Resources
We believe that learning is essential to DEIJ work.
So we have pulled together a working archive of some of our favorite readings, activities, media and tips & tools. As we learn about and gather more resources, we will upload them here. You can filter by subject and then resource type below (activities, media, readings, tips & tools).
The green insider’s club
This executive summary on the findings of Green 2.0, Dorceta Taylor’s initial report on the lack of diversity in the environmental movement and recommendations for making change, recommends that organizations focus on tracking and transparency, accountability, and allocating more resources. The report finds that foundations and the Obama administration are leading the way on diversity efforts, but that the nonprofit sector is lagging behind. Among the problems are unconscious bias, discrimination, and insular recruiting.
Read here.
Explaining white privilege to a broke white person
Crosley-Corcoran starts to untangle racial and class privilege; while they are related, Crosley-Corcoran states that one does not negate the other. This essay is a helpful read for folks who are grappling with the concept of White privilege, especially those who come from economic disadvantage who experience shame, anger, or guilt or resentment when faced with the concept.
Read here.
Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism
Written by a white-identified professor of critical multicultural and social justice education, this essay describes the challenges to talking about racism with white people. DiAngelo describes the patterns that make it difficult for people to come to grips with being part of a system of oppression that has historically privileged them. Written honestly and from personal experience, this article validates white peoples’ discomfort and urges them to sit with the discomfort to learn.
Read here.
The abrasiveness trap: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews
In a study of 248 performance reviews from 28 companies from large technology corporations to small startups, a researcher found that only 58.9% of men’s reviews contained critical feedback, while an overwhelming 87.9% of the reviews received by women did. “Abrasive” alone was used 17 times to describe 13 different women, but the word never appeared in men’s reviews. This article is a useful way to interrupt our gender biases in evaluating our peers, supervisors, and employees.
Read here.
Changing the social climate: How global warming affects economic justice, . . .
This piece provides an explanations for how what was then called “global warming” (now climate change) is not only an environmental issue, but a social justice issue.
Read here. (2006)
Female academics face huge sexist bias – no wonder there are so few of them
This article discusses the results of Benjamin Schmidt’s online tool to expose gender bias in reviews of academics. Schmidt’s tool revealed that reviews of male professors are more likely to include the words positive words. Meanwhile, women are more likely to be described in negative terms. These and other disturbing patterns are relevant considerations in evaluating female staff in environmental and outdoor organizations, particularly female faculty.
Read here.
Conservation: Indigenous Peoples’ Enemy No. 1?
This article describes a successful case study of conservation efforts in Gabon. To do right by the thousands of tribal people living inside the boundaries of Gabon’s planned national parks, the country collaborated with them and enlisted their direct participation in the stewardship and management of the new parks. They would then not be passive “stakeholders” relocated to the margins of the park (as has been the case in the U.S.) or specimens in a “living history museum” (as was the case in U.S.), but but equal players in the complex and challenging process of defending biological diversity.
Read here.
Suggested Best Practices for Supporting Trans* Students
These “best practices” were developed by the Consortium of Higher Education’s Trans* Policy Working Group, in consultation with various relevant national student affairs associations, to assist colleges and universities in providing services and support to trans* students. Though they are aimed at institutions of higher education, the records and housing policies are a particularly useful guideline for experiential education institutions.
DownloadThe trouble with wilderness
William Cronon gives a brief overview of the idea of the wilderness and then discusses some of the inherent contradictions that lie within the concept. He notes that the concept of the wilderness is imbued with cultural values, which have resulted in the exclusion of indigenous peoples’ voices in environmentalism.
DownloadDramatizing the “death” of environmentalism doesn’t help urban people of color, or anyone else
A summary of research on the racialization of wilderness and how it impacts perceptions of nature among communities of color, and specifically the black community. Outdoor and environmental organizations seeking to be more “culturally relevant” often do not think that the very premises of their existence–wilderness and conservation–are words steeped in White privilege and a racialized history.
Read here.