OER Supports Anti-Racist Teaching Practices

OER is about more than saving money or providing access.

It is about whose voice is valued in academia.

In her talk (video included below), Jasmine Roberts speaks about how OER can transform our classrooms and campuses into diverse, equitable, and inclusive spaces. She notes that cisgender white men from Western countries comprise about 20% of the world's population yet are writing for 80%. As such, their knowledge is treated as reliable, rational, logical, and neutral, and other voices are viewed as unreliable, irrational, and illogical.

Three Social Justice Principles Applied to Open Education:

Redistributive Justice: provides learning materials to those whose socio-cultural position cannot afford them, particularly learners who could be excluded from education or be more likely to fail due to lack of access to learning materials.
Recoginitve Justice: inclusion of images, case studies, and knowledge from marginalized identities.
Representational Justice: Self-determinization of marginalized peoples and groups to speak for themselves and not have their stories told by others.

Roberts asks us to consider as we chose materials for our classes whose voices are we centering.

She argues that once we start this work considering who is centered, this leads to more questions that result in radical changes to teaching and learning.

You can watch Jasmine Roberts's entire talk below. The video starts around the 28:16 mark. As you watch, think about the ways in which OER use can support anti-racist teaching practices. Other questions to consider as you watch and listen include:

What were your takeaways from Roberts’ talk?
Did this make you think about your own fields and classes?
Whose voices have been privileged there?
Whose voices would you like to elevate?

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