Educational Equity in Community Colleges – serie

It is difficult to find justice-centered books geared specifically for community college practitioners interested in achieving campus wide educational equity. It is even more difficult to find a book in this vein written, exclusively, by community college practitioners. Minding the Obligation Gap in Community Colleges and Beyond is just that: a concerted effort by a cross-representational group of community college practitioners working to catalyze conversations and eventually practices that attend to the most pressing equity gaps in and on our campuses. By illuminating the constitutive parts of the ever-increasing obligation gap, this book offers both theory and practice in reforming community colleges so that they function as disruptive technologies. It is our position that equity-centered community colleges hold the potential to call out, impede, and even disrupt institutionalized polices, pedagogies, and practices that negatively impact poor, ethno-racially minoritized students of color. If you and your college is interested in striving for educational equity campus-wide please join us in this ongoing conversation on how to work for equity for all of the students that we serve.

It is difficult to find justice-centered books geared specifically for community college practitioners interested in achieving campus wide educational equity. It is even more difficult to find a book in this vein written, exclusively, by community college practitioners. Minding the Obligation Gap in Community Colleges and Beyond is just that: a concerted effort by a cross-representational group of community college practitioners working to catalyze conversations and eventually practices that attend to the most pressing equity gaps in and on our campuses. By illuminating the constitutive parts of the ever-increasing obligation gap, this book offers both theory and practice in reforming community colleges so that they function as disruptive technologies. It is our position that equity-centered community colleges hold the potential to call out, impede, and even disrupt institutionalized polices, pedagogies, and practices that negatively impact poor, ethno-racially minoritized students of color. If you and your college is interested in striving for educational equity campus-wide please join us in this ongoing conversation on how to work for equity for all of the students that we serve.

In the United States, community colleges are some of the most racially diverse institutions of higher education. And, as such, as argued in Minding the Obligation Gap in Community Colleges and Beyond (Sims et al., 2020), they are uniquely positioned to function as disruptive technologies, that is, spaces that disrupt institutionalized educational inequity. Pedagogy and curriculum must be liberatory if we hope to engender educational equity precisely because nationwide the majority of community college students are students of color and the majority of African American and Latinx college students start their journeys at a community college. The community college professorate is the inverse, as three-quarters of all college professors are white. These demographics create a cultural schism that is preventing students of color and other minoritized groups from reaching their full intellectual and creative potential. This book fills a gap in the academic literature on how community college educators can more effectively serve their diverse students, from interrogating their own white racial identity, to overhauling their curricula and pedagogy, and later by committing to radical love as praxis. While this book’s title explicitly calls on white educators, ultimately, it is for any educator who seeks to dismantle classroom power structures and who strives to create nurturing, justice-advancing curricula."The White Educators’ Guide to Equity is a vital contribution to the literature on how to create racial equity in college settings—and, importantly, in the setting of community colleges, where such work is more important than ever, but often ignored. A must-read for all educators, but particularly those in community colleges looking to transform their institutions."—Tim Wise, Author, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son "Given the disproportionate number of white faculty in the community system in comparison to the student population, this book is essential in providing the necessary guidance and tools that will allow white teachers to effectively teach students of color. Moreover, this text recognizes that if the community system is going to improve outcomes for students of color that white faculty have obligation to be equipped to have greater understanding of race and racism that would impact what and how they teach."—Edward Bush, President, Cosumnes River College "Improving outcomes for community college students begins with improving one's understanding of race and racism. The first-person perspective of engaging in anti-racist work in this book calls to our core values as community college educators. This book provides guidance, evokes critical self-reflection, and highlights practical tools to effectively educate historically minoritized students, especially for an educational system whose teaching faculty is predominantly white."—Angelica Garcia, President, Berkeley City College