A Case Study of Higher Education Equity Advocates: Negotiating Resistance

• In Event: Professional and Personal Identities of Faculty and Graduate Students

Abstract

This case study highlights the ways in which “equity-minded” advocates from one higher education institution dealt with resistance as they communicated to campus constituents the importance of institutional responsibility for racial inequities. Interviewees were members of an action inquiry team that investigated racial inequities on their campus over a two-year period. During and following the inquiry process, the members developed several strategies of communication in dealing with the resistance from colleagues who did not support equity as an institutional agenda. Three “levels” of resistance were identified, as well as several distinct communication strategies. This inductive study serves as a part of the iterative process of such action inquiry work; Therefore, implications for the action inquiry cycle will be discussed.

Author

• Robin M. Bishop, University of Southern California