has been documented in a growing body of research on such partnership in STEM education.…”

Using Shared Google Docs to Co-Create Life-Affirming Learning

“…Alison, a tenured faculty member who identifies as a middle-aged, white, cis-gendered female, has taught this course numerous times since co-creating it with Crystal and sees it as a manifestation of the pedagogical partnership work that constitutes her primary area of research and practice (see https://www.alisoncooksather.com/). This work is premised on collaboration, mutuality, empowerment, voice, and choice, and it specifically strives to redress the epistemic, affective, and ontological harms many equitydenied students experience in higher education (de Bie et al, 2021). Van, a third-year student (at the time we cofacilitated the course) who identifies as a non-binary, first-generation, Vietnamese American, completed the course in Spring of 2021 and co-facilitated it in Spring of 2022 while conducting an independent study on embodiment pedagogy.…”

“…Trauma-informed teaching includes creating "meaningful, positive teacher-student relationships, which helps students feel safe and supported to learn" (Hanover Research, 2019, p. 1). Our emphasis on the affective is supported by recent research on the potential of co-creation, or pedagogical partnership, to redress the harms inflicted on students from equity-seeking groups who experience a range of violences in higher education (de Bie et al, 2021).…”

Leveraging Student–Faculty–Staff Partnerships to Implement Inclusive Curricular Reform in Chemistry Education

“…Such partnership relationships can serve as critical tools for identifying opportunities for more inclusive teaching and learning, because they provide space for cross-hierarchical conversations. 69,70 Such partnerships, which are built on principles of reciprocity, respect, and mutual responsibility, invite faculty and students to contribute their unique perspectives to jointly shaping educational practices; these pedagogical partnerships frequently involve a single instructor and student and operate at the level of an individual course. 71,72 In this paper, we describe how we expanded upon this pedagogical partnership model in three ways: by increasing the number of individuals involved in the partnership, by including staff as critical and equal partners in the work, and by focusing our work at the level of the department rather than working at the level of individual course design.…”