Community Agreements

A central goal of classroom agreements is to help all students feel empowered.  Creating community agreements allow everyone a chance to share what they need to feel safe in class. Community agreements are different than rules because students participate in creating them.

Here are a couple of approaches to developing community agreements:

Brookfield (2015, as cited in Oleson, 2021) suggests having the students reflect first about the best and worst group discussions they have participated in.  Then, in small groups, students share out their reflections and discuss what works and doesn’t work in discussions.  Finally, they come up with three suggestions for fostering great discussions, and three ideas for avoiding the features of their worst discussions, which they then take back to the entire class.

Oleson (2021) suggests asking students to first write down suggestions anonymously, thus students might be more likely to bring up ideas outside the established ones.  The suggestions are brought to the whole class to discuss.  If there are guidelines the instructor feels are important that were not suggested, the instructor could add their own anonymous suggestions to the list for discussion.

Some phrases or guidelines may unintentionally reinforce power differences and the dominant culture of the classroom (Arao & Clemens, 2013; Senso & Diangelo, 2014).  However you decide to reach the community agreement, it’s important to reflect on the words through a lens of culturally responsive teaching. Here are examples of common community guidelines, and possible unintentional effects:

“Assume good intentions.”  This potentially diminishes the impact of a speaker’s words. (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2014).

“Don’t take things personally.”  This might shift responsibility for any emotional impact of what a participant says or shares to the emotionally affected people.  (Arao & Clemens, 2013).

“Everyone’s opinion matters.” This may preclude addressing the microaggression of a comment.  (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2014).

Community guidelines from scholarship

From Arao & Clemens (2013):

• controversy with civility
• own your intentions and impact
• challenge by choice
• respect
• no attacks

From Sensoy & DiAngelo (2014)

• Differentiate between safety and comfort. Accept discomfort as necessary for social justice growth.
• Recognize how your own social positionality (e.g., race, class, gender, sexuality, ability) informs your perspectives and reactions to your instructor and those whose work you study in the course.
• Notice your own defensive reactions and attempt to use these reactions as entry points for gaining deeper self-knowledge, rather than as a rationale for closing off
• Strive for intellectual humility. Be willing to grapple with challenging ideas
• Differentiate between opinion—which everyone has—and informed knowledge, which comes from sustained experience, study, and practice. Hold your opinions lightly and with humility

From Singleton & Linton (2006)

• stay engaged
• experience discomfort
• speak your truth
• expect and accept non-closure

 

Professional development opportunities

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Additional resources and scholarship

Developing community agreements in your course – from UNC Greensboro

Guidelines for classroom interactions – from U. Michigan Center for Research on Learning and Teaching

 

References

Arao, B., & Clemens, K. (2013). From safe spaces to brave spaces:  A new way to frame dialogue around diversity and social justice. In L. Landerman (Ed.), The art of effective facilitation: Reflections from social justice educators (pp. 135-150). Stylus.

DiAngelo, R., & Allen, D. (2006). My feelings are not about you: Personal experience as a move of whiteness. InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 2(2), article 2.

Hollins, C., & Govan, I. (2015). Diversity, equity, and inclusion: Strategies for facilitating conversations on race.  Rowman & Littlefield.

Oleson, K. (2021). Promoting inclusive classroom dynamics in higher education. Stylus.

Sensoy, O., & DiAngelo, R. (2014).  Respect differences? Challenging the common guidelines in social justice education.  Democracy and Education, 22(2), 1-10.