Teaching Through Hostility: Racially conscious teaching and racialized pedagogy in higher education

• In Event: 20461 - Teaching and Learning Symposium Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 9: Engaged Pedagogy

Abstract

Current literature documents the hostile environments that people of color face in academia, including: racialized hostility and challenges around research, experiences with colleagues, social climate and the tenure process. This is particularly heightened in the broader context of “anti-woke” and “anti-dei” initiatives across the nation. Yet, even within this context, Black educators and people of color continue teaching material that is often experienced as socially challenging or precarious. This includes teaching about social inequality, racism, power, and many other related topics. This presentation draws on the experiences of a Black Woman faculty member in a predominantly white institution (PWI), during a politically hostile moment of Trump’s first Presidency, to outline particular pedagogical approaches that take into account both the racialized teaching experience as well as the tools needed to teach about social inequities and racial content. This presentation draws on first person experience of the first author, cis-gender, Black woman who specializes in sociology, race and pedagogy, while incorporating the combined academic and pedagogical expertise and framing of the first and second author, a cis-gender, white man, who specializes in learning instructional design and faculty development. This presentation will build on the existing literature around the experience of people of color, pedagogy and sociology in order to provide guidance for faculty of color in PWI. These lessons around racially conscious scaffolding and scaffolding for racial consciousness could apply to faculty and educators of other minoritized populations. Though these tools are developed in a higher education context, they can be applicable in a variety of teaching and learning contexts.

Authors

• Callie Watkins Liu, MGH Institute of Health Professions

• Tony Sindelar