Diversity Research in Action

COVID-19 has underscored humanity's shared vulnerability, with disproportionate impacts on families and children who experience discrimination and marginality. The pandemic has made us all wake-up to the data driven evidence based fact that no country in the world has the capacity to protect children and their families from country level planetary scale disaster.From climate change to human rights, gender and racial inequality, and from sustainable development to international peace...
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COVID-19 has underscored humanity's shared vulnerability, with disproportionate impacts on families and children who experience discrimination and marginality. The pandemic has made us all wake-up to the data driven evidence based fact that no country in the world has the capacity to protect children and their families from country level planetary scale disaster.From climate change to human rights, gender and racial inequality, and from sustainable development to international peace and security - children and their families are disproportionately impacted and a step-change in education is essential to prepare children for the step-change that has taken place in the state of the planet.It is an urgent priority that we reconceptualize marginality, create pluralistic pedagogical possibilities, and use critical counter-narratives to prepare all prospective teachers with special invitations to prospective teachers of color, who are so under-represented in colleges of education and public schools.Fortunately, there are great women scholars who have spent their lives challenging pedagogical practices that discriminate on the basis of race, gender, work and descent. Denny Taylor, Anne Haas Dyson, Catherine Compton-Lilly and Bobbie Kabuto are among them. Their studies require social justice and inclusive participation in human societies be moved to the center of the education of all children. Each of these women scholars engage in sense making, explore cultural meanings, emphasize the importance of building trust and social acceptance and appreciation of risk perception have all become essential, and how the transformative engagement in the generation of knowledge is a high priority.Denny, Anne, Catherine and Bobbie, model how pedagogical transformative change can take place, how teachers are taught to reach and how children are taught to live on the planet. With 150 years of evidence-based research and disciplined and systematic observation of children learning between them, these world renowned scholars provide many insights and practical examples of how educators can take up the challenge to over-come society inequalities and push down the risks to protect the future for all our children