Bridge Conference 2019

Out of School time Organizations have consistently produced inequitable outcomes for youth of color. These inequities reflect leadership practices that problematize communities of color social behavior and seeks to assimilate them into white middle-class American values. Leaders must be compelled to craft a transformative agenda that can create equity for all youth. Culturally Responsive Leadership is framework of behaviors that seeks to create systemic equity. This presentation will discuss critical self-awareness a behavior of Culturally Responsive Leadership that can lead to a change in the critical beliefs and skills that educators need to close opportunity gaps. Critical self-awareness is a leader understanding themselves, the people they serve, the social and political context they serve, and having the ability to question your own knowledge to envision and create a new environment of learning for youth of color. That environment will be help youth sustain their culture and build in strategies that empower people of color as formal leaders within the organization. This session will give participants a chance to practice critical self-awareness and receive an example from a researched out of school time organization that is participating this behavior.