Relational and Responsive Inclusion

Socially unjust circumstances continue to perpetuate inadequate classroom, school and system-level responses to longstanding social justice imperatives, shutting out power-sharing solutions to educational disparities and marginalizing populations of Indigenous and minoritized peoples. To address these educational disparities, this book proposes a relational and culturally responsive framework, from within a critical and indigenous paradigm that is designed to foster one’s sense of becoming and belonging in the world with all people, and thus promotes inclusion. Praxis such as this challenges traditional paradigms that marginalize or dehumanize those with whom we seek to work. Social justice in education must be concerned with recognizing, respecting and being inclusive of the diversity of all students. Social justice is about valuing and including all children for the potential they arrive with and for the families that stand beside them, rather than on what we might aspire to change and mold them into being.

Mere Berryman, PhD (University of Waikato), is an Indigenous woman of the Tuhoe tribe who works as an associate professor at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Currently she is the director of a national secondary school reform initiative, Kia Eke Panuku: Building on Success. Ann Nevin, PhD (educational psychology, University of Minnesota), is professor emerita, Arizona State University. Over a lengthy career span (1969–present) she has authored books, research articles, chapters, and federal and state grants. Suzanne SooHoo, PhD (Claremont Graduate University), is the endowed Hassinger Chair in Education and the co-director of the Paulo Freire Democratic Project at Chapman University in Orange, California. Therese Ford is an Indigenous woman of Ngai Takoto who holds a Masters of Education in Educational Leadership and is currently working to complete her PhD at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. Therese is an academic director and professional development facilitator working with school leaders, teachers and communities in a national secondary school reform initiative in New Zealand.