Learning Forward
Equity and excellence in teaching and learning.
IDEAS
Professional learning and development that honors students’ identities
By Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
December 2024
Who are you? It’s a simple enough question, but pose it to anyone, and you’ll get fascinating responses. “My hair is my identity,” one high school student told us. “I’m a gamer,” said another. Others assert their identities as Swifties, goths, or athletes. Throw in race, gender, nationality, and religion, and we soon see how gloriously complicated human identities can be. As educators, we squander huge opportunities for inclusion when valuable discussions about identities are oversimplified and hijacked for partisan purposes. But this is just what has been happening. Legislators in 18 U.S. states have passed laws restricting the teaching of race and gender, arguing that these are inherently divisive topics that pit groups against one another. A RAND Corporation report (Woo et al., 2024)
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References
Dodge, B., Herbenick, D., Friedman, M.R., Schick, V., Fu, T.C., & Bostwick, W. (2016). Attitudes toward bisexual men and women among a nationally representative probability sample of adults in the United States. PLoS ONE, 11(10).
Lehmann, W. (2014). Habitus transformation and hidden injuries: Successful working-class university students. Sociology of Education, 87(1), 1-15.
Shirley, D. & Hargreaves, A. (2024). The age of identity: Who do our kids think they are … and how can we help them belong? Corwin.
Slade, S. (2023). The power of the whole. Rowman and Littlefield.
Wehmeyer, M. & Zhao, Y. (2020). Teaching students to become self-determined learners. ASCD.
Woo, A., Diliberti, M.K., & Steiner, E.D. (2024, February 15). Policies restricting teaching about race and gender spill over into other states and localities: Findings from the 2023 State of the American Teacher survey. RAND.
Andy Hargreaves is a research professor at Boston College and a visiting professor at the University of Ottawa. He is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Education. He is past president of the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement, adviser in education to the first minister of Scotland, and former adviser to the premier of Ontario. Andy’s more than 30 books have attracted 8 Outstanding Writing Awards and he is ranked by Education Week among the top 20 scholars with most influence on U.S. education policy debate.
Dennis Shirley is Gabelli Faculty Fellow and Professor of Formative Education at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College. He has led and advised many educational change initiatives, including the Massachusetts Coalition for Teacher Quality and Student Achievement. He has conducted in-depth studies on school innovations in England, Germany, Canada, and South Korea and has been a visiting professor at institutions around the world, including in Italy, Singapore, Spain and Norway. He is a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, Germany.
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