How can Intersectional and Multicultural Pedagogies Contribute to Hawaiʻi High School Students’ Self-Awareness and School Belonging?
Kealoha Scullion, Shanti Fellow
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) is included in many Hawaiʻi independent school aims, though curricular implementation of multicultural and intersectional pedagogies remains at the periphery in comparison to western centric approaches. While a racial and socioeconomic divide remains between secondary public and private institutions, Hawaiʻi is widely regarded as a place of racial diversity, yet the majority of independent school students represent historically privileged groups. In a setting where ethnic inequality is largely unaddressed, how will students at independent institutions from both privileged and marginalized backgrounds develop social agency when their identities are overshadowed by romanticized ideals of racial harmony? Self-awareness and school belonging can be fostered when students actively participate in workshops and discussions with multicultural and intersectional frameworks, empowering reflection on lived experiences correlated to overarching systemic inequality. Forty-six high school students who attended the 2022 Hawaiʻi DEI Conference hosted by Shanti Alliance responded to ten questions centered on self-awareness, diversity, inclusion, and school belonging on a Likert’s scale. Survey responses found intersectional and multicultural pedagogies (initiated by the 2022 Hawaiʻi DEI Conference) pertinent to self-awareness and school belonging, and support the need for increased application of intersectional and multicultural pedagogies within formal school curriculum. Incorporating DEIB into school mission statements institutes acknowledgement of systemic inequality, and curricular implementation of intersectional and multicultural pedagogies achieves this aim in practice.
Results/Discussion
Overwhelmingly, 89.1% of respondents feel an increased sense of identity and self-awareness due to their participation in Shanti Alliance programs including the Hawaiʻi DEI Conference. 8.7% of students neither agreed or disagreed with this statement, and 2.2% of students disagreed, although one student who disagreed also provided a written statement:
“For 9 and 10, I did not put 5 for "Strongly Agree", because I feel like I already have a strong awareness of my identity along with a strong interest in social justice and civil rights issues.”
Another written student response is provided below:
“Through the Shanti Alliance I feel that I have been able to figure out who I am as a person a lot more.”
This statement was aimed to gauge a sense of belonging and connection between students and their peers and teachers initiated by Shanti Alliance’s programs, and the majority (69.5%) of students feel more connected to their classmates and teachers because of this extracurricular engagement. 4.3% of students disagreed with this statement, and 26.1% neither agreed or disagreed.
This statement examined how student interest in social justice and civil rights issues is impacted and broadened with participation in Shanti Alliance programs. 89.1% of students agreed with this statement, 2.2% of students disagreed (their presumed response is above), and 8.7% of students neither agreed nor disagreed.
Shanti Alliance produces extracurricular opportunities sponsored by the Stephen E. and Isabella H. Stevens World Peace Foundation, and program goals include fostering spaces of inquiry and discussion for public, charter, and private school students in exploration of identity, elevating awareness of diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, connecting cohort groups with local and national resources to develop skill sets to act as DEI practitioners in their school communities, and helping students formulate and achieve action plans within their schools to promote environments with a substantiated commitment to DEI (ShantiAlliance.org). Presentations, workshops, and open space dialogue sessions immerse students in practical DEI and multicultural and intersectional approaches to learning by way of encouraging personal self-reflection within a culture of care, empathy, and mutual respect. At the K-12 and postsecondary levels, DEI, SEL, and belonging have all become buzzwords in the last decade, however these words are often presented superficially in a vacuum of theory. Sending students to NAIS SDLC and programs such as Shanti Alliance promotes student self-awareness of identity and school belonging and shows partial commitment to DEI initiatives, but how are schools utilizing and applying these resources and theories within their own walls? Likewise, how often are curricular and extracurricular spaces where discourse and exploration of intersectional identity and lived experiences supported, facilitated and/or integrated into core curriculum and programs as an inherent dedication to the above buzz words?
Through tangible action supported by intersectional and multicultural frameworks, Shanti Alliance is deeply committed to sustaining spaces where student self-awareness and belonging can grow, verifiable in these above data. A distinguishable feature of Shanti Alliance is the cohort of educators who create and reinforce these spaces of freedom from conventional western education by presenting their authentic selves, modeling gracious vulnerability, and offering vindicating affirmation to others’ individual experiences. Self-awareness, belonging, and commitment to social justice in practice cannot develop without the first step of listening, and audaciously engaging in a reciprocal, genuine, and thoughtful conversation.
-Kealoha Scullion, Shanti Fellow