Activist Pedagogies in Anti-DEI Climates: Teaching and Learning in the Texas Higher Education Classroom

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Reimagining K-12 Teaching in Anti-DEI Times (Table 6)

Abstract

Anti-DEI legislation in higher education continues to spread across the country, uprooting decades of work that has emplaced the histories and legacies of minoritized people. We argue that anti-DEI bills such as Senate Bill 17 cause reverberations and sets precedents for what is considered "indoctrination" and "inequity" as many of these conversations have started to take root at our university. We, the authors, argue in this conceptual paper how we can continue to envision the college classroom as a place of possibility and embed what we call activist pedagogies. Activist pedagogies take inspiration from the historical legacies of student organizing, and we discuss how we centered activist pedagogies into a graduate-level course and offer strategies, content, literature, activities, and reflections.

Authors

• Pablo Montes, Texas Christian University

• Stephanie Cuellar, Texas Christian University