Magic and Hocus Pocus: Teaching for Social Justice in a Qualitative Methods Course

In this manuscript, we work to define and unpack what teaching for social justice means for us as instructors of an introductory qualitative methods course at an ultraconservative institution. We focus on our intentionality in curating readings, designing specific fieldwork assignments, and prompting reflective work for adult graduate students in the course. This intentionality provides various inroads to develop and support student learning around qualitative methods, to reveal meta narratives and dominant ideologies, to critically think and “trouble” those narratives, and opportunities to name lived experiences and observations in systems of oppression and privilege

“Diversity & Inclusion & Free Speech & Civility”: Oppression and Marginalization through Diversity Rhetoric

As higher education institutions increasingly roll out diversity and inclusion initiatives, they intend to signal particular commitments. In this manuscript, we employ critical literacy as a framework for understanding the text and subtext of moments on our campus related to diversity and inclusion offices and initiatives. We first present the text of two particular moments, including the actual text of signs, messages, and conversations, but also including as a text the actions and inactions of university administrators. For each moment, we first present the text, including the actual or physical text(s), the superficial meaning(s), and the sequence of events. Then, we present the subtext and critical reading of the moment. We argue that universities take up the language and (il)logics of diversity discourses to perpetuate inequity and injustice and to reproduce white supremacist cisheteropatriarchy

Relevance, Representation, and Responsibility: Exploring World Language Teachers’ Critical Consciousness and Pedagogies

Critical pedagogical work hinges upon teachers’ critical consciousness about students’ identities that constitute ‘diversity’ and how they are situated within systems of oppression and privilege. In this study, survey data were collected from practicing world language teachers’ (WLTs) to explore their beliefs about the extent to which dimensions of students’ identities played a role in their language teaching practices. Additionally, these data captured their beliefs about the extent to which teachers, administrators, curriculum developers, and schools should be responsible for addressing identity dimensions, such as ethnoracial status, gender, socioeconomic status, and faith. Results from cluster analyses indicated that teachers’ orientations varied systematically: a first belief orientation locates neither teachers nor schools as responsible, and that student ‘diversity’ may be irrelevant to education; a second orientation locates both teachers and schools as having shared responsibility, but that some identities might be irrelevant to teaching and learning; a third orientation wherein teachers viewed some identity dimensions as more relevant to their teaching practices than others, suggesting that, although teachers may be critically conscious about identity, that consciousness may not translate to critical pedagogical practices; and a last orientation that suggests critically conscious language teachers who also endorse learner-centered teaching practices. Findings from this study illuminate new theoretical and conceptual spaces about WLTs’ sense of responsibility and advocacy for both students and the ways they position their classrooms as sites of critical pedagogies. These findings have implications for teacher leaders and teacher educators as they work to build teacher capacities for engaging in critical pedagogies that examine systems of oppression and privilege in language classrooms

Teaching for Social Justice in Qualitative Methods: Examples from Class

In this paper, we highlight activities that we have integrated into our qualitative methods coursework that prompt conversations about issues of justice in education, centering equity even as we engage in student-centered pedagogies. For example, we have been intentional about curating and assigning readings—as methodological exemplars—that introduce critical perspectives including feminism, critical race theory, queer theories, critical whiteness studies, post-colonial theory, and disability studies. Having read and discussed this work, we push students to engage in reflective journaling unpacking identity and reconsidering discourse. We also push them to query their own practices of data generation through these lenses, asking: What does it mean to present participants in these terms? Our hope is that the dissonance our students experience in the context of our classes is carried out into their communities and future research endeavors, prompting them to explore how power shapes everyday, lived experiences