Teaching Others: Antiracist Pedagogies  

In this thread, practitioners can select among a range of recommended materials to become familiar with some of the overarching principles and best practices in antiracist pedagogy, or your community of practice may choose to delve deeper into a particular topic therein.

In her synthesis article, “Anti-racist Pedagogy: From Faculty’s Self-Reflection to Organizing Within and Beyond the Classroom,” Kyoto Kishimoto describes antiracist pedagogy as having “three components: (1) incorporating the topics of race and inequality into course content, (2) teaching from an anti-racist pedagogical approach, and (3) anti-racist organizing within the campus and linking our efforts to the surrounding community” (540). 

The selections below attend to the principles, form, and content of antiracist pedagogy from a variety of perspectives. Feel free to choose your own adventure, or use this menu for a more guided approach:

1. Read Kishimoto’s “Antiracist Pedagogy” for an overview of antiracism in classroom contexts.
2. Use the University of Calgary’s “Lesson 1: EDI, Positionality and Intersecting Identities”  and Parker and Willsea’s “Summary of Stages of Racial Identity Development,” to reflect on your own story of racialization. 
3. Choose one of the following subtopics to explore, either individually or as a group:
   1. Decolonizing the Curriculum/Syllabus
      1. St. Clair and Kishimoto’s “Decolonizing Teaching”
      2. Mintz’s ““Decolonizing the Academy”
   2. Antiracism in STEM
      1. NPR, “Want to Dismantle Racism in Science? Start in the Classroom”
      2. How to Create a Culturally Inclusive Course and Beyond, A resource guide by Nicolette Cagle
   3. Problems and Possibilities for Antiracism in Education
      1. Bettina Love’s CNN Book Talk on We Want to Do More Than Survive
      2. Dunn, Chisholm, Spaulding, & Love,  “A Radical Doctrine: Abolitionist Education in Hard Times” 
      3. bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress

Whether you choose from the resources provided or discover additional areas, you might consult the following guiding questions for antiracist pedagogy:

1. Given my own intersecting identities, how do I benefit or experience disadvantage as a teacher in a predominantly white institution? How does my rank, role, and title contribute to that benefit and/or disadvantage?
2. How might I be received differently by my white students and students of color? How might they experience me differently from instructors with racial and other identities different from my own? 
3. In what ways might my syllabus and curriculum assume or center whiteness? 
4. Are there systems of reward and punishment (e.g. grading systems, assignment design, attendance policies) embedded in the structures of my course that may center or advantage white ways of being in the world?
5. How can I best support students of color in my courses?

Curated Materials

• Kishimoto’s “Anti-racist pedagogy: from faculty’s self-reflection to organizing within and beyond the classroom” / Link via library: https://libkey.io/libraries/600/articles/60781771/full-text-file?utm_source=api_132 
• Bettina Love’s CNN Book Talk on We Want to Do More Than Survive
• “A Radical Doctrine: Abolitionist Education in Hard Times,” by Damaris C. Dunn, Alex Chisholm, Elizabeth Spaulding, and Bettina L. Love / Link via library: https://libkey.io/libraries/600/articles/476640172/full-text-file?utm_source=api_132 
• University of Calgary’s Online Learning Module: Antiracism, EDI, and Positionality in Teaching and Learning
• “Summary of Stages of Racial Identity Development,” developed by Cynthia Silva Parker and Jen Willsea, Interaction Institute for Social Change
• NPR, “Want to Dismantle Racism in Science? Start in the Classroom”
• How to Create a Culturally Inclusive Course and Beyond, A resource guide by Nicolette Cagle with input from Nicholas School of the Environment students and Duke University faculty & staff First published July 2020; Last updated Nov. 4, 2023.
• “Decolonizing Teaching: A Cross-Curricular and Collaborative Model for Teaching about Race in the University.” St Clair, Darlene; Kishimoto, Kyoko.  Multicultural Education; San Francisco Vol. 18, Iss. 1,  (Fall 2010): 18-24. 
• bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress
• “Decolonizing the Academy Who’s afraid of the call to decolonize higher education?” By Steven Mintz
• “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack of White Privilege,” by Peggy McIntosh

Teaching Self: Marginalized Faculty & Staff Identities 

In this thread, practitioners can select from a variety of literature on faculty and staff identity in teaching and student-facing work, with a focus on equity, empowerment, and support for faculty and staff with marginalized identities. Your community of practice may choose to allow individuals to each explore the area(s) of most interest to them, or may choose a common focus area of which to explore different aspects.

In “Embodying Diversity: Problems and Paradoxes for Black Feminists,” Sara Ahmed challenges the academic paradigm that demands that all marginalized faculty and staff, including Black women and beyond, present themselves as happy and grateful visual advertisements of the institution’s diversity, rather than challenging the institution in ways that would promote genuine equity. She argues for the creative, productive power of anger, as reasonable response, as defiance of stereotype threat, and as force for change.

The readings suggested here discuss much to be angry about, but also provide opportunities to move a step beyond, and use our frustrations as the forge for better educational experiences for ourselves, our colleagues, and our students. Your community may create its own path through these concepts based on the interests of its members, or use this suggested menu for added structure:

1. 1. Read Sara Ahmed’s “Embodying Diversity” (2009) as an overarching frame.
   2. Choose one or more of the following subtopics to explore, either individually as a group:

• Classroom Strategies to Disrupt Bias
  • Key reading: Chapter 2, “Critical Reflexivity as a Tool for Students Learning to Recognize Biases: A First Day of Class Conversation on What a Professor Looks Like,” in Picture a Professor: Interrupting Biases About Faculty and Increasing Student Learning
  • Additional readings:
    • Chapter 6, “Collaborative Rubric Creation as a Queer, Transgender Professor’s Tactic for Building Trust in the Classroom,” in Picture a Professor: Interrupting Biases About Faculty and Increasing Student Learning
    • “I’m Not Saying This to be Petty”: Reflections on Making Disability Visible While Teaching, from Lived Experiences of Ableism in Academia: Strategies for Inclusion in Higher Education 
    • Hill, D. C. (2017). What happened when I invited students to see me? A Black queer professor’s reflections on practicing embodied vulnerability in the classroom. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 21(4), 432–442.
    • Johnson, L. L. (2017). The Racial Hauntings of One Black Male Professor and the Disturbance of the Self(ves): Self-Actualization and Racial Storytelling as Pedagogical Practices. Journal of Literacy Research, 49(4), 476–502. 

• Being Our Whole Selves at Work
  • Key reading: Chapter 15, “Teaching Up: Bringing My Blackness Into the Classroom,” in Picture a Professor: Interrupting Biases About Faculty and Increasing Student Learning
  • Additional readings:
    • Chapter 4, “My Identity is My Strength,” in Creating Space for Ourselves As Minoritized and Marginalized Faculty: Narratives That Humanize the Academy
    • Chapter 5, “Letters,” from Stories from the Front of the Room: How Higher Education Faculty of Color Overcome Challenges and Thrive in the Academy
    • “How to Make Room for Neurodivergent Professors”, from the Chronicle of Higher Education 
    • Accardo, A. L., Bomgardner, E. M., Rubinstein, M. B., & Woodruff, J. (2024). Valuing neurodiversity on campus: Perspectives and priorities of neurodivergent students, faculty, and professional staff. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. 

• Existing in (Un)Settled Spaces
  • Key reading: Chapter 1, “Disrupting and Reimagining Faculty Success,” in Creating Space for Ourselves As Minoritized and Marginalized Faculty: Narratives That Humanize the Academy
  • Additional readings:
    • Chapter 2, “Ways to Move: Presence, Participation, and Resistance in Kairotic Space,” in Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life 
    • Chapter 8, “Brown in Black and White: On Being A South Asian Woman Academic,” in Strangers of the Academy: Asian Women Scholars in Higher Education
    • Atay, A. (2019). Merit, diversity, and resilience: An international faculty perspective. Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, 8(4), 30–34.
    • Chapter 3, “Transforming the Professoriate by Leaning into the Liminality of Our Caregiver/Faculty Positionality,” in Creating Space for Ourselves As Minoritized and Marginalized Faculty: Narratives That Humanize the Academy

• Managing Battle Fatigue and Burnout
  • Key reading: Chapter 11, “Finding Space for Faculty Well-Being in Higher Education,” in Creating Space for Ourselves As Minoritized and Marginalized Faculty: Narratives That Humanize the Academy
  • Additional readings:
    • Chapter 8 - Preserving the Mental Health of Black and Brown Professors in Academia in We’re Not OK: Black Faculty Experiences and Higher Education Strategies
    • Robinson, S. (2022). Trans faculty and queer battle fatigue: poetic (re)presentations of navigating identity politics in the academy. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 35(9), 911–927.
    • Chapter 10, “Care Work: The Invisible Labor of Asian American Women in Academia,” from Fight the Tower: Asian American Women Scholars’ Resistance and Renewal in the Academy
    • “Queer Faculty and Staff of Color: Experiences and Expectations” in Queer People of Color in Higher Education

1. What are the ways staff and faculty with marginalized identities are asked to “embody diversity” on behalf of the institution, in the classroom and out of it? How does this affect us?
2. How do our intersecting identities as faculty and staff play out and impact us in the classroom, and/or in other student-facing work? How do they impact our interactions with students – those who share our identities and those who do not?
3. How can we balance care for ourselves, our colleagues, our students, and our work amid the “soreness” Ahmed acknowledges: the cumulative and lasting pain from day-to-day experiences of oppression? How can productive resistance, anger, and critique serve as a way that we care for ourselves, as well as our educational environment?

Curated Materials

• Key framing texts:
  • Ahmed, S. (2009). Embodying diversity: problems and paradoxes for Black feminists. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 12(1), 41–52.
  • Neuhaus, J. (Ed.). (2022). Picture a professor: Interrupting biases about faculty and increasing student learning. West Virginia University Press.
  • Garcia-Louis, C., Ardoin, S., Shalka, T. R., McGuire, K. M., & Parker, E. T. (2024). Creating space for ourselves as minoritized and marginalized faculty: Narratives that humanize the academy. Taylor & Francis Group.
• Additional readings:
  • “I’m Not Saying This to be Petty”: Reflections on Making Disability Visible While Teaching, from Lived Experiences of Ableism in Academia: Strategies for Inclusion in Higher Education 
  • Hill, D. C. (2017). What happened when I invited students to see me? A Black queer professor’s reflections on practicing embodied vulnerability in the classroom. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 21(4), 432–442.
  • Johnson, L. L. (2017). The Racial Hauntings of One Black Male Professor and the Disturbance of the Self(ves): Self-Actualization and Racial Storytelling as Pedagogical Practices. Journal of Literacy Research, 49(4), 476–502. 
  • Chapter 5, “Letters,” from Stories from the Front of the Room: How Higher Education Faculty of Color Overcome Challenges and Thrive in the Academy
  • “How to Make Room for Neurodivergent Professors”, from the Chronicle of Higher Education 
  • Accardo, A. L., Bomgardner, E. M., Rubinstein, M. B., & Woodruff, J. (2024). Valuing neurodiversity on campus: Perspectives and priorities of neurodivergent students, faculty, and professional staff. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. 
  • Chapter 2, “Ways to Move: Presence, Participation, and Resistance in Kairotic Space,” in Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life 
  • Chapter 8, “Brown in Black and White: On Being A South Asian Woman Academic,” in Strangers of the Academy: Asian Women Scholars in Higher Education
  • Atay, A. (2019). Merit, diversity, and resilience: An international faculty perspective. Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, 8(4), 30–34.
  • Chapter 8 - Preserving the Mental Health of Black and Brown Professors in Academia in We’re Not OK: Black Faculty Experiences and Higher Education Strategies
  • Robinson, S. (2022). Trans faculty and queer battle fatigue: poetic (re)presentations of navigating identity politics in the academy. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 35(9), 911–927.
  • Chapter 10, “Care Work: The Invisible Labor of Asian American Women in Academia,” from Fight the Tower: Asian American Women Scholars’ Resistance and Renewal in the Academy
  • “Queer Faculty and Staff of Color: Experiences and Expectations” in Queer People of Color in Higher Education

• Other resources:
  • “Summary of Stages of Racial Identity Development,” developed by Cynthia Silva Parker and Jen Willsea, Interaction Institute for Social Change.