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This is a comprehensive compendium of school belonging research from expert contributors. We bring you the latest empirical research and discourse on school belonging drawn from the scientific peer-reviewed literature. This book has a strong applied and functional purpose in schools.
Reflecting on life is important, but what if it leads to discovering your sense of belonging? Dr. Ilene Winokur discovered a sense of belonging by sharing her story about life in two very different places she calls home: Buffalo, NY, and Yarmouk, Kuwait. Friends and family were curious about how she adjusted to life in two different cultures. Dr. Winokur realized that belonging was the common theme and her journey guided her to make connections between belonging, learning, and improving our well-being. Journey to Belonging: Pathways to Well-Being is filled with self-reflection and the author's discovery about different stages of belonging (self, personal, and professional) that can influence how educators approach teaching and learning. Dr. Winokur's research-based explanations about belonging and well-being include why our highest goal is to leave a legacy and a better future for all. Journey to Belonging will help you define YOUR sense of belonging by answering: What is self-belonging and why do we all need it? Why is personal belonging an essential element of learning? How can educators find their sense of professional belonging? What does it mean to become a "good ancestor"?
Lead an identity safe learning community where students of all backgrounds thrive Students of all backgrounds reach their full potential when they feel a sense of belonging and inclusion. When their social identities are valued as assets rather than barriers to learning, they flourish. This guide provides evidence-based strategies that support you as a leader in creating an environment that promotes identity safe students, who experience a challenging curriculum that respects their diverse social identities. Features in the book include: Guiding principles for student voice, equalizing status and cultivating acceptance across race, ethnicity, gender and other differences Ideas and examples for anti-racist dialogue and activities for teachers and students that counter colorblind practices, stereotype threat and biases Vignettes, and examples of identity safe practices for students and adult learning for staff, families and the community Systems for student-centered assessment and data collection Resources for developing equitable school policies and a comprehensive identity safety plan for your school Educators fulfill the promise of an equitable education when students of all backgrounds know that who they are and what they think matters. Start the journey to become an identity safe school and see the results for yourself! “Belonging and Inclusion in Identity Safe Schools: A Guide for Educational Leaders is a timely and important book. For several years, the nation′s schools have been asked to focus their energies on raising student achievement. However, too often educators have ignored the need to honor, support and affirm the identities of the students they serve. For educators who serve children of color, particularly Black, Native American and Latinx children who are often subject to overt and covert forms of forced assimilation, this book will be an invaluable resource on how to create learning opportunities that make it possible for such children to thrive.” ~Pedro Noguera, Dean of Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California “Bravo to authors Cohn-Vargas, Gogolewski, Creer Kahn, and Epstein for their ground-breaking book on Identify Safe Schools for Administrators and Teacher and Staff Leaders! They provide much-needed evidence for educators to elevate and even inspire the equity, empowerment, and academic growth needed to wholly support all children to flourish in school and their lives.” ~Debbie Zacarian, Director, Zacarian and Associates
Welcome to Identity Safe Classrooms! In identity safe classrooms, students facing negative stereotypes or viewed as different are "seen," accepted, and valued for who and what they are. Their identity is embraced as an asset not a barrier for school success. Identity safety is a research-based set of practices that counter the harmful effects of stereotype threat and allow our students to reach their full capacity for learning, foster positive relationships, and better appreciate the full spectrum of human differences. The second of a two-volume set, Identity Safe Classrooms, Grades 6-12, is a call for educators to come together and realize a vision of schools as transformative places of opportunity and equity for all students. Inside you’ll find: Design principles for promoting belonging and a welcoming classroom environment Compelling evidence from identity safety research on ways to mitigate stereotype threat along with counter-narratives that challenge societal biases about gender, race, and other differences Pragmatic strategies for student-centered teaching, including trauma-informed practices, that hold high expectations and validate each student’s background as a resource for learning Vignettes with concrete examples and try-it-out activities and prompts for self-reflection Devour Identity Safe Classrooms, adopt its practices, and soon enough you’ll inspire in all of your students a greater sense of empathy and agency in their educational experiences. "Dr. Becki Cohn-Vargas along with Alexandrea Creer Kahn and Amy Epstein show us the intersections between adolescent identity development, racial identity development, and social-emotional development so we know how to use the diversity in classrooms as our strength." -Zaretta Hammond, Author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain "Identity Safe Classrooms should be in the hands of every educator who walks into a school. It′s clear and accessible, grounded in research, thought-provoking and engaging, and actionable, and fills a crucial gap in our resources for creating just and liberated schools." -Elena Aguilar, Author of The Art of Coaching "The authors have done an excellent job showing how an identity safe classroom integrates the growth mindset in a secondary school. When students feel accepted and valued, when they feel safe learning from mistakes and encouraged to continually grow as learners, they can reach their highest potential." -Carol Dweck, Stanford University
This practitioner-focused guide to creating identity-safe classrooms presents four categories of core instructional practices: Child-centered teaching ; Classroom relationships ; Caring environments ; Cultivating diversity. The book presents a set of strategies that can be implemented immediately by teachers. It includes a wealth of vignettes taken from identity-safe classrooms as well as reflective exercises that can be completed by individual teachers or teacher teams.
Pathways to Belonging in Education is a companion book to Dr. Winokur's first book, Journey to Belonging: Pathways to Well-being, and a guide for teachers to support their students' self-belonging and personal belonging while supporting their own self-belonging and professional belonging. This workbook is filled with lessons and activities created by educators like you. It can be used without reading Journey to Belonging: Pathways to Well-Being, but it will be more useful if you understand the background behind the different types of belonging that are discussed in more detail there.
Everyone can imagine their future self, even very young children, and this future self is usually positive and education-linked. To make progress toward an aspired future or away from a feared future requires people to plan and take action. Unfortunately, most people often start too late and commit minimal effort to ineffective strategies that lead their attention elsewhere. As a result, their high hopes and earnest resolutions often fall short. In Pathways to Success Through Identity-Based Motivation Daphna Oyserman focuses on situational constraints and affordances that trigger or impede taking action. Focusing on when the future-self matters and how to reduce the shortfall between the self that one aspires to become and the outcomes that one actually attains, Oyserman introduces the reader to the core theoretical framework of identity-based motivation (IBM) theory. IBM theory is the prediction that people prefer to act in identity-congruent ways but that the identity-to-behavior link is opaque for a number of reasons (the future feels far away, difficulty of working on goals is misinterpreted, and strategies for attaining goals do not feel identity-congruent). Oyserman's book goes on to also include the stakes and how the importance of education comes into play as it improves the lives of the individual, their family, and their society. The framework of IBM theory and how to achieve it is broken down into three parts: how to translate identity-based motivation into a practical intervention, an outline of the intervention, and empirical evidence that it works. In addition, the book also includes an implementation manual and fidelity measures for educators utilizing this book to intervene for the improvement of academic outcomes.
Discovering Successful Pathways in Children's Development provides a new perspective on the study of childhood and family life. Successful development is enhanced when communities provide meaningful life pathways that children can seek out and engage. Successful pathways include both a culturally valued direction for development and competence in skills that matter for a child's subsequent success as a person as well as a student, parent, worker, or citizen. To understand successful pathways requires a mix of qualitative, quantitative, and ethnographic methods—the state of the art for research practice among developmentalists, educators, and policymakers alike. This volume includes new studies of minority and immigrant families, school achievement, culture, race and gender, poverty, identity, and experiments and interventions meant to improve family and child contexts. Discovering Successful Pathways in Children's Development will be of enormous value to everyone interested in the issues of human development, education, and social welfare, and among professionals charged with the task of improving the lives of children in our communities.
"Even as they see their wages go down and their buying power decrease, many parents are still putting their kids' material desires first. These parents struggle with how to handle children's consumer wants, which continue unabated despite the economic downturn. And, indeed, parents and other adults continue to spend billions of dollars on children every year. Why do children seem to desire so much, so often, so soon, and why do parents capitulate so readily? To determine what forces lie behind the onslaught of Nintendo Wiis and Bratz dolls, Allison J. Pugh spent three years observing and interviewing children and their families. In Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture, Pugh teases out the complex factors that contribute to how we buy, from lunchroom conversations about Game Boys to the stark inequalities facing American children. Pugh finds that children's desires stem less from striving for status or falling victim to advertising than from their yearning to join the conversation at school or in the neighborhood. Most parents respond to children's need to belong by buying the particular goods and experiences that act as passports in children's social worlds, because they sympathize with their children's fear of being different from their peers. Even under financial constraints, families prioritize children "feeling normal". Pugh masterfully illuminates the surprising similarities in the fears and hopes of parents and children from vastly different social contexts, showing that while corporate marketing and materialism play a part in the commodification of childhood, at the heart of the matter is the desire to belong."--pub. desc.
Borders of Belonging investigates a pressing but previously unexplored aspect of immigration in America—the impact of immigration policies and practices not only on undocumented migrants, but also on their family members, some of whom possess a form of legal status. Heide Castañeda reveals the trauma, distress, and inequalities that occur daily, alongside the stratification of particular family members' access to resources like education, employment, and health care. She also paints a vivid picture of the resilience, resistance, creative responses, and solidarity between parents and children, siblings, and other kin. Castañeda's innovative ethnography combines fieldwork with individuals and family groups to paint a full picture of the experiences of mixed-status families as they navigate the emotional, social, political, and medical difficulties that inevitably arise when at least one family member lacks legal status. Exposing the extreme conditions in the heavily-regulated U.S./Mexico borderlands, this book presents a portentous vision of how the further encroachment of immigration enforcement would affect millions of mixed-status families throughout the country.
