The document discusses lightning sessions being held by a Diversity and Inclusion Committee. The goals of the sessions are to expand awareness of topics, promote reflection on how topics affect the community, share resources for further learning, and inspire building an inclusive community. A previous session discussed privilege and ways to educate others through continual self-education, facilitating discussions, and listening. An upcoming session will cover prescriptive and descriptive language as well as code switching, exploring their meanings and effects. It will discuss reasons for and perspectives on code switching as well as creating an environment that encourages natural speech.

1. D&I Lightning Sessions
Diversity and Inclusion Committee

2. Lightning Session Goals
These sessions are intended to serve as brief introductions to the topics, with the following goals:
● to expand awareness of the overall topic
● to create opportunity for group reflection on how the topic affects our community
● to promote self-reflection and growth mindset around the topic
● to share resources for further learning
● to inspire each other to continue the hard work of building an amazing community together
2Diversity and Inclusion Committee

3. Previous Lightning Session Learnings: Privilege
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Key ways staff felt we can be examples in educating about privilege
● Continual education for ourselves
● Facilitating discussions about privilege
● Stepping in to point out systems and instances of inequity as they happen
● Most importantly - LISTEN
Suggestion: Bring in other experienced/knowledgeable people to speak on this
subject
● The Staff D&I Committee is working on this - stay tuned for more!

4. Topic:
Prescriptive & Descriptive
Language, and Code Switching
4presenter: Tania Gidney, Admissions

5. Opening Prompt:
What does language mean to you?
Consider what makes your
language/use of language special to
you, your community, and your
family.
5
Share your thoughts @ make.sc/DILST

6. ● What is Prescriptive Linguistics? What is Descriptive Linguistics? How does that affect the way we speak and engage with others?
● What is Code Switching?
● How has code switching historically been handled?
○ Recognized as early as the the 1910s as a pattern when it was observed: immigrant assimilation.
○ Documented and identified in 1953/1954 -- Uriel Weinrich and Hans Vogts
○ 1977-1979 -- M.L.K. Junior Elementary School Children et al. v. Ann Arbor School District; The Ann Arbor Decision
○ Correctionist education -- Standard American or Standard American English
● What are the reasons people code-switch?
○ Intentional:
■ To fit in.
■ Convey information to a greater target audience.
■ Maintain personal privacy.
○ Unintentional:
■ Habit.
■ Relate to those in a particular context.
■ Lack of language that conveys the same idea in the other dialect/language.
● What is “respectability politics?” How does it relate to code-switching, and prescriptive versus descriptive linguistics? When do people
feel the need to switch? How do we create a space of professionalism that encourages people to speak in a way that is most natural for
them?
Topic Overview
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7. 7
What does it mean to “code switch”? And is encouraging people to code
switch actually further oppressing people?
Title of presentation

8. “Language is related to oppression in
ways that are structured as opposed to
isolated or incidental. For this reason,
language issues are a direct concern to
social workers and social work
educators, who must learn to recognize
and challenge all forms of structured
oppression within their own
institutional settings and within the
lives of the people who look to them
for assistance.” -- Marcoccio, Katherine.
"IDENTIFYING OPPRESSION IN LANGUAGE:
The Power of Words."
8
Respectability Politics
Title of presentation

9. Discussion:
With that previous quote in mind,
please think about what Make School
can do to encourage diverse language
use and reduce oppressive tactics
while still maintaining professionalism.
First consider the staff & faculty, and
then the students.
9

10. Resources referenced in creating the lightning session:
1. “Prescriptive and Descriptive Linguistics.” Linguistics 001 -- Prescriptive and Descriptive Linguistics. Accessed
https://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/ling001/prescription.html.
2. Morrison, Carlos D. “Code-Switching.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., May 30, 2017.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/code-switching.
3. Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School Children v. Michigan Board of Education: Extension of EEOA Protection to
Black-English-Speaking Students, 22 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 161 (1980), https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol22/iss1/6
4. Thompson, Matt. “Five Reasons Why People Code-Switch.” NPR. NPR, April 13, 2013.
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/04/13/177126294/five-reasons-why-people-code-switch.
5. Video 1: 3 Ways to Speak English | Jamila Lyiscott | TEDx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo3hRq2RnNI
6. Video 2 : The Cost of Code Switching | Chandra Arthur | TEDxOrlando https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo3hRq2RnNI
7. Video 3 : To Code Switch or Not to Code Switch? That is the Question. | Katelynn Duggins | TEDxMaysHighSchool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sncGGjaYJ5I
8. Marcoccio, Katherine. "IDENTIFYING OPPRESSION IN LANGUAGE: The Power of Words." Canadian Social Work Review /
Revue Canadienne De Service Social 12, no. 2 (1995): 146-58. www.jstor.org/stable/41669593.
The above list, as well as any additional resources sourced from participant feedback will be added to a living document of
resources at make.sc/DIRL
Topic Resources
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11. Thank you!
Share your feedback @ make.sc/DILST
Join our next subcommittee meeting @ Nov 26