Massachusetts Afterschool Partnership is collecting a list of resources for ASOST providers to use in their classrooms to bolster their knowledge around and commitment to equity and justice in programming, for the students, families, and communities they serve.
We’ve started compiling this list of resources to get started, but this is a living list! If you know of other resources that may be useful for other providers or for MAP, please send them to our Director of Outreach, Chloe McElligott, at chloe@massafterschool.org.
Equity, Inclusion, and Justice
Classroom Resources
the 1619 project
The Pulitzer Center and Mizzen by Mott, a free app dedicated to helping afterschool professionals, have partnered to deliver The 1619 Project into ASOST programs. The 1619 Project, which first launched in 2019 with a special issue of The New York Times Magazine. Educators can use these resources and activities to foster conversations around our nation’s history, national memory, and racial justice using the 1619 materials, which are designed to engage students in creative work and critical thinking. Click here to access the 1619 Project Curriculum!
Afterschool educators can also invite journalists who report on contemporary racial justice issues to speak with their students through the Pulitzer Center’s virtual journalist visit program, an important step to increasing critical media literacy skills.
Afterschool alliance
Check out this guest blog post by Dr. Jackie Thompson on Afterschool Snack. She has suggestions for afterschool providers on building more just and equitable out-of-school learning environments for their students and families.
Classroom Resources
Just Like Me Presents hosts workshops and develops resources to assist children to increase their access to culturally responsive teaching materials available to parents, teachers, and community groups. Check out their workshops, featured books and authors, and podcast.
Learning for Justice has classroom resources that can be used by afterschool providers, including lesson and learning plans, student texts and tasks, teaching strategies, film kits and printable posters.
Gender Inclusive Classrooms has lesson plans for early education, elementary, and middle and high school students to help create truly inclusive classrooms for students of all gender expressions.
Welcoming Schools has a list of lesson plans to help educators create classrooms that affirm all student identities across the gender spectrum.
Organizations
The National Equity Project offers 3-hour workshops and longer in-depth courses, as well as multi-day Black Teacher Project institutes.
The National Association for Multicultural Education has a Multicultural Learning Section set of resources who want to know how to incorporate multicultural education in their classrooms.
Merge for Equality’s mission is to engage people and communities in transforming masculinity to advance gender equality. They offer healthy boys trainings, organizational consulting, partnership opportunities, and have a children’s book campaign.
The Wellesley Centers for Women does research on many issues relating to equity, like the Black Girls and STEM Education Research Initiative, the Justice and Gender Based Violence Research Initiative, and the SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) Project.
Massachusetts ASOST PROGRAM Highlights
The LEAH Project works to promote the power of youth, especially BIPOC youth, in STEM fields through paid internships, college and career readiness programming, and youth leadership opportunities.
sySTEMic flow is dedicated to inspiring, motivating, and building the next generation of STEM leaders, prioritizing the development and education of students who identify as Black, Indigenous and/or women of Color.
Enroot is working to empower immigrant youth to achieve academic, career and personal success through inspiring OST experiences.
Girls Inc., Lynn delivers life-changing programs to girls to help them overcome serious barriers and engage in healthy lifestyles and succeed in school.
Child Mind Institute
Child Mind Institute offers great resources on supporting children and youth in school and community-based programs. Check them out here today!
Changing Culture and Systems
Dismantling Racism offers a helpful workbook and other resources here, including assumptions, defining racism, internalizations, and more.
One such resource includes an article on the characteristics of White Supremacy culture, which has been updated since its original publication in 1999. Some characteristics include individualism, perfectionism, fear of open conflict, and paternalism. How might these issues be showing up in your ASOST programs and power structures? How can you challenge them?
Another important reading is this article: The racist and sexist roots of child care in America (2021). It provides historical context on the current systemic issues in our child care systems in the United States, particularly around the exploitation of the labor of women of color.