Antiracist Pedagogy in Direct Advocacy Courses

Abstract

Even though the need is great, there are too few resources available to political science faculty who seek to integrate antiracist pedagogy into their courses and curriculum. To date, there are no publications that focus on the special considerations that must be taken into account when teaching political science courses in an antiracist way due to the relationship between our discipline and the political actors and institutions we study. In this article, I discuss some of the foundational principles in antiracist pedagogy and consider how they can be implemented in political science courses that involve direct advocacy. Following hooks, Kandaswamy, and Kishimoto, I argue that that antiracist teaching requires instructors to engage in critical reflection on their own positionality—both as individuals in a society structured by racial capitalism, and as faculty members in particular departments, within an academic discipline. Further, that the course design process must take into consideration whose perspectives are being centered in the course design process and how students’ emotional needs are reflected in our teaching practices. Finally, that when it comes to antiracist pedagogy how we teach is as much or more important than what we teach.

Keywords:

• Antiracist pedagogy
• civic engagement
• advocacy

Acknowledgements

My sincerest thanks to Melissa Stimell for sharing her class, Advocacy for Policy Change, with the ENACT Faculty Fellows and to David Weinstein for all his work supporting the Fellows network. Thanks also to Marisol Brito, Kyoko Kishimoto, Iyekiyapiwin Darlene K. St. Clair, Melissa Prescott, Mary Clifford, and Debra Leigh for organizing the 2019 Anti-racist Pedagogy Across the Curriculum Institute, which has informed and inspired much of the work I describe in this article. Thanks also to the students of Advocacy for Policy Change for their determination to build a better Minnesota for the people and communities they love. Finally, my sincere appreciation to the two anonymous JPSE reviewers. This article is based on a paper previously presented at the Annual Meetings of APSA in 2021 and WPSA in 2022.

Notes

1 See Cox 2009. According to Cox, “the popular notion of the young adult who is enrolled in school full-time is outdated. Although the traditional image is a compelling and persistent one, the current college-going population exhibits a great many non-traditional characteristics, which may include financial independence, part-time college attendance, delayed enrollment after high school, full-time employment, and time spent caring for dependents…nearly 75 percent of all undergraduates possessed non-traditional characteristics and…28 percent were highly non-traditional, exhibiting four or more of these characteristics” (7).

2 See Cox (2009, 25). Here she explains that the non-traditional students she interviewed for her work, “seriously doubted their ability to succeed,” and “were anxiously waiting for their shortcomings to be exposed.” She found “for many students, past failure provided objective evidence of their academic inadequacy” (25).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathleen Cole

Kathleen Cole is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Department of Social Science at Metropolitan State University and a community organizer working for racial and economic justice in Minneapolis, MN. Her research focuses on white racial identity formation and political judgment in the context of US white supremacist political culture.