Education in a Multicultural Society

This blog was kindly contributed by Kirstie-Anne Woodman, a recent International Relations graduate from the University of Birmingham. Kirstie-Anne is currently interning at a diversity and inclusion consultancy agency, Worth of Mouth Services.You can find Kirstie-Anne on LinkedIn.

It took me a long time to find a dissertation topic which invigorated me and I felt a true passion for. Then, by chance, I came across Nicola Rollock’s ‘Staying Power’ paper, a report on the career experiences of Black female professors in the UK. While reading, it hit me, I had never had, or even seen a Black professor at my university – let alone a Black female professor. This led me to think of all of my university experiences which had differed to those of my peers due to my Blackness. I read reports regarding the Black attainment gap, the Black drop-out rate and the need to decolonise curriculums. For the first time, feelings of otherness that I had felt throughout my entire university journey, were explained and quantified in academic terms. And so I wrote ‘Black Academic, White Space: The Insidious Legacy of Institutional Racism at Top-tier UK Universities’.

Q&A game gets students talking about diversity honestly, responsibly

A few of my MHMS friends & colleagues are taking a Cultural Proficiency course. Having taken that course a couple years ago, and as a passionate ally of the #WeNeedDiverseBooks movement, I offered to help them with their final project!

We decided it would cool to create a curated list of books on a bookmark that celebrate diversity. Feel free to Take, Copy, Use, & Share - it's all Creative Commons!

We made sure that the books listed were all books we had in our Middle School Library Collection and were ones that were sourced from the WeNeedDiverseBooks website. But you can do the same thing or use ours! See below for downloads.

Use young children's understanding of differences to teach social justice through age-appropriate literature, news stories, anti-bias lessons, familiar examples, and problem solving.

It’s well-established that there’s a lack of diversity in the technology sector, regarding both gender and race. In fact, about 83% of tech executives are white males.

Although edtech struggles with this problem as well, the good news is that it’s to a lesser extent. According to Forbes, the presence of female founders in edtech is increasing. Edtech incubators and competitions are also attracting higher numbers of women.

Diversity and inclusion at the workplace are now CEO-level issues, but they continue to be frustrating and challenging for many companies. Why the gap?