Resources

Concentrating on the "practices" of Christianity enables us to think about education in new ways. Identifying practices as the sites of learning in theological education allows us to avoid some common "divisions" in thinking about education and calls for the development of new language to name the process of education.

Discusses the conflicting arguments among cultural diversity advocates with respect to community. Allegorical tale; Arguments among cultural diversity advocates; Relativism and separatism; Highest vs. lowest common denominator; Three ways in which the sense of community can be claimed by the cause of cultural diversity.

Intended to help individuals as well as companies thrive in a working world made up of increasingly diverse work forces and ever more competitive markets, this book addresses the differences in men's and women's speaking styles, without maintaining the superiority of any one style of speaking. Reinforced with extensive examples drawn from research, the book offers new ways of understanding what happens in the workplace, ranging from the simplest exchanges to the most complex contemporary issues of the glass ceiling and sexual harassment. The book notes that sex differences exist even in the college classroom, where men and women exhibit different behavior in learning situations--men ask fewer questions but interrupt others more often in traditional classrooms and often find themselves designated as "spokesperson" in small group class discussions even when they are outnumbered by women. Chapters in the book are: (1) Women and Men Talking on the Job; (2) "I'm Sorry, I'm Not Apologizing": Conversational Rituals; (3) "Why Don't You Say What You Mean?": Indirectness at Work; (4) Marked: Women in the Workplace; (5) The Glass Ceiling; (6) "She's the Boss": Women and Authority; (7) Talking Up Close: Status and Connection; (8) What's Sex Got to Do with It?; and (9) Who Gets Heard?: Talking at Meetings. The book includes both a preface and an afterword by the author, as well as extensive notes and references.

Berling discusses pluralism as one criterion of excellence for theological schools. She acknowledges the challenge to the very idea of excellence implicit in pluralism and thus the need to define adequate standards of excellence. She also indicates a concern with the education of faculties prepared to deal with issues of pluralism.

In much the same way that men are not taught to acknowledge all the ways they are privileged in society, whites are not taught to recognize how their status as white people confers on them many privileges. Arguing that male privilege and white privilege are interrelated, and that both types of privilege are unearned and unjustified, this paper begins by reviewing several layers of denial that men have about their privilege and that work to protect, prevent awareness about, and entrench that privilege. The paper goes on to present parallels from one woman's personal experience, with the denials that veil the facts of white privilege. Forty-six ordinary and daily ways in which this one individual experiences having white privilege within her life situation and its particular social and political frameworks, are listed, and ways in which the list applies equally to heterosexual privilege are also pointed out. It is concluded that all the various interlocking oppressions take two forms: an active form which can be seen; and an embedded form which members of the dominant group are taught not to see. To redesign the social system therefore requires acknowledgement of its colossal unseen dimensions. (DB)

Most white, middle-class citizens see society from a monocultural perspective, a perspective that assumes, often unconsciously, that persons of all races are in the same cultural system together. This single-system form of seeing the world, is blind to its own cultural specificity. People who see persons of other races monoculturally cannot imagine the reality that those "others" think of themselves not in relation to the majority race but in terms of their own culturally specific identities. This paper presents an "interactive phase theory" with regard to race that is intended to reassess school curricula in terms of heightened levels of consciousness concerning race. In the context of U.S. history courses, five phases are presented: phase one: all-white history; phase two: exceptional minority individuals in U.S. history; phase three: minority issues, or minority groups as problems, anomalies, absences, or victims in U.S. history; phase four: the lives and cultures of people of color everywhere as history; and phase five: history redefined and reconstructed to include all people. (DB)