Exploring the Cycle of Oppression and Whiteness in the Academy Through Currere: Reflections from a Reading-Group-Based Intergroup Dialogue

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.55370/dsj.v5i(2).862

Keywords:

Whiteness, Internalized Dominance, Cycle of Oppression, Currere, Faculty Development Privilege, Faculty Development, Racism, Oppression, White Cultural Identity

Abstract

White supremacy is long-standing and pervasive in higher education and it leads to internalized dominance in white faculty and the subjugation of faculty of color in the Cycle of Oppression. To explore this cycle and the power of whiteness and privilege in higher education, a multiracial group of campus community members from a range of institutional roles read What Does it Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy (DiAngelo, 2016) as a foundational text to foster an intergroup dialogue. Over the course of a semester, the authors shared how their own lives have been inextricably intertwined with the Cycle of Oppression. In this article, the authors employ currere as a method of curriculum inquiry to investigate their lived experiences (Pinar, 1975, 2004) to understand the effects of White privilege, and to explore the Cycle of Oppression within the context of academia (Baszile, 2006a, 2006b; Fine, 1997).

Author Biographies

Keri L. Rodgers, Ball State University

Keri L. Rodgers, PhD is a nationally recognized educator with over sixteen years of combined experience at the secondary and postsecondary levels. Her research interests include teacher education, inclusive pedagogy, disability studies, curriculum theory, epistemology, and research methodologies.

Ruby Cain, Ball State University

Dr. Ruby Cain is an Associate Professor of Practice, Adult and Community Education, and has over 22 years of experience in higher education. She is Director and Academic Adviser for two masters degree programs and two graduate certificates. She is Director of a community program in which volunteers and collaborative partners work with her students in a graduate community engagement course.

Melinda Messineo, Ball State University

Melinda Messineo, PhD is a professor of sociology. She is a nationally recognized teacher and workshop facilitator. Her research interests include SoTL, inclusive pedagogy, and representations of race, class and gender in media.

References

Adams, M., Blumenfeld, W. J., Castañeda, C. R., Hackman, H. W., Peters, M. L., & Zúñiga, X. (Eds.). (2013). Readings for diversity and social justice. New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

Agosto, V., & Karanxha, Z. (2011). Resistance meets spirituality in academia: “I prayed on it!†Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Faculty Publications, 62/63(4), 41–66.

Baszile, D. T. (2006a). “Pedagogy born of struggle: From the notebook of a black professor.†In S. Hughes (Ed.), What we still don’t know about teaching race: How to talk about it in the classroom. New York, NY: Edwin Mellen.

Baszile, D. T. (2006b). “In this place where I don’t quite belong: Claiming the onto-epistemological in-between.†In T. R. Berry & N. D. Mizelle (Eds.), From oppression to grace: Women of color dealing with issues in academia (pp. 195–208). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC.

Baszile, D. T. (2017). Critical race/feminist currere. In M. F. He, B. D. Schultz, & W. H. Schubert (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of curriculum in education (pp. 119–126). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Ltd.

Behm Cross, S. (2017). Whiteness in the academy: Using vignette to move beyond safe silences. Teaching in Higher Education, 22(7), 879–887.

Bonilla-Silva, E. (2014). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequity in America. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield.

Buber, M. (1972). I and thou, W. Kauffman, trans. (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons).

Brookfield, S. D. & Associates. (2019). Teaching race: How to help students unmask and challenge racism. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Clark, C., Fasching-Varner, K. J., & Brimhall-Vargas, M. (2012). Occupying academia, reaffirming diversity. In C. Clark, K. J. Fasching-Varner, & M. Brimhall-Vargas (Eds.), Occupying the academy: Just how important is diversity work in higher education? (pp. 1–21). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. The University of Chicago Legal Forum, 140, 139–167.

Dessel, A. B., & Rodenborg, N. (2017). An evaluation of Intergroup Dialogue Pedagogy: addressing segregation and developing cultural competency. Journal of Social Work Education, 53(2), 222–239. doi:10.1080/10437797.2016.1246269

DiAngelo, R. (2016). What does it mean to be white? Developing a white racial literacy (Revised ed.). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Edwards, K. T. (2010). Incidents in the life of Kirsten T. Edwards: A personal examination of the academic in-between space. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 26(1), 113–128.

Eisner, E. W. (1994). The educational imagination: On the design and evaluation of school programs (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Feagin, J. R. (2013). The white racial frame: Centuries of racial framing and counter-framing. New York, NY: Routledge.

Fine, M. (1997). Witnessing whiteness. In M. Fine, L. Weis, C.

Powell, & L. Wong (Eds.) Off white: Readings on race, power, and society (pp. 57–65). New York, NY: Routledge.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th anniversary edition). New York, NY: Continuum.

Freire, P. (2000). Cultural action for freedom. Boston, MA: Harvard Review.

Grumet, M. (1976). Psychoanalytic foundations. In W. F. Pinar & M. R. Grumet (Eds.), Toward a poor curriculum (pp. 111–146). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.

Jones, C. P. (2000). Levels of racism: A theoretic framework and a gardener's tale. American Journal of Public Health, 90, 1212–1215.

Joseph, P. B. (2011). Understanding curriculum as culture. In P. B. Joseph (Ed.), Cultures of curriculum (2nd ed., pp. 23–35). New York, NY: Routledge.

Kincheloe, J. L. (2018). Curriculum: Understanding what we teach and where we teach it. In J. L. Kincheloe & S. R. Steinberg (Eds.), Classroom teaching An introduction (2nd ed., pp. 47–56). New York, NY: Peter Lang.

Khoo, S. (2010). Academic mobbing: Hidden health hazard at workplace. Malaysian Family Physician, 5(2), 61–67.

Martin, J. L., & Beese, J. A. (2018). Disappearing Feminists: Removing Critical Voices from Academe. In Forum on Public Policy: A Journal of the Oxford Round Table. Forum on Public Policy.

McIntosh, P. (1990). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Independent School, 49(2), 31.

Nagai-Rothe, E. (2015). Dialogue as a tool for racial reconciliation: Examining racialised frameworks. Journal of Dialog Studies, 3(1), 57–69.

Pinar, W. (1975). The method of currere. Paper presented at the American Association of Educational Research Annual Conference, Washington, DC.

Pinar, W. F. (2004). What is curriculum theory? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Poetter, T. S. (2017). Curriculum fragments: Theorizing while practicing an educational life and building a currere oriented representation of an educational “I.†Currere Exchange Journal, 1(2), 1–11.

Porter, C., & Gallagher, C. (2017). Exploring professional uncertainty in critical language teacher education: A collaborative story of political transition. Currere

Exchange Journal, 1(1), 32–39.

Stanley, C. A. (2006). Coloring the academic landscape: Faculty of color breaking the silence in predominantly white colleges and universities. American Educational Research Journal, 43(4), 701–736. doi: 10.3102/00028312043004701

Tappan, M. B. (2006). Reframing internalized oppression and internalized domination: From the psychological to the sociocultural. Teachers College Record, 108(10), 2115–2144. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9620.2006.00776.x

Tatum, B. D. (1992). Talking about race, learning about racism: The application of racial identity development theory in the classroom. Harvard Educational Review, 62(1), 1–24.

Voxfeminista. (2009, August 19). White lies [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUJxrIdZ7Ww

Wallace, M. F. G., & Byers, C. C. (2018). Duo-Currere: Nomads in dialogue (re)searching for possibilities of permeability in elementary science teacher education. Currere Exchange Journal, 2(1), 59–68.

Watts-Jones, D. (2002). Healing internalized racism: The role of a within-group sanctuary among people of African descent. Family Process, 41(4), 591–601.

Windschitl, M. A., & Joseph, P. B. (2011). Confronting the dominant order. In P. B. Joseph (Ed.), Cultures of curriculum (2nd ed., pp. 219–240). New York, NY: Routledge.

Zúñiga, X., Nagda, B. A., Chesler, M., & Cytron-Walker, A. (2007). Intergroup dialogue in higher education: Meaningful learning about social justice. ASHE Higher Education Report, 32(4), 1–128.

Downloads

Published

2020-12-09

Issue

Vol. 5 No. (2) (2020): White Privilege, White Supremacy, and Adult Education

Section

Articles

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

a. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

b. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).