Diversity and Inclusion: The Importance of Gender, Race and Culture in Education

After three years managing the periphery of Boston's public school system, I've become quite good at handling the people who come with it  the loud parents, the fidgety students and the administrators who run the machine. Whether it's squashed up against strangers on a yellow school bus at 5 a.m. or chilling my local library on a Saturday, I'm always trying to see underneath the surface of my schooled life. I want to know how a nation that professes liberty and justice for all really makes diversity and inclusion happen in its classrooms.

I came to Boston nine years ago, a starry-eyed Midwesterner newly emerging from graduate school at a small college. I had a ticket to the city's lively education scene, and around that time, Boston Public Schools were in the midst of a bold plan: to overhaul their curriculum with a focus on gender, race and cultural equity issues. I went with a friend to a community meeting about it, and it was bedlam  parents shouting, some holding signs that said No Politics in Our Schools! Others responded with Teach Respect for All! It is a brawl, I learned, education here, not an argument.

Armed with this second master's degree from Harvard's Graduate School of Education, I landed a position as a diversity education coordinator for Boston Public Schools. The title sounded great but the work was hardly glamorous analyzing data, bouncing back and forth between meetings, writing reports and smoothing tensions between families and school staff. Every day on the Green Line I'd explain how to turn academic theory into students' lives. I found my niche: using data, and public feedback, I crafted initiatives that pushed schools to be more equitable. All of this, of course, made it into my book, Diversity in the Classroom: America's Equality Experiment, published last July by the University of Chicago Press.

Education Week wondered if they could [ interview] me about my journey  both what it was like to advocate for diversity and inclusion and the constant tensions between schools, families and policymakers. Here's what I discovered along the way.

And Liberty and the Troublemakers

A friend of mine  a high school friend of mine  once declared that American schools are sets from teen movies (each hallway a stage, each doorway a dramatic backdrop). But the Hollywood version is a glossy, white, suburban fantasy. Real life? It's more raw and far more riveting.

Now I live in Dorchester, a blue-collar part of Boston where my morning commute is filled with Spanish, Vietnamese and Haitian Creole. A block from my apartment lands you in a culinary miracle  Jamaican jerk, Ethiopian injera, Vietnamese noodle soups, even Polish dogs from a vendor on the street. The diversity isn't just in the food. It's in the air. Old customs contend with new ideas, wealth rubs against poverty  it's messy, unrefined and sprawling. And that vitality fuels Boston's schools, too.

But that freedom generates its own brand of troublemaker. Curriculum conversations or parent forums? No one's shy. If the district proposes a new class or event, they swarm  shouting down principals mid-sentence, or showing up armed with picket signs. I'll never forget an early discussion about gender equity programming at a middle school: a lone parent wandering the hallways shouted This is indoctrination! while another shot back, How do you learn tolerance otherwise? It's tough, but it brings the hard questions into the open.

I was in Dorchester and found a flyer posted on a lamppost: Your Voice Shapes Their Future, it read, prompting parents to weigh in on school plans. They shredded a Culture Week proposal at the meeting  not enough Latin tonality, not enough Black stories, too many witnesses from Asian and Native perspectives, they said. The district reversed course, and it mushroomed into a Diversity Month that had a far broader reach.

When I was a school worker, any notion of diversity was sweating the details. This was a racial history class we pitched to a Roxbury elementary school  funded for a teacher and materials. But there, data showed 60% of students were Black  and Black history barely reached 10% of the curriculum. It was a no-brainer: need, but higher-ups kibosh-ed it, muttering about tight funds. The reality was scaling it up district-wide would've cost a fortune. These aren't just math decisions  these are politics with a capital P.

I ended up leaving the district for a consulting role, hoping to move out of the bureaucracy and directly support communities and schools. Now, instead, I train parents and students on how to traverse those meetings  preparing them with facts to stoke their fire.

Community Showdowns

Boston Public Schools proposed a couple of years ago to infuse 20% of middle school lessons with gender equality topics and offer a cultural inclusion elective for high schooled. The backlash was instant. Some parents worried it was too much, too young, while others were afraid it would crowd out math and reading. Community groups typically argued that basics should come first  oh, and could we get more counselors, please?

After months of sparring, the district offered a six-month trial. Skeptical parents put together a watchdog team, which met quarterly with admins to monitor it. That's where my team and I waded into the abyss, showing them how to read budgets and hurl numbers around  like how Boston's ratio of guidance counselors to students (1:500) is abysmal compared to the national average (1:250). They entered those talks with a belligerent tone.

America's some scrappy, do-it-yourself kind of mess  Boston parents stand up. They're not saying a word about their own kid; they're advocating for every kid on the block. But I tell them: passion is half the battle. You also need to have strategy and resources.

Clever Workarounds

All over the city, and little around it, Bostonian love their libraries and school events  every neighborhood has a small treasure that hums with activity on weekends. By the time I arrived, you could find me haunting the South End library in the hours after closing, skimming its books, absorbing. Kids of all types packed into what else, gathered around volunteer storytellers. I finally understood: These institutions are the city's equality labs.

Based on my research into district budgets from 2019–2023, I learned that, between 2014 and 2018, Boston devoted $250 million to diversity initiatives  about fourteen-thousand dollars per school per year. Some scrimped and saved at every turn. The Culture Fusion Camp in South Boston started as a summer project for families to blend Irish and Latino heritage. They hired a nonprofit, enlisted local leaders and made it a district-wide program.

But diversity also causes friction  traditionalists lament lost hours on real subjects. The district's fix? Partnerships. A tech company in 2024 paid $500,000 for a gender equality workshop, in return for a tax break. The firm's glowed: schools triumphed; the system rumbled on.

The Flipped Coin of Diversity

Boston's diversity draws talent  education, tech, etc.  but that housing cost is painful. In 2024, 47 percent of local renters paid more than 30 percent of their income on housing; 25 percent paid half. Teachers get burned out and move to cheaper suburbs.

Diversifying is a double-edged sword  it's warm and cold. In 2025, a Campus Inclusion Day was sued to oblivion by parents who had filed overreach protests. The debate about diversity rages on in the nation at large  80 percent of schools are making adjustments, but online, attitudes are divided, especially on issues of gender and race. It takes forever, but that's the cost of hashing it out.

Q&A Highlights

Education Week: What is the hardest part about diversity projects? Me: Ensuring underserved kids  poor, minority  are included. Glamorous events can leave struggling families out. Boston's moving toward simpler, more open-access ideas, like free workshops.

Education Week: How do you balance competing demands? Me: Saving money is being creative. One school, seeking a low-cost, high-impact solution, turned a closet into a diversity nook. It's grit plus vision.

Education Week: How does the data help you? Me: It's publicly available  Boston posts it on its web site. Stats, like a 40 percent Latino student body with little curriculum spotlight, give communities leverage.

Education Week: What would a diversity-supportive system be like? Me: It says everyone belongs  different lessons, great teachers, inclusive. No school is free without freedom; freedom is the soul of a school.