The Identity-Conscious Educator

Building Habits and Skills for a More Inclusive School
(Create a research-based learning environment that allows all students to learn and grow together.)

by Liza A. Talusan

Learn powerful, practical strategies for creating an inclusive school community. The Identity-Conscious Educator provides a framework for building awareness and understanding of five identity categories: race, social class, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. Connect with vignettes and personal stories from the author that illuminate how to address identity topics in your personal and professional life. Then, develop skills in engaging in meaningful interactions with students and peers.

• Discover how identity affects both personal and professional lives.
• Review a framework for building habits and skills of identity-conscious teaching and learning.
• Build knowledge of five different identity categories and experiences—race, social class, sexual orientation, gender, and disability—and then act for positive change.
• Reflect with end-of-chapter questions.
• Review practical, research-based strategies, and activities for having difficult conversations and creating more inclusive communities.

Paperback | 248 pages | Solution Tree Press | 2022

Liza A. Talusan, PhD, is a strategic partner in areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice to schools and organizations both domestically and internationally. She is a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts Boston in the Department of Leadership in Education, where she teaches courses on anti-racist leadership and identity-conscious leadership skills.

Liza has held a number of leadership positions in educational organizations, including the American Educational Research Association, the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, and the Association for the Study of Higher Education. Liza’s scholarship has been published in the Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs as well as in book collections (such as Privilege Through the Looking-Glass and UnCommon Bonds). She also participated in the filming of the documentary I’m Not Racist . . . Am I? (with Point Made Productions) and has appeared on a number of education-related podcasts, including Third Space With Jen Cort, Leading Equity with Sheldon Eakins, and Organizing for Change with Amanda Decker.

Liza earned her bachelor’s degree from Connecticut College, a master’s degree from New York University, a human resources certificate from Stonehill College, a doctorate in higher education from the University of Massachusetts Boston, and her certified coaching credentials from the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching.