Teaching Race and Social Justice at a Predominantly White Institution

ABSTRACT

At our predominantly white university, students often shy away from controversial conversations. How can the classroom encourage students to value and engage in potentially explosive conversations? We develop a concept of “empathic scaffolding” to articulate an approach that integrates diversity and inclusion into the classroom. Empathic scaffolding structures content and pedagogy in a way that strategically expands students’ zones of comfort, starting with very personal experiences with the material and expanding to include broader groups of people and course concepts. Understanding and engaging with these concentric circles of students’ relationships to the course material is crucial if students are to hear and engage with voices to which they may have limited exposure. This article documents the best practices of implementing empathic scaffolding in the realms of content and pedagogy, offering a toolkit for professors to critically engage conversations about race and social justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Classroom climate
• diversity
• participation

Notes

The term PWI has also come under scrutiny in terms of its contrast to historically black institutions; however, it is the term that our diversity and inclusion team uses to refer to Nebraska Wesleyan’s demographic.

Volk (2012) discusses the goal to “scaffold empathy” in his historical pedagogy, which he defines as informed perspective taking.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kelly Bauer

Kelly Bauer is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Her research focuses on the politics of economic, political, and social development in Latin America and, specifically, the interaction of indigenous political mobilization and the development of the state. She also explores the classroom and university as a space for place-based learning and empowerment.

Kelly Clancy

Kelly Clancy is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Her research focuses on contentious politics and social movements in Europe, as well as issues of race and social justice. She also focuses on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, particularly the role of debate and discourse in the classroom. Her first book, The Politics of Genetically Modified Organisms in the United States and Europe (Palgrave Macmillan 2016), focuses on the contentious politics of GMOs.