Beyond Representation
Representation matters, but meaningful participation requires more than seeing oneself reflected.
We examine whose knowledge is valued, who has opportunities to contribute, and how people can influence the spaces they inhabit.
Our approach
Beyond Belonging. Toward Homeplace.
Belonging is a feeling. Homeplace is a practice.
At The Homeplace Institute, we help educators, leaders, organizations, and communities move beyond the intention of inclusion toward the everyday practices that affirm identity, value knowledge, cultivate relationships, and make meaningful participation possible.
Our defining philosophy
Belonging is a feeling. Homeplace is a practice.
Belonging asks
Do I feel that I have a place here?
A feeling
Homeplace asks
What are we doing to create a space where I can be fully human, contribute meaningfully, and help shape what this place becomes?
A practice
Belonging is essential. People deserve to feel welcomed, valued, recognized, and connected. But belonging is not the endpoint.
Someone can feel included in a space without having meaningful opportunities to influence it. They can see themselves represented without having their knowledge taken seriously. They can be invited into a community without having agency in shaping its practices, expectations, or possibilities.
Homeplace asks us to go further. It is the intentional and ongoing practice of creating spaces where identity is affirmed, cultural knowledge is valued, relationships are cultivated, critical reflection is encouraged, and people can participate in shaping their experiences.
Homeplace is not simply a physical environment, a feeling of comfort, or a welcoming atmosphere. It is made through relationships, decisions, cultural practices, literacy, reflection, and collective participation.
The research foundation
Homeplace Literacies
Homeplace Literacies is the developing conceptual framework emerging from Jennifer N. Brooks' doctoral research. Grounded in Black feminist intellectual traditions and informed by bell hooks' conceptualization of homeplace, it examines the relationships among literacy, identity, cultural knowledge, community, and the creation of spaces that affirm Black humanity.
Within this work, literacy is not limited to traditional reading and writing. It also includes the ways people construct and communicate meaning through storytelling, conversation, poetry, music, visual art, digital expression, embodied cultural practices, and other forms of communication. Homeplace Literacies explores how these practices create opportunities for people to remember, connect, question, create, and imagine.
What makes Homeplace Literacies distinct?
Homeplace Literacies recognizes that literacy is not simply something people practice within a space. Literacy can also be one of the ways people participate in creating homeplace.
Through reading, writing, storytelling, dialogue, art, cultural practices, and other forms of expression, people can connect their experiences to larger histories, question imposed narratives, negotiate identities, and participate in constructing meaningful communities. This understanding informs the Institute's approach to curriculum, professional learning, research, coaching, and cultural experiences.
The research behind it
The framework emerges from Jennifer N. Brooks' doctoral research, which centers Black adolescent girls and explores how they respond to Black literature and use multiple literacy practices to understand, negotiate, express, and define their identities.
How it connects to the Institute
The dissertation research specifically centers Black adolescent girls. The Institute develops broader professional and educational applications informed by the framework, its theoretical foundations, and Jennifer N. Brooks' professional expertise.
These are research-informed approaches, not interventions whose effectiveness the dissertation has already established.
Select a dimension to read how we define it. Each one shapes and depends on the others.
Belonging
Recognition, affirmation, connection, and meaningful participation.
Healing
Care, reflection, joy, restoration, and opportunities to express one's humanity.
Placemaking
The active creation and transformation of meaningful spaces through relationships, cultural practices, and collective participation.
Liberation
The critical examination of limiting narratives and structures, the exercise of agency, and the imagination of alternative possibilities.
(Re)membering
Engagement with personal histories, ancestral knowledge, cultural memory, and intergenerational relationships.
The five dimensions of homeplace are interconnected rather than sequential: not steps, and not a checklist.
Research-informed principles
The principles that guide our work.
These shape our professional learning, courses, coaching, consulting, and partnerships.
Beyond Student Voice
Inviting people to speak is different from allowing their contributions to shape decisions, experiences, and learning.
We explore approaches that recognize learners and community members as knowledge producers.
Beyond Traditional Literacy
Reading and writing remain essential, but meaning making also occurs through music, art, dialogue, storytelling, digital media, and cultural practices.
We support literacy experiences that recognize multiple ways of knowing and expressing identity.
Beyond Behavior Management
Behavior should be considered in relation to relationships, identity, expectations, context, and institutional conditions.
Our learning experiences explore restorative relationships, reflection, accountability, and repair.
Beyond Inclusion
A space can appear inclusive while maintaining practices that limit participation and agency.
We help individuals and organizations examine the conditions shaping people's experiences.
Beyond Professional Development
Professional learning should offer more than information.
Our experiences are designed to support reflection, practical application, collaboration, and continued growth.
Beyond Cultural Celebration
Cultural knowledge should be recognized as a meaningful intellectual resource, not simply something acknowledged during designated events.
We encourage practices that honor histories, experiences, languages, and cultural traditions as resources for learning.
Put it into practice
What becomes possible when homeplace is practiced intentionally?