Education Commons^™

A Call To Examine Queer Instructors’ Identity Disclosures In The Classroom, Mac Clark

Feminist Pedagogy

Despite the academy and students’ attitudes progressing towards queer instructors (Boren & McPherson, 2018), there is limited scholarship regarding the disclosure of queer identities in the classroom. In ignoring issues of queer disclosure, the communication discipline fails to challenge heteronormative assumptions of instructor identity. My Critical Commentary asks feminist scholars to go beyond traditional conceptions of instructor identities to combat this marginalization. I assert researchers should prioritize deconstructing heteronormativity, apply queer theory, and revisit notions of the classroom closet in their scholarship. By doing so, I argue communication scholars will equip institutions to better support queer faculty and students alike.

Real #Hotgirl Sh*T: Practical Application Of Intersectional Re-Presentation Instruction, Jessica F. Love

Feminist Pedagogy

This critical commentary outlines how the Real #HotGirl Sh*T: Megan Thee Stallion & Mediated Hip Hop, Black Feminist and Communication Pedagogy promotes active learning via popular culture and digital media, and it provides a practical model for employing intersectionality in classroom settings. Previous critical media pedagogy exploring minority media re-presentation primarily focused on the effects of master narratives produced by traditional media. This syllabus's incorporation of social and digital media helps students understand how collective minority groups use and interact with media as a political tool to challenge re-presentational regimes. More importantly, this syllabus employs real-world examples of popular culture …

Bi-Negativity: An Assessment Of Negativity Surrounding Bisexuality From The Lgbtq+ And Heterosexual Communities, Whitney R. Ford

The Confluence

This study was conducted to test the hypothesis that negative attitudes towards bisexual people (bi-negativity) exists within the LGBTQ+ and heterosexual communities and to determine if levels of bi-negativity are higher within the LGBTQ+ group. I administered the Gender-Based Attitudes Towards Bisexuality (GBAB) Scale by Nielsen et al. (2022) to measure bi-negativity using an online survey. The results, obtained from 87 participants who identify as LGBTQ+ and 121 participants who identify as heterosexual between the ages of 18 and 80, support my hypothesis that bi-negativity exists within both groups. However, contrary to my second hypothesis, higher levels of bi-negativity were …

Sharp Stick Grasps At Autistic Women’S Liminal Vulnerability, Meaghan Krazinski

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This film analysis of Sharp Stick by Lena Dunham critically explores how the film uptakes representations of the ideas around the vulnerabilities of Autistic women in popular culture, and yet does not explicitly name them as such. This liminality is critical and plays into the intersectional analysis that the author engages around the way vulnerability and Autistic identity is interpreted and read. The author draws upon McDermott's (2022) "neurotypical gaze" in an analysis that shows how traditional tropes around Autistic women’s vulnerability are social constructions that are brought into relief by stereotypes around race, gender, and ability. The author uses …

Calling In Antiracist Accomplices Beyond The Writing Center, Hillary Coenen

Writing Center Journal

A reflective, ethnographic study of a grassroots, antiracist educational workshop (The Conversation Workshops, TCW) reveals that writing center (WC) pedagogy and feminist invitational rhetoric’s (FIR) influence on TCW enables participants to recognize their own and their partners’ expertise, meaningful experiences, valuable perspectives, and their need to be listened to, accounted for, and understood. In an invitational model, particularly one based on a one-with- one, interpersonal dynamic, participants are more like collaborators than audiences, an approach that can be applied in diverse educational settings, and which reflects the WC’s model of one-with- one pedagogy. This dynamic also reveals one of TCW’s …

Generative Ai And Opportunities For Feminist Classroom Assignments, Sarah F. Small

Feminist Pedagogy

Handwringing about ChatGPT and generative AI has penetrated teaching circles. Many educators are concerned it will disrupt education in negative ways. However, I introduce two approaches to assignments in which students work in tandem with AI to develop better understandings of reflexivity and feminist epistemology. I believe, if we are intentional in our teaching practice, our educational responses to generative AI can be in feminist directions.

“Come Think With Me”: Finding Communion In The Liberatory Textual Practices Of Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Jehan L. Roberson

Criticism

Defining text as anything that can be read, self-identified learner and artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed explores reading as radical communion within her multifaceted textual practice. A 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, Rasheed’s work spans vast bodies of knowledge and temporalities to interrogate both the aesthetic and the limits of the text. At times producing collages with letters cut out from books in her own expansive library, and at other times posting scans from various books that are marked up with her rigorous note-taking, Rasheed approaches the text as an invitation to commune with the author in order to collectively arrive at new …

Du Undergraduate Showcase: Research, Scholarship, And Creative Works, Caitlyn Aldersea, Justin Bravo, Sam Allen, Anna Block, Connor Block, Emma Buechler, Maria De Los Angeles Bustillos, Arianna Carlson, William Christensen, Olivia Kachulis, Noah Craver, Kate Dillon, Muskan Fatima, Angel Fernandes, Emma Finch, Colleen Cassidy, Amy Fishman, Andrea Francis, Stacia Fritz, Simran Gill, Emma Gries, Rylie Hansen, Shannon Powers, Jacqueline Martinez, Zachary Harker, Ashley Hasty, Mykaela Tanino-Springsteen, Kathleen Hopps, Adelaide Kerenick, Colin Kleckner, Ci Koehring, Elijah Kruger, Braden Krumholz, Maddie Leake, Lyneé Alves, Seraphina Loukas, Yatzari Lozano Vazquez, Haley Maki, Emily Martinez, Sierra Mckinney, Mykaela Tanino-Springsteen, Audrey Mitchell, Kipling Newman, Audrey Ng, Megan Lucyshyn, Andrew Nguyen, Stevie Ostman, Casandra Pearson, Alexandra Penney, Julia Gielczynski, Tyler Ball, Anna Rini, Christina Rorres, Simon Ruland, Helayna Schafer, Emma Sellers, Sarah Schuller, Claire Shaver, Kevin Summers, Isabella Shaw, Madison Sinar, Claudia Pena, Apshara Siwakoti, Carter Sorensen, Madi Sousa, Anna Sparling, Alexandra Revier, Brandon Thierry, Dylan Tyree, Maggie Williams, Lauren Wols

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

DU Undergraduate Showcase: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Works

Teaching Activism: The Feminist Pedagogical Possibilities Of Why We Fly, Miranda M. Findlay

Beyond the Margins: A Journal of Graduate Literary Scholarship

Young adult fiction possesses the pedagogical power to educate young readers about activism, and more recently, authors of the genre have answered the call from young aspiring activists to deliver narratives that are reflective of and relevant to their own lives and communities. Published in October of 2021, the novel Why We Fly illustrates the complexities of participating in social justice activism while also providing entertaining and inspiring characters. In honor of Colin Kaepernick, authors Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal craft the fictional hero Cody Knight who encourages the text’s young protagonists to look at the world around them to …

Journeying Toward Liberation: Creating Civic Utopias Through Restorative Literacies, Rae L. Oviatt, Megan Mcelwee, Owen Farney

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

In this article, we forward three narratives from educators whose lived experiences moving from underrepresented youth to queer educators support the necessity of furthering representation for historically marginalized youth across classroom spaces. We begin with situating our argument in response to current policies that would seek to silence historically marginalized voices, histories, literacies, and thereby inhibit a more just social and civic future. Our narratives provide three varied perspectives of lived experiences as youth moving toward our current status as queer educators. Finally, we seek to call in other educators to engage advocacy and resources to support this work in …

Sharing Walks As A Witnessing Practice: Exploring Movement-Based Pedagogies, Catalina Hernandez-Cabal

Feminist Pedagogy

How we walk—or our inability to do so—is telling of who we have been. I propose this simple movement practice as a pedagogical engagement with the concept of faithful witnessing, which refers to attending to modes of power unbalance that might go unnoticed, and to people's creative and resistant possibilities (Lugones, 2003; Figueroa-Vásquez, 2015). This activity is suggested to provoke reflections about how we understand and experience social difference and power unbalances. The work introduces a simple score (a creative prompt) to explore walking-with others, creating instructions to teach others our movement, learning others', and delving into conversations concerning the …

A Transgressive Pedagogy Of Tenderness In Hybrid Education, April M. Jones, Stephanie Anne Shelton

Feminist Pedagogy

In the midst of the dual/dueling pandemics COVID-19 and anti-Black racism, the instructors considered how best to have the course requirements for a qualitative research course meet students' personal and academic needs, while managing students' and their own exhaustion and fear. Through hybrid Zoom-based focus groups, instructors and students applied a "pedagogy of tenderness" that centered care and humanity as essential to classroom interactions and learning.

Practical Femininity: The Student Development Of Legally Blonde’S Elle Woods, Elizabeth S. Rodericks

The Graduate Review

College experiences often involve challenges that can provide the impetus for personal and professional growth. Likewise, Elle Woods of the film Legally Blonde undergoes multiple significant changes in her sense of identity, morality, and ability to take charge of her own life after she is forced to radically change her perspective and priorities. This paper covers her development as a law student and individual according to the student development theories of Chickering’s Seven Vectors of Identity Development, Gilligan’s Theory of Women’s Moral Development, and Baxter Magolda’s Self-Authorship Theory. As a result of her growth, Elle Woods flourishes into a confident, …

Archiving Feminist Truth In Trump’S Wake Of Lies, Julie Shayne

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

This article is about an assignment I do in one of my Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies social movement classes. I revised the assignment the first time teaching the class after Trump lost the 2020 election. For the assignment, students work in groups to research local feminist and gender justice organizations and deposit all of their original materials – recordings, photos, flyers, etc. – into a digital, open access archive I co-created several years ago with librarians and staff on my campus. In 2021 I had my students do the “post-Trump” edition where they researched local organizations about how their …

A Reflection On The Scope Of Feminist Pedagogy In Indian Tertiary Education, Sreemoyee Sarkar, Anirban Debsarma

Feminist Pedagogy

The Indian National Education Policy seek to restructure and standardize the higher education institution (HEI) curriculum and look forward to a futuristic, meritocratic, equitable, and multidisciplinary pedagogy. Present work critically analyses the scope of Feminist Pedagogy in the Indian higher education scenario, in this regard. It would try to offer an active participatory teaching-learning strategy to dismantle the existing gender hierarchy and oppression in Indian HEIs.

On The Struggles And Experiences Of Southeast Asian American Academics, Long T. Bui

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This article examines Southeast Asian Americans (SEAA) academics in the U.S. academy, relating their complex positionalities within higher education to their communities and societies. While many educational studies have been done on SEAA students, almost none focus on professional scholars and college faculty. Combining cultural-structural critique with close analysis of public writings and personal interviews, the article finds that that SEAA are ignored, and/or tokenized in the Ivory Tower due to structural as well as epistemological issues. It indicates that the public discourse and policies about Southeast Asians in academia not only neglects racial and class hierarchies, but obscures issues …

Black Feminist Love: An Open Letter To My Children, Katie Harlan Eller

Occasional Paper Series

In an open letter to my young twins, I reflect on an open letter from the past and consider the context of this one: the historic moment of living through a pandemic anticipating a presidential election in 2020. In this reflection, I document the circumstances of our family’s life and turn toward what we are learning. My children have taught me to recognize my need for and commitment to Black feminist conceptions of love. I share a story and imagine letting go of conditional, enwhitened love that fears discomfort. Black feminist conceptions of love cannot coexist with fear and must …

Being Against The Black: Bad Faith And Anti-Black Racism (Guest Editors' Introduction), Amir A. Gilmore, Latoya Brackett, Davida Sharpe-Haygood

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

As a special journal issue, the guest editors continued their study on (anti)blackness within K-12 schooling and teacher preparation programs. Through the introduction’s white space, the guest editors attempt to theorize and center (anti)Blackness. Moreover, they existentially critique the “ordinary” assumptions about who can be a human and explain why Black existence continues on despite their collective suffering. The introductory article is organized as follows: (1) a thorough explanation of bad faith and antiblackness, (2) an illustration of antiblackness’ manifestations in K-12 schooling, and (3) the importance of using jazz as an analytic frame to curate the contributors’ scholarship.

Afro-Brazilian Cosmology As Praxis For Student Affairs, Catarina E. Campbell

The Vermont Connection

In this article, one will find a friendly introduction to several orixás, the archetypal forces of nature in Yoruban and Afro-Brazilian cosmology, in order to explore the applicability of their teachings within the realm of student affairs. With each orixá comes a teaching story, series of reflection questions, and a tangible pedagogical practice. When employed with reverence to their origin and context, these tools can catalyze self-development, sense of purpose, and breadth of perspective for both for our students and ourselves.

Angry White Men On Campus: Theoretical Perspectives And Recommended Responses, Kyle C. Ashlee, Pietro A. Sasso, Christina Witkowicki

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

In this article, the authors explore a rise in violent protest among white college men, theoretical interpretations of this trend, and recommendations that student affairs educators can implement to address the harmful acts of white male on campus. By examining hegemonic masculinity, the theory of dispossession, anomic protest masculinity, and white men’s disengagement in college, student affairs professionals can begin to understand the larger contemporary trend of student activism among white college men. Moreover, evaluating common strategies for engaging college men, including behavior-only approaches, bad-dogging accountability practices, and white privilege pedagogy, educators can gain perspective on how current responses in …

Cissexism And Precarity Perform Trans Subjectivities, Kevin Jenkins

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Precarity is not experienced by all. Rather, as Judith Butler (2009) notes, it is the extreme state of precariousness—a heightened exposure to institutional and social violence imposed on marginalized populations such as people of color, non-white immigrants, people of non-Christian faiths, and LGBTQ+ people. Nor does precarity impact the people in these groups evenly.

The three digital artworks in this series highlight some of the ways in which trans people navigate precarity and are performed by it. The lifetime suicide attempt rate for trans and gender non-conforming people averages at 41% with the highest rate at 46% reported by trans …

Precarity In Feminism And Feminist Art Education: Decentering Whiteness Through Reproductive Justice Activism, Michelle Bae-Dimitriadis, Olga Ivashkevich

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

The article addresses precarity in mainstream feminism and feminist art education as a systemic dismissal and exclusion of the critical concerns and voices by disenfranchised women of color from its narratives and agendas. It draws on a case of the reproductive justice feminist activism to illustrate how the mainstream pro-choice feminist movement neglected the urgent and often life threatening reproductive concerns by Black, Brown, Indigenous and immigrant women, which led to an establishment of the reproductive justice coalitions by activists of color. The reproductive justice movement is an important call to action to challenge and decenter Whiteness in mainstream feminism …

Pink And Blue Lenses: Duoethnographic Reflections On Biological Sex In Conservative Christian Education, Phillip A. Olt, Linly Stowe

The Qualitative Report

In this duoethnography, we explored how experiences in conservative Christian high schools were viewed through the different lenses of our binary-constructed, biological sexes. Our perceptions varied along the axes of gendered roles, gendered responsibilities, and romance and sexuality. Through reflecting on our own experiences, we critiqued what we were taught and the lasting repercussions those teachings left on our lives. The approach of indoctrination proved counterproductive in our schools, as graduates left unprepared to enter meaningful romantic relationships or to encounter a world outside their previously sheltered environs.

They’Re Crying In The All-Gender Bathroom: Navigating Belonging In Higher Education While First Generation And Nonbinary, Jo D. Wilson

The Vermont Connection

Maintaining the sociocultural and interpersonal supports needed

to succeed in higher education as a first-generation student can

be very difficult due to a lack of familiarity with what brings

success. When this identity intersects with a nonbinary gender

identity, it further complicates higher education’s challenges and

may make solutions impossible to come by. My experience sits at

the intersection of these two identities and their gradual collision

and connection with success in higher education. Through this

narrative, I seek to unpack potential difficulties and nuances

for the increasingly diverse body of first generation students and

bring attention to the barriers …

Gender Identity And Facebook: Social Conservatism And Saving Face, Nastaran Khoshsabk, Jane Southcott

The Qualitative Report

People increasingly log on to Social Networking Websites to remain updated with the latest News and to share their thoughts and their significant life events. Their perception of their own and others’ identities influences their self-presentation on social media. There is a mental image of the audience on the mind of online users when they share content. The extent to which individuals reveal or conceal aspects of their identities within a socio-cultural context affects the presentation of their digital gender identity. We have explored Internet accessibility and use of social media relating to adult users for both Iranians living in …

Looking More Into Our Economic Class: Makings Of A Standpoint, Jessica Eylem

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

Everyone has their own experiences that lead them to their own feminist consciousness. It creates who we are, both as a person and as a feminist. My own experiences in life have led me to consider the standpoints of class within our society, especially within academia. From the beginning of my academic career, I have been told to hide the social class that I am in to fit in with those around me. Academia is based off of appearance, perpetuated by the glass ceiling and everyone is expected to behave and act in a certain way to succeed. Through a …

Voice Of The Voiceless: The Project Of Black Identity In Carrie Mae Weems’S From Here I Saw What Happened And I Cried, Emma K. Ferguson

Race and Pedagogy Journal: Teaching and Learning for Justice

Of the pieces shown in the 2016 exhibit “30 Americans” at the Tacoma Art Museum, Carrie Mae Weems's "From here I saw what happened and I cried" (1995-1996) was one of the most impactful. Weems's piece is composed of 33 toned images - with two blue-toned images bookending the other red-toned images - framed in circular mattes with sandblasted text over the glass frame. For this work, Weems re-presents daguerreotypes commissioned by Louis Agassiz in 1850; Each portrait, toned in blood-red, has a sandblasted text overlay that, when put together, presents an American narrative of black identity (the full text …

Moving The Needle On Equity And Inclusion, Kris De Welde Ph.D.

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

This article, adapted from an invited lecture given by the author, addresses intersectional inequalities in U.S. higher education, particularly as they impact faculty. With a focus on structure, culture, and climate, current data is presented, highlighting the variety of ways in which academia remains stratified. These patterns contribute to continued inequality, inequity, marginalization and discrimination. A secondary focus is on change, on “moving the needle,” exploring specific strategies for how institutions can transform and individuals can labor as change agents for equity and inclusivity.

Equity-Minded High-Impact Learning: A Short-Term Approach To Student-Faculty Collaborative Research, Valerie Chepp

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

This article explores the potential for high-impact learning practices—and specifically student-faculty collaborative research—to address inequality in U.S. institutions of higher education. In theory, student-faculty research holds much promise for promoting diversity and social justice in higher education. This high-impact practice reflects ideals around collaboration and mentoring, and offers a more egalitarian approach to the traditional student-faculty power relationship. In practice, however, collaborative research runs the risk of reproducing inequality, thereby undermining its transformative potential. Drawing upon bell hooks’ (1994) notion of radical pedagogy, and in the spirit of being equity-minded, I propose a short-term version of student-faculty collaborative research. This …

I Would Teach It, But I Don't Know How: Faculty Perceptions Of Cultural Competency In The Health Sciences, A Case Study Analysis, Andrew J. Young, Michelle L. Ramirez

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

This paper presents results from a survey of faculty perceptions of cultural competency training at “Health Sciences University,” a small, private university in a major city in the Northeastern United States. We found high levels of support among faculty for cultural competency training for students in bench and health sciences broadly, though data suggests that faculty are unsure how to effectively teach cultural competency and how to evaluate its effectiveness. Placing this data alongside literature exploring the lack of diversity and a “chilly climate” in STEM and health science disciplines for marginalized groups, we argue for 1) a need to …