Cultural Humility in Parenting Education Programs
By: David M. Einhorn Center For Community Engagement
Tags: Higher Education, Education, Community Engagement, Parenting

Summer ’20 Internship with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County

By Lauren Kessler ’21

Photo by Jhon David on Unsplash

Editor’s note: Lauren Kessler ’21 received a summer 2020 grant through the Serve in Place Fund. This blog post is her final critical reflection assignment: write a letter to a future Serve in Place Fund applicant

I would’ve never guessed that I would spend most of my summer researching anti-racism and struggling with my own racism while also reviewing almost one hundred parenting education programs, but I’m very grateful I did.

This past summer, I interned with the Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) of Tompkins County Family and Development Team in Ithaca, New York. Unfortunately, the pandemic forced us to work remotely, so I was never able to visit the office or meet my coworkers in person. Our team consisted of two CCE employees, two Cornell faculty, my intern partner and myself. We stayed in touch primarily through email and weekly Zoom meetings, utilizing Google Docs and Cornell Box to submit work or share documents.

I would’ve never guessed that I would spend most of my summer researching anti-racism and struggling with my own racism while also reviewing almost one hundred parenting education programs, but I’m very grateful I did.

Our initial task was to review the amount of cultural sensitivity and humility present in CCE’s current parent education programs, as well as programs that may be taught in the future. A vast majority of parent education programs are written for the “normal American family:” a white, middle-class household with two heterosexual, married parents (of whom the mother/wife/woman is the primary child caregiver) and children without live-in extended family. As a result, the programs are often unrelatable and inaccessible to the people and families who do not fit this stereotype of a “normal American family,” and the programs are culturally insensitive, sexist and racist.

Regardless of the authors’ intentions, these programs perpetuate stereotypes and prejudices that prevent marginalized communities from engaging with the content. As I and many other white people learned this summer, white people are both intentionally and unintentionally racist constantly. So, to aid in the larger fight of ending systemic and systematic racism in our community, my partner and I evaluated the cultural sensitivity and anti-racist nature of hundreds of parent education programs with the hopes of increasing their accessibility to all families.

To aid in the larger fight of ending systemic and systematic racism in our community, my partner and I evaluated the cultural sensitivity and anti-racist nature of hundreds of parent education programs with the hopes of increasing their accessibility to all families.

Before we could properly begin, we needed to define “cultural humility” and “anti-racism.” This step led to weeks of research, which created a new project that we completed in addition to our original goal. Armed with preliminary knowledge on the characteristics of an anti-racist body of work, our team developed a basic list of requirements that future reviewers of parent education programs could consult when evaluating the anti-racist nature of said programs.

After a few iterations, we decided the most user-friendly option would instead be a list of critical thinking prompts. This list ended up being a series of questions that ask the reviewer to consider different aspects of the program through an anti-racist lens. One of these questions, for example, asks the user to consider “Who is visually represented in the curriculum?” This way the user must think critically about the types of people actually pictured in the program materials: Are they white? Are they a person of color? Are there trans and non-binary folk? Are there single parents? Are there non-heterosexual parents? etc.

Because this project directly addressed a problem within the community, I was invested. Sometimes my own passion for the work led to feelings of inadequacy — perhaps I wasn’t doing enough for the equity of marginalized communities. Sometimes that same passion led to negative feelings about myself — my implicit bias and prejudices preventing me from being an impartial researcher. I had thoughts like, “this position would be better filled by a person of color,” (and it would have been). It was difficult to separate my passion for social justice with my feelings of guilt, especially as I researched anti-racism and learned just how racist myself and every white person I know is. Honestly, I was never able to separate the two completely, but I believe that my guilty conscious kept me aware of my own biases, my privilege and my ignorance.

To future Serve in Place recipients and anyone who pursues their passion, I will end with this word of advice: make time for self-care. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s for a reason. It’s extremely easy to push yourself beyond the breaking point because your passion to serve continues to drive you, but nothing good comes from beyond the breaking point. Your community needs the work only the best version of you can provide. Halfway through my project, I became burnt-out and frustrated, so I stepped back for a couple of days.

Once I returned, my productivity and the quality of my work increased significantly. By taking time to care for yourself and keep yourself physically and mentally healthy, you are still serving your community.