About the Keynote Address

Building Cultural Humility: Skills and Structures for Racial Justice Work in Schools

This keynote presentation provides the audience participants with a conceptual and practical overview of the concept of cultural humility, its origins and its applicability in contemporary school social work practice. In addition, the presentation will describe skills associated with cultural humility for the school social work practitioner as well as skills for school social workers, parents and students seeking to navigate hidden opportunity structures within school systems (navigational capital).

Recording available here.

About the Keynote Speakers

Anthony De Jesús is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work and Equitable Community Practice at the University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford, CT. He received his MSW at the Boston University School of Social Work and was a school social worker in Boston prior to earning an Ed.D. at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He previously served as a researcher and administrator at the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños and on the faculty at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. He is conducting a study of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families’ Racial Justice Initiative.

Madeline Pérez De Jesús is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work and Latino Community Practice at the University of Saint Joseph in Connecticut. A life-long New Yorker before moving to Connecticut, Madeline received her Ph.D. at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. Her study, Two Tales of One City: A Political Economy of the New York City Public High School Admissions Process, was awarded honorable distinction in 2011. She co-authored a volume, Theory and Educational Research: Toward Critical Social Explanation (Anyon et al. 2008, Routledge), in which she has a featured chapter on the experiences of Latina mothers navigating school choice. She is currently working on a book that tells the story of families from two communities at opposite sides of the income ladder searching for access to quality high schools as they navigate the NYC public high school admissions process.