Bringing inclusion into mainstream consciousness through textbooks

Sanjhee Giachandani is an English language curriculum designer and editor. She holds a Master’s degree in English from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi, and a CELTA from the University of Cambridge. Her extensive experience includes serving as an English language assessment specialist for Trinity College London, examiner and marker cohorts for Qualifications and Assessments International, UK and developing educational materials for the K-8 segment. She has authored two series– Grammar Sparkle (Grades 1-8) and Let’s Learn to Listen and Speak (Grade 4) and is currently writing her next.

In a country like India, the highest quality teaching methods are drawn from teachers on the ground and textbooks are central to the Education system. Tim Oates, Group Director of Assessment Research and Development at Cambridge Assessment, explains that textbooks help pupils understand the totality of and progression in each area of their education, namely what they’ve done and what they will do. Thus, it is critical that textbooks, while maintaining their core purpose of delivering information in a structured format, speak to everyone using an equity lens and seek to dismantle any structures of unintentional oppression in the material.

DEIA/B (Diversity Equality Inclusion Access/Belonging) is the buzzword in almost all discussions we have. But what it entail? It is a framework aimed at fostering a more equitable and inclusive environment across various contexts, such as workplaces and educational institutions. Diversity refers to the presence of differences within a setting, encompassing dimensions like race, gender, age, and more.

Equity focuses on fairness and justice in processes and outcomes, ensuring everyone has access to the resources and opportunities they need, tailored to their individual circumstances. Inclusion involves creating environments where all individuals feel valued and respected, fostering a sense of participation and community. Accessibility ensures that environments and resources are available to everyone, particularly those with disabilities, allowing full engagement. Finally, Belonging emphasizes the importance of creating a culture where individuals feel accepted and valued, promoting connection and engagement.

Writer’s Toolkit: Essential Considerations

Textbook writing will always be a challenging process because societal structures will always privilege some voices over others. Inclusive writing starts with understanding your positionality as an author, and taking time to think deeply about how your own biases, identities, privileges, or lived experiences with oppression may impact your textbook contributions.

After reflecting, it is equally important not to gloss over DEIA topics but frame materials which critically engage with these topics.

Here are some ways in which this can be done:

1. Avoid Tokenism: Do not include characters from marginalized communities just for the sake of representation. Ensure that they have a voice and a role in the narrative. For example, if it is a character with a certain disability. Extensive research must be carried out to understand that ways in which the disability presents itself – attitudinal, institutional or environmental. Moreover, sensitive terminology must be used to represent the subjectivity of the character.

2. Circumvent pigeonholing: Stereotypes based on culture, religion, or gender must be avoided at all costs. Nowadays, most publishers are conscious of this while creating their textbooks and other learning materials as well. For instance, mothers should be shown to have independent careers, sit-at-home fathers taking care of the home and kids should be normalized, and new families with same-sex couples, co-parenting, reconstituted families, pet parents, plant parents, and single-parent families must be showcased.

3. Select neutral pronouns: Pronouns are linguistic tools that we use to refer to people. Consequently, it is critical that the people being referred to identify with those pronouns and are allowed to point to the pronoun that they want to be addressed using. Using incorrect pronouns may lead to the person feeling alienated, dismissed, and disrespected. Also, assuming someone’s pronouns just by looking at them is a harmful practice and implicitly reinforces stereotypes. It is best to use gender-neutral pronouns. For instance, ‘they’ which we have used as a plural pronoun is being accepted worldwide as a singular pronoun.

4. Model all-encompassing language: Inclusive communication is key to affirming diversity. All your instructions whether printed or verbal must eliminate negative biases. Remarks such as ‘Don’t cry like a girl’, ‘Act like a lady’, or ‘Man up’ must be avoided. Instead, inclusive terminology must be used consciously. Also, groups based on gender must be replaced with those based on the first letter of students’ names, their birth number, etc. Euphemisms or agreeable expressions substituted for potentially offensive words should be used. For example, use ‘The Big C’ for ‘cancer’, ‘pre-loved’ for ‘second hand’ or ‘passed away’ for ‘died’.

5. Use a conscious style guide: It is normal to be unsure of whether to include a word or narrative in the textbook. For this reason, many organisations have come up with a conscious style guide which is a set of guidelines designed to promote thoughtful and intentional communication in writing, design, and branding. It emphasizes awareness of the impact tonality and visuals can have on different audiences. To promote the ethical and responsible social communication, it includes considerations on cultural and linguistic representations, empathetic tone and voice, design and accessibility features.

Teaching with Intent

Here is how educators can consciously include DEIA/B in their pedagogical practices:

1. Choose supplemental texts astutely: At the beginning of the school year, it is a good idea to ensure that the materials that are going to be used cater to a variety of geography, cultures, communities, ethnicities, languages, etc. across the country. If prescribed materials focus on a particular culture, educators must ascertain that their discussions push the envelope and allow for other perspectives to be included.

2. Use Accessibility features: If digital materials are being used in the classroom, inclusion must be thought about at the time of conceptualization itself. Today, there are many assistive/adaptative technologies and accessibility features available to help learners with special abilities and learning preferences. Educators must make use of the following ways to help learners perceive content as they are comfortable.

3. Differentiate and scaffold instruction: Educators must tailor their instruction according to content or what and how the student will learn or get access to the information; process or the activities in which the student engages to make sense of the content; culminating projects that ask the student to rehearse, apply, and extend what he or she has learned in a unit; and the way the learning environment works and feels. Both the activities and the classroom instruction must be modified using tiered activities through which all learners work with the same important understandings and skills, but proceed with different levels of support, challenge, or complexity.

4. Pre-assess pedagogical practices: Before beginning your teaching for the year, assess each student’s learning level. This can be done through tutorials, Individual Learning Plans (ILPs), and short and long-term goal setting by the learner so that they feel they have ownership of their learning. If you provide students with opportunities to tell you what is working and what needs attention, you will have a better idea of what to focus on. Also, giving students a choice is empowering in many ways because it creates equal and fair opportunities to show learning and progress in a way that a standard test (which many students struggle with) may not.

5. Create suitable learning environments: Design learning spaces keeping in mind both inclusivity and functionality. Ramps for students with wheelchairs, cluster seating, and distance from the board should all be things to consider. Determine how you can arrange your room to accommodate kids with sensory difficulties, mitigate distractions, and make learning easier for specially-abled students. Also, make sure that classroom posters, pictures, books, toys, and other materials are diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, age, family situations, and so on.

6. Stand up for social justice: Do not ignore prejudiced behaviour in your classroom. If you cannot respond at the time the incident takes place, respond as soon after as possible before the problem worsens. Make empathy training as central to your lesson plans as reading, writing, and solving sums. You should be a role model for students when it comes to standing up against discrimination. Reflect and practice inclusive multicultural values in all aspects of your life, not just inside the classroom.

7. Handle harmless disruption delicately: While it is important to enforce and reiterate certain standards of behaviour in the classroom, educators must deal with small bouts of disruption sensitively. For instance, instead of writing the name of a child who is unable to follow a repeated instruction on the board, you can counsel him/her later in a personal interaction.

In conclusion, according to Thus, it becomes pertinent for school authorities and educators to strategize ways of developing equitable and equalityfocussed learning environments through structured conversations, awareness of social and emotional conditions, alternate means of participation, specific classroom norms, personalized interactions, non-competitive ways of learning, cross-cultural communication, inclusive language, and sensitive conflict resolution. It also become crucial for writers to recognise that writing inclusive textbooks is a labourintensive process and a commitment to incorporate the lived experiences of as many readers as possible.