Note: this paper was entirely written by Adam Zimmer, but he is having computer troubles so I posted it for him !
When Laila, my classmates and I in Race, Class, and Gender had the idea to create a newsletter for our final, I immediately knew I wanted to do something less expansive and theoretical than most of the work we had been doing, which was mostly geared around theory. While, of course, theory has real world applications, I knew I wanted to do something that was really grounded in my day to day life. Selfishly, I wanted to do something that felt like a capstone, a fitting conclusion to my four years as a student at Sonoma Academy. After (admittedly only) five minutes of thinking, I decided to look at the way our school and its students perceive and are affected by issues related to Race, Class, and Gender. I thought this would be especially interesting given that our school is often perceived as having a fairly (rich, white) homogenized student body. After sending out a survey, consulting with DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusivity) director Dot Kowal about similar work she has done, and speaking with a couple respondents, here are both my unfiltered results and a summary of my interpretations.
Question 1: Do you think that the staffulty/admin at SA, in general, do a good job of providing an inclusive, supportive environment for ALL of their students?
81.6% (31 respondents) - Yes
13.2% (5 respondents) - No
2.6% (1 respondent) - From what I’ve heard from students who need accommodation, it’s not that good.
2.6% (1 respondent) - Both
When asked whether they would feel comfortable elaborating on their answer, respondents’ explanations had a few common themes. One perception that popped up a few times was that SA staff and faculty (referred to as staffulty) generally made sure “every opinion is heard” and are “insanely inclusive”; however, a couple respondents expressed that occasionally the school administration will “try too hard” to make everyone feel included, alienating or making uncomfortable those they were intending to reach out to. One student felt that LGBTQ+ representation was prioritized over other minorities or groups, another felt the same about students with liberal beliefs, while others simply stated that while the student body is not super diverse culturally, staffulty do a good job of providing equal opportunity and experience in general.
Question 2: Do you think the students at SA make it easy to feel included or accepted?
50% (19 respondents) - Yes
13.2% (5 respondents) - No
26.4% (10 respondents) - It depends
10.4% (4 respondents) - The majority of students do
When asked whether they would feel comfortable elaborating on their answer, the most common theme was that nobody was fully exclusive or inclusive, and it depended on your personal experience at the school, for example, who your friends are, what your extracurriculars are, and even where your hometown is. An overwhelming number of respondents who chose to elaborate touched on a perceived “cliquey-ness”, stating that for freshmen and sophomores especially it’s really easy to get shut out of a friend group. Another issue that was brought up a couple times was that while SA students are almost all “really nice and understanding of serious topics”, but due to the varying socioeconomic statuses of students it can be “hard to relate to people”. Finally, one respondent expressed concerns about both cultural appropriation and students using slurs that they should know better than to use, combined with a perceived lack of action on the administration’s part when a possible issue is made aware to them.
Question 3: Is there anything else you’d like to say about how issues of race, class, and gender are handled at SA?
This question was (by design) much more open ended, so I got a healthy variety of different perspectives. A couple students pointed out that SA is a “castle on a hill” both demographically and economically, and although people in the SA community are “willing to learn and educate themselves,” many don’t know what it’s like to be a person of color, or even a member of the middle class, which can make it “tough emotionally” for those SA students who may not fit into the majority demographic. This disparity between the SA “bubble” and the real world, in the opinion of these respondents, doesn’t allow many members of the SA community to truly understand many issues of race, class, and gender, since many don’t have firsthand knowledge of what it’s like to actually struggle with these issues. A main culprit of this, in students’ eyes, was “woke” culture, with students posting on social media or talking about social justice issues they either couldn’t relate to or understand. Another two respondents felt that SA did not give students with a minority opinion (mainly, students who identify as conservative) an adequate platform to speak. One student commented on the perceived lack of focus on class, stating that there is “too much emphasis on race and gender but not on class. There is obviously a majority of (sic) upper class people which is fine, but it’s weird to be middle class and have a crazy gap from the other students.” Finally, one student called for a “more ongoing conversation between the students, staffulty, and administration about these sorts of issues,” as in their eyes the “admin has neglected to open a dialogue about how it affects… students,” choosing to eschew that to focus on a global or national scale.
So, what does this say about student life at SA?
First of all, I need to acknowledge the fact that only 38 people provided data for this, and while that’s a solid number for some good anecdotal data, we would need a much larger pool of participants for this to be truly representative of the 325 members of the SA student body. Also worth noting, more than a few participants said that while no school is ever going to be perfect, SA has done about as good a job as could be done given the socioeconomic and racial makeup of the student body. That being said, there are some issues worthy of future discussion among SA students, faculty, and administration. Taking the results into account holistically, SA should focus a bit more on issues within the student body, administration, and school as a whole. A common thread in some of the responses was that for most subjects, SA prefers to look outward and not focus on its own problems. The curriculum and general student experience at SA is geared toward what it’s students are going to do when they graduate, and trying to prepare us in a number of ways to be healthy, well rounded adults. I believe that extends to the way SA teaches issues of social justice, making sure kids have a healthy viewpoint on big, national issues but not working much to change the culture at the school itself. SA has done a lot of great things, and I for one know that my four years here were better than I could have asked for from any other high school, but just like everyone and everything, SA still has some work to do. This project was meant to be scientific in principle, so I’m not going to draw any far sweeping conclusions, but I will say that SA has the tools to get even better at answering a lot of the social justice questions at SA itself. In my opinion, it’s about asking more questions, being more open. Having faculty that listen, and having students that push hard for change. Those same people need to be willing to work on themselves while they’re working on enacting change on our campus. My opinion doesn’t really matter in any concrete way, since I’m graduating and moving on in two days, but some SA students will be there for years.... whether or not this can happen will be up to the SA community.