Our Ultimate Goals
By embedding diversity, equity and inclusion into the very heart of education and enlivening it with storytelling, dialogue, humility, imagination and collaboration, we aim to cultivate learning environments that honor every student’s identity and lived reality.
Phase 1: Mapping Student Assets (Identity/Assets + Access)
Objective: Recognize and document the individual, community, and sociolinguistic strengths students bring to school.
- Activities:
- Asset Mapping Journals: Students create multimodal self-portraits (drawings, videos, word clouds, podcasts) highlighting their identities, interests, family traditions, and language practices.
- Community Knowledge Circles: Small group sharing sessions where students introduce cultural practices, community heroes, or neighborhood resources.
- Sociolinguistic Mapping: Students chart the languages/dialects they use across different spaces (home, peers, online, school).
- Research Data Collection:
- Student reflections, artifacts (maps, journals, videos), teacher field notes.
Phase 2: Building Inclusive Practices (Inclusion + Connections)
Objective: Expand opportunities for students to express learning in multimodal and culturally sustaining ways while connecting to the broader school community.
- Activities:
- Multimodal Learning Projects: Students create bilingual posters, podcasts, or digital stories about their community assets.
- Asset Showcase Day: Families and community members are invited to share expertise, cultural traditions, or advocacy work with the school.
- Curricular Infusion: Teachers co-design units with students to include local community narratives, cultural knowledge, and multilingual resources.
- Research Data Collection:
- Documentation of classroom projects, teacher-student co-reflections, family/community feedback.
- Documentation of classroom projects, teacher-student co-reflections, family/community feedback.
Phase 3: Co-Learning and Translanguaging (Co-Learning + Decolonization)
Objective: Create spaces where teachers and students co-learn, exchange perspectives, and disrupt deficit ideologies.
- Activities:
- Translanguaging Practices: Students use multiple languages and modes in projects, with teachers modeling acceptance and learning from them.
- Perspective-Sharing Workshops: Students and teachers swap roles (e.g., students teach teachers about gaming slang, heritage stories, or community issues).
- Critical Reflection Dialogues: Small-group discussions on language hierarchies, microaggressions, and representation in curriculum.
- Research Data Collection:
- Audio/video recordings of workshops, coded reflections, pre/post surveys on belonging and voice.
- Audio/video recordings of workshops, coded reflections, pre/post surveys on belonging and voice.
Phase 4: Social Justice-Oriented Inquiry (Social Justice)
Objective: Empower students to connect classroom learning to real-world social, political, and environmental issues.
- Activities:
- Issue Exploration: Students identify and research issues they care about (e.g., climate justice, linguistic discrimination, food insecurity, gender equity).
- Community Dialogues: Invite local activists, nonprofit leaders, or family advocates to share experiences.
- Position Papers / Multimodal Commentaries: Students present stances through podcasts, spoken word, zines, or short films.
- Research Data Collection:
- Student research logs, community partnership notes, student-produced media.
- Student research logs, community partnership notes, student-produced media.
Phase 5: Culminating Action Project (Identity/Assets → Social Justice → Connections)
Objective: Students collaboratively design and implement an action project that addresses a chosen issue, mobilizing their assets and multimodal skills.
- Examples of Possible Projects:
- Organizing a community event or awareness campaign.
- Launching a bilingual podcast series amplifying youth voices.
- Designing an art installation on campus addressing equity and inclusion.
- Creating advocacy toolkits (videos, flyers, social media campaigns) for community distribution.
- Research Data Collection:
- Documentation of projects, student reflections, community feedback surveys, researcher field notes.
- Documentation of projects, student reflections, community feedback surveys, researcher field notes.
Services We Provide
Professional Development
School Action Research Project Support
Professional Development
Using a community asset-mapping framework grounded in co-learning, dialogue, and collaboration, the Lab offers courses, webinars, podcasts, and workshops designed for schools and classroom teachers.
Consultation Service
School Action Research Project Support
Professional Development
The Lab offers tailored consultation for individuals and organizations seeking to design and implement culturally responsive teaching practices. We support efforts to build inclusive and equitable learning environments at every stage of planning, implementation, and reflection.
School Action Research Project Support
School Action Research Project Support
School Action Research Project Support
The Lab provides mentoring, consultation, and collaborative facilitation for school practitioners and stakeholders at all levels. We support and co-create action research projects that center classroom practices, student-friendly approaches, and justice-driven inquiries.
Explore Resources
Online Courses
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Tool Kits
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About Global Diversity and Inclusion Lab
Our Philosophy
At the Global Diversity and Inclusion Lab, we believe education is a powerful pathway to advancing social justice and unlocking the potential of every learner.
As educators and collaborators, we are committed to creating learning environments that are inclusive, equitable, and rooted in shared responsibility. In today’s culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms, we draw on a community asset framework grounded in the principles of co-learning and cultural humility. These approaches allow us to uncover and honor the richness of diverse perspectives, voices, and talents that students and their communities bring to education.
Our work empowers students to discover, amplify, and celebrate their identities and cultures while strengthening their academic, creative, and critical capacities. By centering community knowledge and valuing every student’s lived experience, we strive to cultivate learning spaces that nurture belonging, inspire collaboration, and equip learners to reach their fullest potential.