A Critical Race Theoretic, Discourse Analysis of Facilitators’ Experiences with Teaching About Racism at a South African University

ABSTRACT

This study conducts a critical race theoretic (CRT) reading of interviews with contractually-employed teaching assistants (facilitators). Facilitators are tasked with actively engaging small groups of first-year students in analyses of post-colonial literature. During the interviews, facilitators described the frustrations and discomfort they encounter while discussing racism and while assessing students’ essays on the subject. Using CRT, this study examines how facilitators respond to what they construe as: (1) resistance from some students racialised as white, and (2) a perceived eagerness from students racialised as black to set experiential knowledge of racialised inequalities in conversation with the literature under study.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical race theory
• racism
• higher education
• facilitators
• literature

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The training manual cannot be cited without specifying the university, which would make participants identifiable.