Making Sense of Teaching in Difficult Times

Penny Burke, Suellen Shay

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781317290315
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

Thinking about teaching in educational terms has become increasingly difficult because of the conceptions of higher education that predominate in both policy and public debate. Framing the benefits of higher education simply as an economic good poses particular difficulties for making educational sense of teaching. Moreover, the assumptions about social mobility, usefulness, and the economic advantages of higher education, upon which these conceptions are based, can no longer be taken for granted.

The chapters in this book all wrestle with understandings of education and teaching experiences in changing global, national, and institutional contexts. They explore questions of difference and privilege, the social transformation of teaching through transforming teachers, contestations of global citizenship and interculturality, learning and sensibilities of self-in-the-world, the relationship between programme content and student decision-making, divergent conceptions of learning in international education, and subject-centred approaches to embodied teaching. The book considers the value of disciplinary tools of analysis in addressing contextual challenges in developing societies, connections between pedagogies, autonomy and intercultural classrooms, and ways of countering the marketization of higher education through online teaching communities. This book was originally published as a special issue of Teaching in Higher Education.

Difficult times for college students of color: teaching white students about White Privilege provides hope for change

Su L. Boatright-Horowitz, Savannah Frazier, Yvette Harps-Logan and Nathanial Crockett

Psychology Department, University of Rhode Island, Kingstown, USA

The prevalence of racism and racial microaggressions on college campuses is discussed, as well as the negative effects of these occurrences for students of color. An important teaching tool for changing white students’ attitudes about racism is presented with an empirical evaluation of its effectiveness. Students read McIntosh’s list of White Privileges rating their agreement that each item is a White Privilege in modern US society. Pre-test and post-test questionnaires revealed that white students became more sensitive to issues of racism after this experience. Specifically, these students became more likely to agree that: racism occurs today, racism affects their behavior, they personally benefit from White Privilege, whites in modern society can be viewed as racist, and that they reported that they would be more likely to join student organizations or attend campus events focusing on reducing racism. Regression analyses identified examples of White Privileges with the greatest effect.

Introduction

These are difficult times for persons of color in higher education and in the greater society. Whites in the USA, if not in many countries, tend to view racism as a social problem that has essentially been solved already and they typically believe that racist disparities are confined to the distant historical past (e.g. Bischoping et al. 2001; Boatright-Horowitz 2005). In fact, Norton and Sommers (2011) demonstrated that the majority of white individuals view themselves to be victims of reverse racism more than they view Blacks to be victims of racism. Yet, evidence suggests that racism is still part of the daily lives of persons of color, not only overtly (e.g. Brewster and Rusche 2012) but also in the form of racial microaggressions, or ‘the brief, commonplace, and daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental slights and indignities directed toward Black Americans, often automatically and unintentionally’ (Sue, Capodilupo, and Holder 2008, 329). Racial microaggressions are global occurrences that affect, among others, British Asians (Burdsey 2011). In academic settings, microaggressions may involve a professor mentioning the articulateness of a student of color and expressing surprise, or it may involve white students stereotyping black individuals as criminal, poor, or disadvantaged. Persons of color may feel discomforted or insulted, but they are likely to experience difficulty discussing it because they can expect to be perceived as overreacting by whites to minor or nonexistent racist offenses. Lowe, Okubo, and Reilly (2012, 193) described the effects of the trauma that can be caused by encounters with racism, as well as the secondary trauma that resulted when others ‘minimized, dismissed, or blamed the individual for the racism they encountered’. In some cases (e.g. professor and student), there may be power disparities that make the situation even more complicated. Thus, these are particularly difficult times for students of color on college campuses because the social climate is still racist and many whites fail to acknowledge this problem. We discuss occurrences of racism and microaggressions as they occur on university and college campuses today, as well as the potential negative effects on students of color. We also present a teaching tool for reducing racism in white students, providing empirical evidence of its effectiveness. Although our focus is primarily on racism as it affects black or African American students on college campuses in the USA today, this information may be generalized to university or college students of other non-white ethnicities, as well as students of color from other countries.

Racism on university and college campuses

The existence of racism (e.g. Brewster and Rusche 2012), particularly as it occurs on predominantly white college campuses, is unequivocal. McCarthy (1993) described incidences of overt racism on college campuses, including physical beatings of black individuals, cross-burnings, mock slave auctions with the ‘slaves’ wearing afro wigs, ‘jungle parties’ in which white fraternity brothers wore black body paint and rings in their noses. Schwitzer et al. (1999) reported that African American students tend to experience predominantly white campuses as ‘hostile’ and ‘foreign’, also indicating that this uncomfortable day-to-day feeling of being socially distanced was an unexpected experience for them. One student stated that she ‘… always felt isolated’. ‘When you enter a room, you look for another Black person and you always speak’ (p. 192). Furthermore, African American students reported a sense of intimidation when they contacted faculty outside of the classroom (e.g. ‘Some professors feel I need help because I am Black’.) Bunzel (1991) conducted an investigation of the experiences of students at Stanford University and reported that 95% of blacks felt that they did not fit into the campus community. More than 70% of these black participants said that they felt that they were viewed as lacking academic competence by faculty and others on campus. McClelland and Auster (1990) reported that white students desire significantly greater distance from black students than vice versa, pointing out that white students experience campus climates as relatively calm, whereas black students are necessarily more attuned to covert racial tensions. Vaccaro (2010) used qualitative analyses to investigate the campus climate for women and persons of minority status at a predominantly white college campus in New England. Open-ended questionnaire items resulted in hostile, anti-diversity, sexist, and insulting responses (e.g. ‘Students really do not care about race or sexual identity … administrative suits like the ones that came up with this shit survey do!’) and when asked about what they like about the campus, ‘Hot blonde girls, tons of money spent for landscaping campus, classes not hard’ (pp. 209–210). Vaccaro concluded that these were more than just immature comments from undergraduate students because hostility about diversity issues occurred for graduate students, faculty and staff, particularly males. On another college campus, Sydell and Nelson (2000) reported that 65% of black students reported experiences of verbal racial harassment, while about 50% of white students admitted to exhibiting open dislike (e.g. name calling, physical violence, negative facial expressions) toward others because of their race. We can only conclude that racism, both overt and covert, continues to occur on college campuses today.

The effects of racism on students of color

It is well known that exposure to racism and perceptions of racist events serve as strong predictors of psychological stress in black Americans (e.g. Pieterse et al. 2010). Even covert forms of racism are detrimental to students, in part because they are subtle and difficult for black students to discuss with others (Bunzel 1991). When black students attempt to describe their feelings of discomfort, exclusion, and alienation at predominantly white campuses, they risk being viewed as ‘complainers’ or ‘paranoids’ who are simply seeking illegitimate special favors (McClelland and Auster 1990). Many attempts to discuss issues of privilege and covert racism with white individuals tend to be met with a wall of indifference (or even hostility) that is difficult to penetrate. Smith, Hung, and Franklin (2011) referred to the consequences of racism in black male college students as Racial Battle Fatigue. Chao, Mallinckrodt, and Meifen (2012) studied archival records for black or African American college students, most of whom were located on predominantly white campuses, and reported that perceived racial discrimination was associated with a broad range of co-occurring presenting problems, including academic, interpersonal, and psychological/emotional issues. Scholars agree that the effects of racial discrimination are psychologically harmful and cumulative. Sue et al. (2008) pointed out the need to proactively provide effective therapies for victims of racial microaggressions. This problem is serious. Black students on our college campuses are vulnerable to racial violence, exposed to psychological stressors in the form of careless racial comments and jokes (McClelland and Auster 1990), and they are embedded in systematically racist academic institutions with few black faculty and administrators (Jayakumar et al. 2009).

Can educational interventions reduce racism?

There is hope for students of color. Research has shown that social climates on college campuses can have a significant impact on the academic success of African American college students. Schwitzer et al. (1999) reported that warmer (i.e. less racist) institutional climates are associated with higher graduation rates for black students. Yet, McClelland and Auster (1990) reported that there were no significant differences across class levels (i.e. seniors were no different from freshmen), and they concluded that the years that students spent on college campuses had little or no effect on racist attitudes in white students. On the other hand, using meta-analysis, Denson (2009) concluded that institutional effort can result in measurable changes. According to Denson (2009; adapted from Dovidio et al. 2004), racism can be reduced through intentional use of curricular and co-curricular activities that involve enlightenment and/or inter-group contact. Personal enlightenment is a result of expanding an individual’s content-based knowledge of other groups or altering the individual’s perspective about relations with others. It therefore seems reasonable to suggest that exposure to examples of racism can facilitate personal enlightenment about racism, which can be enhanced by inter-group discussions about White Privilege.

A teaching tool for reducing racism

For many years, the large General Psychology course (typically, more than 700 students) at our institution has included a course module with class discussions of White Privilege (McIntosh 1988). The effectiveness of this course module has been assessed periodically (e.g. Boatright-Horowitz 2005), including replication with a yoked control group on a different campus (unpublished data). In 2009, the use of this course module resulted in an award from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology for infusing diversity into teaching. Based on class discussions with thousands of students over the years, it seemed clear that exposure to McIntosh’s (1988) list of White Privileges was a major factor in changing white students’ attitudes about racism. In 1988, Peggy McIntosh published a list of the many privileges in daily life that are the direct result of being white. Reading this list of White Privileges can increase awareness of the prevalence of racism in modern society, as well as the ways in which it is manifested. White Privileges include situations such as, ‘I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed’ and ‘I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me’. Basically, these are unearned privileges in the daily lives of white individuals who typically remain unaware that they have benefits unavailable to others in society. As one of Jackson and Heckman’s (2002) students stated, being ‘… White is normal to a lot of people, so we don’t really have to think about it because we’re not forced to think about it’ (p. 442). In an investigation of white student reactions to a racial hate crime on campus, Jackson and Heckman’s (2002) students reported that they had witnessed overt acts of racism on campus, yet they still viewed racism to be something that occurred in the past, without understanding its relevance to their own lives. Bunzel (1991) studied racial relations at Stanford University and reported that most white students said that they were tired of hearing about racism. According to Sydell and Nelson (2000, 629), white college students often view black students as self-segregating and white students tend to think that ‘Black students should de-emphasize their ethnicity in order to fit into White society’, without acknowledging that ‘fitting in’ means accepting the status quo of White Privilege. Jackson and Heckman (2002) commented that whites in modern society wear rose-colored glasses regarding racism and that ‘… many Whites these days want non-Whites to have rose-colored glasses, too …’ (p. 448).

Whites in modern society are socialized to unconsciously view the world through the lens of racism, without awareness of the privileges associated with being white. According to Hansman et al. (1999, 16) ‘… a deeper understanding at the cultural and institutional levels is necessary in order to effectively confront the powerful and subtle forms of racism that exist today’. We suggest that inclusion of discussions of White Privilege in the educational curriculum can help educators achieve this goal. Although McIntosh’s (1988) paper is still widely read more than 20 years after it was originally written, it has not become part of mainstream survey courses at colleges and universities (e.g. General Psychology, Introduction to Sociology). Yet, it appears to have a measurable effect on reducing racism in white students and its importance is evidenced by more than 100 citations in the Web of Science, with about half occurring during the last 10 years, as well as more than 1500 citations for papers that cite this original work.

Therefore, we decided to examine student reactions to the list of White Privileges, assessing student levels of agreement with each item on the list and measuring the impact of this information on the racist attitudes and beliefs of white students. Yet, we need to apologize here because our primary focus in this research involved changing the attitudes of white students about White Privilege. Unfortunately, this emphasis is consistent with the nature of White Privilege itself – attention is given to white students as a function of position in society and skin color. We hope that there is justification for this because the primary goal was to reduce racism.

Method

Subjects

Participants were 274 students enrolled in a General Psychology course at a northeastern university. Sixty were students of color (e.g. African American, Arab, Native American) and 214 were students who identified themselves as white, Caucasian, or European American. Students took part in this research to earn a small amount of extra credit in this course.

Procedure

An online survey system presented McIntosh’s (1988) list of White Privileges and asked students to rate their levels of agreement that each item is a White Privilege in modern society. Pre-test and post-test questions assessed changes in students’ attitudes about racism as a function of exposure to the White Privilege list. The Crowne and Marlowe (1960) test was used to assess whether participants responded to questionnaire items in a socially desirable way (i.e. to make themselves look good).

Results

For the students of color, we were particularly interested in which items in the privilege list were most applicable to their lives (i.e. which items still hold true more than 20 years after the list was first published). The highest levels of agreement occurred for items related to the quality of life at home, while shopping or traveling, and in obtaining career advice (Table 1). Two of these items were also among those with the highest ratings of agreement for the white students, specifically items involving freedom from harassment while shopping and the accessibility of professional mentors. Overall, white students showed significantly higher levels of agreement with the list of White Privileges than the students of color (t=4.95, df=272, p=0.000; for white students: Mean=6.62, SD=1.47, N=214 and for students of color: Mean=5.57, SD=1.37, N=60). For the six students who self-identified as black or African American, overall ratings of agreement with the items in the list of White Privileges appeared to be comparable to those of the students of color (Mean=5.63, SD=1.2...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Difficult times for college students of color: teaching white students about White Privilege provides hope for change
• 2. Teacher as learner: a personal reflection on a short course for South African university educators
• 3. Global citizenship, sojourning students and campus communities
• 4. Strategies for critiquing global citizenry: undergraduate research as a possible vehicle
• 5. Interdisciplinary content, contestations of knowledge and informational transparency in engineering curriculum
• 6. Chinese students making sense of problem-based learning and Western teaching – pitfalls and coping strategies
• 7. Reframing teaching relationships: from student-centred to subject-centred learning
• 8. A heuristic for analysing and teaching literature dealing with the challenges of social justice
• 9. The influence of internationalisation and national identity on teaching and assessments in higher education
• 10. Online teaching communities within sociology: a counter trend to the marketization of higher education
• Index