Continuous Learning for Antiracist Curricular Change (CLARCC) Fellowship

Overview

The Fellowship in Continuous Learning for Antiracist Curricular Change (CLARCC Fellowship) seeks to create lasting antiracist curricular change through bringing together faculty and students in a process of facilitated self-reflection, peer learning, and culture change.

What is antiracist curricular change?

Antiracist curricular change (ARCC) seeks to widen the circle of power and opportunity in education, increasing students’ sense of belonging and providing them with pathways to counteract injustice in their lives (Greene 2020, Garneau & Browne, 2017). ARCC entails deliberate action to center racial equity in both what we teach and how we teach it, recognizing that without such action, our courses and classrooms will naturally reflect the implicit biases and racial hierarchies of the society in which they exist. As such, ARCC seeks to counteract the effects of structural racism in education through deliberate changes to the social culture of schools and universities. Evidence shows that antiracist change can also have positive effects on other dimensions of diversity, such as gender and class, if it adopts an intersectional and integrative approach.

Like any process of antiracist change, ARCC is designed for educators who recognize the need for diversity, equity and inclusion but find it difficult to truly integrate these concepts into how they operate and work. The core of ARCC is a critical examination of power, privilege, rank, and culture in a curriculum, including in both the subjects we teach and the classrooms we teach them in. This examination centers the racialized and Indigenous people who are historically most affected by racism, while also recognizing the parallels and intersections between all forms of oppression. It encompasses all relationships that exist in the classroom, including those between students and teachers, students and other students, and students and the material and experts they are exposed to. By its nature, ARCC is a gradual, uncomfortable, and emergent exercise, meaning that its end result is not predictable, and the expectations of those participating will change along the way.