Triggered or Ignored: Examining Student Understandings of and Experiences With Trigger Warnings in Higher Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 1:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Utterances and Mo(ve)ments of Remedy Across Curricular Contexts (Table 11)

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore college students’ perceptions of trigger warnings and to determine if students’ desires for these warnings were tied to specific aspects of the curriculum and student perceptions of course instructors. Results showed student awareness of trigger warnings and their uses, specific views of instructors who did and did not use the warnings, awareness of the power structures within the institution, and desires to participate in the system while using trigger warnings to challenge structural norms. These findings suggest that students use trigger warnings as an act of performative resubjectivation, thus suggesting that more attention should be given to how student identity is implicated and impacted by classroom curriculum.

Authors

• Ashleigh Maldonado, Hill College

• Tony Lee Talbert, Baylor University