In this episode, we spoke with Paul Gorski who is the founder of the Equity Literacy Institute, U.S.
PAST (
00:01:47): Paul shares how during college years he developed an interest in social justice while being aware of his own privileged identities in academia. Later, when Paul was a professor, he also became interested in
activist burnout, meaning the stress-related symptoms and illnesses that may occur among activists who tend to work in highly stressful and unpredictable environments.
PRESENT (
00:13:34): Paul discusses an award lecture by Gloria Ladson-Billings (2009) on teacher education and how novice teachers have been using the word “culture” as an explanation for student behavior they cannot explain. Furthermore, Paul explains the concept of
equity literacy, encourages the listeners to rethink the role of “culture” in teacher education with the goal of making teacher education more transformative and powerful.
FUTURE (
00:37:00): In this final section, Paul dives deeper into burnout among social justice activists (activist burnout), the link between activism and depression, and the healing potential of talking openly about mental health struggles.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
You can find subtitled episodes on
YouTube.
FULL REFERENCES OF THIS EPISODE AND USEFUL LINKS:
*Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). It’s Not the Culture of Poverty, It’s the Poverty of Culture: The Problem with Teacher Education. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 37(2), 104–109.
https://doi.org/10.1525/aeq.2006.37.2.104
FURTHER INSPIRING AUTHOR MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Christine Sleeter
.
.
.
Stay tuned and talk soon!
What is ReSearching Diversity?
Join a group of six women in social sciences in their aim to increase visibility of inspiring social scientists and of cutting-edge research on ethnic, cultural, and migration-related diversity. Each episode, two hosts invite one outstanding scientist to discuss their PAST (personal path into academia), the PRESENT (research article or book chapter that has recently inspired them), and the FUTURE (recent developments and paradigm shifts in academia and social sciences).
For more information on the episode, guest, and included references, please visit https://www.researchingdiversity.com.
You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
We want to thank Minor Revisions for the music, Lotte Gottschewski-Kooijman for the logo design, Max Kersten for post production, and zeythehuman for their artwork. Stay tuned and talk soon!