{{ site.title }}

Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity: A Framework

The Joint ALA/ARL Building Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity Framework Task Force’s final draft of the Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity: A Framework was approved by the boards of directors of the four partner organizations, the American Library Association (ALA), Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and Public Library Association (PLA), during summer 2022.

The Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity Framework is a tool both theoretical and practical in its orientation, as a guide for developing personal, organizational, institutional, and systems-level knowledge and understanding of the nature of racism and its many manifestations. Racism results in differential, inequitable, and devastating impacts on Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) in the library and information science (LIS) sector, the communities libraries serve, and beyond. The framework is not intended to be liberatory practice in itself—an instrument or agent that will abolish racial inequity or a step-by-step guide—but, rather, to provide the grounding needed to effect change in thinking, behavior, and practice that will lead to better outcomes for racialized and minoritized populations. Therefore, while the framework offers examples of implementation, these are not meant to represent an exhaustive list. Although the LIS sector cannot, on its own, solve the problem of racism in society, it can acknowledge the role it has played in contributing to and sustaining systems of inequity and oppression of communities of color, and own the responsibility for countering its effects, both historically and today. And while we acknowledge the global impacts of racism, for the purposes of this framework, we will specifically address the impacts of racism in both the United States and Canada.

Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity: A Framework

To cite

Joint ALA/ARL Building Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity Framework Task Force. Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity: A Framework. Chicago and Washington, DC: American Library Association, Association of College & Research Libraries, Association of Research Libraries, and Public Library Association, August 23, 2022.

, , , , ,

Affiliates