All Inclusive: “How can I contribute to an inclusive educational organization?”

How do we ensure that everyone feels at home and can be themselves at Summa? Diversity, inclusion, and equality are important themes that affect us all.

Creating social safety and an inclusive educational organization does not happen automatically. Summa therefore takes action – from Practorate Relational Work – research on diversity, inclusion, and equality. Action research, to be precise. This is practice-based research where initiating change and finding solutions is just as important as gathering data, knowledge, and insights.

During dialogue sessions—with educational staff from across the organization—we often hear the question: "How can I best engage in discussions about sensitive topics?" Initiating and facilitating dialogue in the classroom or within your team isn't always easy. We want to help colleagues and students have effective conversations through various initiatives. More on that later. In this article, we'd like to highlight one of these initiatives: the "All Inclusive" training day.

What can I do to contribute to an inclusive Summa? With that in mind, teachers and staff—across the organization—participated in All Inclusive.

The training started with an impressive theatre performance, provided by Theater AanZ. 'HannaH' is about polarization, exclusion, group formation, the universal fear of being different, vulnerability, encounter, and connection. The actors walked between the tables during the performance, challenging the audience not just to watch quietly, but to empathize, think, and discuss with them, and thus truly become part of the story.

Each statement is truly breathtaking. Chances are you've heard one or more comments in class or in the hallways. It's not always easy to immediately know how to respond to each one. Afterward, we held a dialogue to reflect together on important, beautiful, and painful moments from the performance. We discussed how they affected you and whether you recognized them in your own daily reality. During the subsequent self-reflection, co-creation, mini-lecture, and case studies in the afternoon, we continued the conversation. What would you do, and what do you need to cope effectively with the situation?

During the training sessions, we delved deeper into what we're already doing and what still needs to be done. Diversity, inclusion, and equality are ongoing themes. It's important that we bring it up for discussion and keep it on the agenda. This way, together we'll take a step toward creating a safe meeting place for everyone.

Diversity, Inclusion, and Equality action research is a research line within the Relational Work Practorate. Stimulating and facilitating dialogue on this topic is one of its key priorities.

Do you work at Summa and want to contribute your ideas or could you use some help for your team? Then email the Practorate for Relational Work: practoraatrelationeelwerken@summacollege.nl

Don't work at Summa but are you involved in diversity and inclusion? Please feel free to contact us to continue talking and learning from each other.

The training day was organised by Practoraat Relationeel Werken together with project partners School and Safety Foundation en Theater aanZ.