Mobilizing a Culture Shift on Campus: Underrepresented Students as Educational Developers

Abstract

This chapter describes the transformative potential of positioning students from underrepresented groups as educational developers.

“I Saw a Change”: Enhancing Classroom Equity through Student-Faculty Pedagogical Partnership

“…Beyond corroborating increasingly common findings about the benefits of pedagogical partnership for participating students from equity-seeking groups (e.g., Cook-Sather & Agu, 2013;Colón García, 2017; for detailed reporting of these results from the present study see Cook-Sather, 2018, 2020de Bie et al, 2019), this article builds on preliminary study findings reported elsewhere (Cook-Sather, Krishna Prasad et al, 2019) by offering further insight into partnership's capacity to contribute to equitable classroom practices. As participants noted, key dimensions of this potential impact include the mobilization of student partners' equity-specific expertise to promote faculty reflection and concrete shifts in approaches to teaching; however, there are also notable challenges to advancing equity through partnership.…”

“…Given this backdrop, the current discussion seeks to build on existing research, and on a preliminary consideration of ideas about broader change in practice arising from our data (Cook-Sather, Krishna Prasad et al, 2019), by attending to students' perspectives on how pedagogical partnership might contribute to equity-related outcomes that affect students beyond those immediately involved. We also note particular challenges that arise for equity-seeking students working in partnership, considering how these both affect individual participants and mediate partnership's capacity to contribute to equity on a broad scale.…”

Where Are the Students in Efforts for Inclusive Excellence? Two Approaches to Positioning Students as Critical Partners for Inclusive Pedagogical Practices

“…Yet students have essential insights without which we cannot develop the most effective pedagogical approaches (Cook-Sather, 2019;Felten et al, 2019;Healey et al, 2016;Marquis et al, 2016;Reynolds et al, 2019). Furthermore, when students, particularly those typically underrepresented in and underserved by postsecondary institutions, are positioned as educational developers, they can mobilize a culture shift on campuses toward greater equity, inclusion, and justice (Cook-Sather, Krishna Prasad et al, 2019;de Bie et al, 2021). Takayama et al (2017) have argued that such a culture shift can be advanced through strategic multi-level leadership that can start at the macro, meso, or micro level.…”

“…• institutions should adopt a more holistic, comprehensive approach to supporting teaching and learning for diverse groups of learners. students-students of color and other underrepresented and underserved groups in particular-as "holders and creators of knowledge" (Delgado Bernal, 2002, p. 106) and, specifically, as co-creators of understandings and practices of postsecondary education that are responsive to a diversity of students (Cook-Sather & Agu, 2013;Cook-Sather, Krishna Prasad et al, 2019;de Bie et al, 2019).…”

“…While DEI initiatives, like much educational development work, focus on student experiences, most do not include students in their conceptualization or implementation. A growing body of literature suggests that student-faculty pedagogical partnerships-in which students are "co-learners, co-researchers, co-inquirers, co-developers, and codesigners" (Healey et al, 2016, p. 2) with faculty, staff, administrators, and other students-have the potential to foster greater equity and inclusion through the practices pedagogical partnerships nurture (e.g., Cook-Sather, 2018aCook-Sather et al, 2019b) as well as through changing the way we conceptualize and enact educational and institutional development (Cook-Sather, Krishna Prasad et al, 2019). Many pedagogical partnership approaches not only reimagine the place of students in educational development (Felten et al, 2019) but also specifically ground their projects and/or analyses in critical race and/or feminist theory (e.g., Cates et al, 2018;Cook-Sather & Agu, 2013;Mercer-Mapstone & Mercer, 2018), and arguments are emerging regarding partnerships' potential to counter ontological, epistemic, and affective forms of harm created and perpetuated by higher education institutions (de Bie et al, 2019(de Bie et al, , 2021.…”