Promoting Equity in Education

Our Commitment

​The Partnership for Public Education stands with communities of color in these difficult and critically important moments in history, and we recognize our responsibility in actively redressing inequitable policies and practices and promoting work that ensures equitable education opportunities and outcomes for all Delaware students.  Since our inception, we have centered issues of equity in all of our work, prioritizing initiatives that hold promise to shift structural inequities and positively impact marginalized students and communities.  We have funded fellows seeking to build equity-centered partnerships with Delaware schools (see below), developed joint professional learning opportunities with school and district partners, and created resources that promote cultural competence and diversity in the educator workforce.  We continue to affirm our commitment to equity in current and future work, and believe that we can make real change in the world, together.

Resources from UD Scholars

PPE’s briefs on promoting equity literacy and promoting culturally competent teaching and fostering equity literacy

Dr. Janine DeNovais’ work on brave communities for conversations about race and a recent blog on anti-racism resources for white parents.

Dr. Deb Bieler’s book, The Power of Teacher Talk which promotes positive interactions among teachers and students.

Dr. Ken Shores’ recent work on sources of inequality in multiple educational outcomes

Dr. Tia Barnes’ research, tools, and professional learning on culturally responsive pedagogy and SEL.

Dr. Faith Muirhead and PDCE’s Equity Walks and Data Dives program in mathematics

Dr. Roderick Carey’s work on the Black Boys Mattering Project.

Dr. Elizabeth Soslau’s work with critical service learning pedagogy and Dr. Jill Flynn’s Critical multicultural pedagogy

Dr. Sarah Bruch’s leadership in the Equity Implemented research-practice partnership

For additional references or more information about UD’s leaders in educational equity, email PPE-info@udel.edu.

Resources We Use with Partners

​1. Teaching Tolerance’s practices for anti-bias education

2. Mid-Atlantic Equity Consoritium Audit

3. Need in Deed‘s critical service learning curriculum and professional learning

4. Akoben’s work with restorative practices in schools and communities

5. Brief article on Equity Literacy for All which we coupled with the Social Identity Wheel Activity

6. From our book studies:

Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?

Whistling Vivaldi

LGBT Youth in America’s Schools

Promoting Racial Literacy in Schools

6. Gorski and colleagues’ case studies on diversity and social justice education

Funding Equity Focused Work: The PPE Fellows

Ann M. Aviles, an assistant professor in Human Development and Family Studies is working on a project that will engage youth in the Riverside community of Wilmington, DE to promote civic engagement via Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) to increase youth’s capacity to be knowledgeable, active participants in their community’s revitalization efforts. 

Janine de Novais, an assistant professor in Education examines the influence of the Brave Community workshop on instructors who teach about race and culture and their students. Her project aims to build the capacity of higher education instructors to create such classrooms for their students. 

Katrina Morrison, a Researcher at the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy, is partnership with Akoben LLC, in a research-practice partnership around the use of restorative practices in school, with emphasis on student voice and experience.

Roderick L. Carey is an Assistant Professor in Human Development and Family Sciences. In partnership with Newark High School, Dr. Carey is imagining mattering– learning from the experiences of Black and Latino boys and the ways they do or do not infer their mattering in school spaces to develop professional learning experiences for educators.

Dr. Elizabeth Soslau, an associate professor in Education, led the Need in Deed Critical Service Learning Collaborative, working in partnership with Warner Elementary to implement a critical service learning curriculum that facilitated elementary students’ year long projects, enabling a culturally relevant curriculum that addresses the required standards and positioned children as empowered change agents by connecting classrooms with the community.  

Additional Campus Resources and Contacts

UD centers equity not only in its research and work with our P-12 partners, but also in its preparation of future educators and leaders.  

Learn more about anti-racism, equity, and teacher education resources from Drs. Jill Flynn, Rosalie Rolon-Dow, Lynn Worden, Kisha Porcher, and others.

Teacher educators as disruptors

The responsibilities of white teacher candidates and teacher educators

Teacher candidates’ racial literacy

Discover projects, courses and campus initiatives associated with pre-service and in-service education through the Delaware Center for Teacher Education’s diversity, equity and inclusion site.