Harvard-Westlake School About Admission Academics Arts Athletics Life @ HW Summer Giving Calendar Parents Alumni Students Fac/Staff search RESOURCES HOME > ABOUT > DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION > RESOURCES < Back to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Affinity Groups Commitments Councils DEI in Action Initiatives Pollyanna Conference Resources Southern California Diversity Recruiting Fair Team DIRECTOR'S BOOK LIST Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students By Zaretta Hammond FIND ON BOOKSHOP.ORG > Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World By Adam Grant FIND ON BOOKSHOP.ORG > Safe Is Not Enough: Better Schools for LGBTQ Students By Michael Sadowski FIND ON BOOKSHOP.ORG > Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do By Claude M. Steele FIND ON BOOKSHOP.ORG > Fierce Conversations (Revised and Updated): Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time By Susan Scott FIND ON BOOKSHOP.ORG > Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning By Cathy Park Hong FIND ON BOOKSHOP.ORG > DEI TERMS Anti-racism: Conscious and intentional actions, policies, or practices of actively opposing systemic racism at the individual, interpersonal, institutional, and structural levels. Cultural Responsiveness: The application of a defined set of values, principles, skills, attitudes, policies, and behaviors that enable individuals and groups to work effectively across cultures. Cultural responsiveness is a developmental process (and continuum) that evolves over time for both individuals and organizations. It is defined as having the capacity to: (1) value diversity; (2) conduct assessment of self; (3) manage the dynamics of difference; (4) acquire and apply cultural knowledge; and (5) adapt to diversity and the cultural contexts of the communities in which one lives and works. Diversity: The presence, acceptance, and appreciation of varied cultures. The concept of diversity embraces the wide range of human characteristics used to mark or identify individual and group identities. These characteristics include, but are not limited to, ethnicity, race, national origin, age, personality, sexual orientation, gender, class, religion, ability, and linguistic preferences. Diversity is a term used as shorthand for visible and quantifiable statuses, but diversity of thought and ways of knowing, being, and doing are also understood as natural, valued, and desired states, the presence of which benefit organizations, workplaces, and society. Equity: A condition that balances two dimensions: fairness and inclusion. As a function of fairness, equity implies ensuring that people have what they need to participate in school life and reach their full potential. Equitable treatment involves eliminating barriers that prevent the full participation of all individuals. As a function of inclusion, equity ensures that essential educational programs, services, activities, and technologies are accessible to all. Equity is not equality; it is the expression of justice, ethics, multi-partiality, and the absence of discrimination. Ethnicity: A social construct that divides people into groups based on characteristics such as shared sense of group identity, values, culture, language, history, ancestry and geography. Gender: Socially constructed categories of masculinity and manhood, femininity and womanhood that goes beyond one’s reproductive functions. Gender is distinct from one’s sexual orientation. Gender expression: This is the way we show our gender to the world around us through such manifestations as clothing, hairstyles, and mannerisms to name a few. Gender identity: A person’s internal sense of themselves as a specific gender. A cisgender person has a gender identity consistent with the sex they were assigned at birth. A transgender person has a gender identity that does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. Gender, however, is a spectrum and is not limited to just two possibilities. A person may have a non-binary gender identity meaning they do not identify strictly as a boy or a girl. Implicit bias: The attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. These biases, which encompass both favorable and unfavorable assessments, are activated involuntarily and without an individual’s awareness or intentional control. Everyone is susceptible to implicit biases. Inclusivity/Inclusiveness: Encompassing all; taking every individual’s experience and identity into account and creating conditions where all feel accepted, safe, empowered, supported, and affirmed. An inclusive school or organization expands its sense of community to include all, cultivating belonging and giving all an equal voice. Inclusivity also promotes and enacts the sharing of power and recognition of interdependence, where authorizing individuals and community members share responsibility for expressing core values and maintaining respect for differences in the spirit of care and cooperation. Microaggressions: Microaggressions are subtle words, cues, and/or behaviors that insult, invalidate, or exclude traditionally marginalized group members. The long-term effect of microaggressions can be a significant negative effect on one’s health. Multiculturalism: The presence of many distinctive cultures and the manifestation of cultural components and derivatives (e.g. language, values, religion, race, communication styles, etc.) in a given setting. Multiculturalism promotes the understanding of, and respect for cultural differences, and celebrates them as source of community strength. Multiculturalism is also defined as set of programs, policies, and practices that enable and maximize the benefits of diversity in a school community or organization. Privilege: Systemic favoring, enriching, valuing, validating, and including of certain social identities over others. Individuals cannot “opt out” of systems of privilege; rather these systems are inherent to the society in which we live. Race: A social construct that divides people into groups based on factors such as physical appearance, ancestry, culture, history, etc.; a social, historical and political classification system. Racism: A system of advantage based on race. This advantage occurs at the individual, cultural and institutional levels. Racism can also be defined as prejudice plus power. Sexual orientation: A concept referring to a person’s sexual desire in relation to the sex/gender to which they are attracted; the fact of being heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, or pansexual. Social class (as in upper class, middle class, working class): Refers to people’s socio-economic status, based on factors such as wealth, occupation, education, income, etc. Sources for these definitions include the National Association of Independent Schools, The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University, Lakeside School, and Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria. Harvard-Westlake School Harvard-Westlake is an independent, coeducational and college preparatory school for grades 7-12, located in Los Angeles, California. Harvard-Westlake strives to be a diverse and inclusive community united by the joyful pursuit of educational excellence, living and learning with integrity, and purpose beyond ourselves. MIDDLE SCHOOL CAMPUS 700 North Faring Road Los Angeles, CA 90077 310-274-7281 UPPER SCHOOL CAMPUS 3700 Coldwater Canyon Avenue Studio City, CA 91604 818-980-6692 About Admission Academics Arts Athletics Life @ HW Summer Giving Contact Privacy Calendar Parents Students Alumni Faculty/Staff Follow Us Facebook Twitter Instagram Harvard-Westlake School admits students of any race, color, national, and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs. 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