Give Me My 'Props': Race, Gender and Authority in the Classroom

Radical History Review, 2008

While teaching about race, ethnicity, and class from a critical pedagogical standpoint, we might not only encounter student resistance to learning about systems of domination but we should also be aware of the ways in which power, privilege, and exclusion in the larger society may be reproduced in our own classrooms. In this article, we recount how we used freewriting and discussions in an attempt to deconstruct the power dynamics in an upper-division seminar on Latinas/os and education. Though a majority of the students in the course were first-generation Latinas, several middle-and upper-middle-class White students tended to participate the most. This dynamic resulted in a situation in which class discussions were steered away from the focus on Latinas/os and unequal educational practices to a perspective that reinforced an ideology of equality and a climate that privileged dominant modes of classroom communication. Since these patterns were precisely the ones the course topics and readings were meant to deconstruct, we turned the gaze onto the classroom as we observed the reproduction of inequality there and used freewriting and discussions to uncover the unequal ways in which students were experiencing the space.

I began teaching as a second-year graduate student. Twenty-two years old and naïve about the difficulties I would face, I expected challenges to my authority due to my age. I even suspected students might sense my insecurity as a new instructor. Although I knew I would make errors while learning the process of teaching, I expected students would be generous in allowing me to work through the process and perhaps even embrace my naïveté. For the most part, this was true. Students were kind, willing to learn what I had to offer, and forgiving of my mistakes. What I did not anticipate were the reactions of a small but significant group of students who found my presence offensive, my authority comical, and my capacity to disperse knowledge non-existent. For this group of students, I will never be seen as knowledgeable or worthy of their respect because I do not embody the two factors they believe are key to being a professor: being white and being male. Now that I am a professor, this segment of the student population continues to exist. When I enter the classroom, I can usually spot such a student immediately: as he realizes I am the professor, he leans back in his chair, crosses his arms, and puts his feet on the chair in front of him. This student will often give me "the look," the smirk or contemptuous stare that says, "This woman, this black woman, cannot possibly know anything. What gives her the right to evaluate me?" Whenever such a student appears in my class, I know that I can count on a difficult semester. I will likely face continual challenges to my authority. Even the simplest of assertions will be met with demands that I produce proof that what I say is not my mere opinion but is substantiated by legitimate sources of knowledge. His demeanor in class will often reflect defiance and condescension, which has the potential to infect the entire class. Such behaviors are designed to "put me in my place," remind me that I am merely a woman-and a black woman at that. His goal is to reinforce the long-held social hierarchy that places men, particularly white men, above all women, regardless of age, experience, or education. Harassment and the Law Such incidents occur despite the fact that policies designed to protect against discrimination and harassment have existed for over three decades. The first such law was Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was a general provision prohibiting discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, or national origin in the workplace. This was followed by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the first statute specific to educational programs. It enjoined educational institutions against discrimination or exclusion from any educational program on the basis of sex. With this statute, educational institutions were now accountable to the same non-discrimination standards established by Title VII for employment settings. However, it was not until 1980 that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) established a legal definition of sexual harassment that outlined specific behaviors that constitute sexual harassment. Sexual Harassment: An Occupational Hazard Even with these laws in place, sexual harassment is the most common occupational hazard for working women, with half of all women being sexually harassed over the course of their working lives. Sexually harassing

2018

Critical pedagogy invites dialogue among diverse and even clashing perspectives, with a mind toward resolving conflicts between perspectives without privileging any one viewpoint (including the professor or teacher’s presumably more informed expertise on relevant issues). In his reply, Jones argues persuasively that critical pedagogy can be an effective means for learning experiences that are organized around self-reflective encounters with Otherness (e.g., courses related to diversity; self-reflection; conflict management; comparative analyses of culture, etc.). However, in his piece, Jones extends his defense of critical pedagogy more generally. In the following reply, I argue against the minimization of teacher authority in undergraduate classrooms. Drawing upon sociocultural approaches to human development, genuine empowerment occurs when students gain the capacity to use cultural tools to position themselves with reference to the cultures in which they will live and work. Such tools are acquired in language-based interactions between students and more accomplished cultural agents (e.g., teachers, parents, more accomplished peers, etc.). The authority of professors in the classroom is legitimized both by their greater expertise and by their responsibility to educate students. Minimization of the legitimate authority of the teacher runs the risk of disenfranchising the very students that advocates of critical pedagogy seek to empower.

Teachers College Record, 2003

What kinds of authority relations exist in today's high schools? Throughout the last century, educational thinkers from different ideological camps have strongly advocated particular kinds of authority to promote educational aims. However, in the last few decades, sociologists of education have not adequately studied classroom authority (Hum, 1985). Drawing on an interpretive study of classroom authority relations in a U.S. metropolitan high school, this article describes and analyzes the character of these relations, and their connection to social theory and educational ideologies. It reveals that conservative, bureaucratic, progressive, and radical positions all contribute to commonsense understandings, or taken for granted notions, that produce confused and shifting enactments of authority in classrooms. While they facilitate teachers' and students' modus vivendi, these ambiguous, hybridized versions (Kliebard, 1986; Page, 1999) of authority may not adequately serve educational purposes.

Cartographies of Race and Social Difference, 2018

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 2003

The central question addressed in this essay is how students engage in a class that focuses on the political and social power of whiteness. Specifically, it looks at how whiteness gets inscribed and reified in our education practices, even as we try to disrupt its normative influence. The essay is based upon an in-depth qualitative study of a graduate seminar dedicated to addressing diversity issues critically. We conclude that despite students' expressed intentions and efforts at disrupting whiteness, they draw upon a variety of discourses that actually serve to protect and secure whiteness's dominant position. Twelve different discourses that students cite are described, grouped into four broad appeals: to self, to progress, to authenticity, and to extremes. Understanding how students invoke these discourses as an implicit way of resisting critical engagements with whiteness can help us to problematize these practices as well as cultivate more productive and enabling interactions.

English Journal, 2008

Kelly Sassi and Ebony Elizabeth Thomas describe their struggles and eventual success with students in constructing a "counternarrative to colormuteness and colorblindness"--the self-imposed student segregation and silencing of voice. Because of discussions during a Native American unit and student participation in a classroom intervention activity, interpersonal dynamics openly shifted for the better.

Understanding and Dismantling Privilege, 2014

Lorde's 1979 essay, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House" is a particularly useful contribution to academic discourse for scholar-activists seeking social justice within the academy. The ivory tower, as the name implies, can be seen as the concrete foundation of "the master's house" (Lorde, 2007), in which the majority of faculty, their pedagogies and curriculum, both normalize and privilege the white, Western, male, Christian, middle-class, and heterosexual human experience (Guy-Sheftall, 1997). This can be alienating and oppressive for both faculty and students that do not fit this model and can have insidious consequences that manifest within the classroom environment. Black women in particular are regularly confronted with a tripartite of student resistance related to our counterhegemonic and social justice-oriented curricula, frameworks, and pedagogies, as well as to our racialized and gendered bodies (Myers, 2002). In this essay, we will address the following themes: (1) the ways in which our raced and gendered bodies create challenges that inform our pedagogies, and (2) the pedagogical tools and strategies we employ in order to challenge some of the manifestations of white privilege/supremacy in the classroom, including our own oppression and experiences, and those of marginalized students.. Olivia Perlow is an assistant professor in Sociology, African and African American Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies. Her research interests include black feminist pedagogy, the corporatization of higher education, policing and mass incarceration of African Americans, and genocide in the African Diaspora. Sharon L. Bethea is an associate professor in Counselor Education, African and African American Studies, and Inner City Studies. Her research interests include African-centered therapeutic paradigms, the psychosocial and intellectual development of African American youth, Oakland Freedom Schools, and culturally responsive counselor identity development. Durene I. Wheeler is an associate professor in Educational Inquiry and Curriculum Studies, African and African American Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies. Her research interests include educational history of African Americans and women, black women and the civil rights movement, feminist perspectives in higher education, and education for liberation.

A key challenge of teaching racism in the so-called “post-racial” era is to get students to realize that racism does in fact exist. When faced with these challenges, it is not uncommon for professors to dedicate much of their time convincing students of the significance and persistence of racism. This is especially true when teaching at predominantly white institutions, where students likely do not navigate racism on an everyday basis. However, these methods may not be as effective when teaching racism at colleges, where the student body is predominantly of color, immigrant, and/or working class. Here, new challenges arise. One central challenge I have faced is teaching about the persistence of racism without disempowering students who do encounter racism in their everyday lives. In this paper, I reflect on these challenges and the strategies I developed to deal with student resistance at three different institutions. I also offer some suggestions on how our colleges and universities can create supportive environments for women and faculty of color who teach racism. This paper is intended for college faculty who teach a variety of courses in which racism is addressed centrally as well as for college administrators interested in retaining women and faculty of color.