Resources

The task of theological education is not always clearly understood in the church -- or it is understood in different ways by various constituencies. We invite five seminary professors to reflect on their vocation, especially on its relation to the life of faith in the church and to the church's effort to be faithful to the gospel. We asked them to consider the ways in which they seek to hand on Christian traditions and also the ways in which they seek to provide students with skills to critique aspects of those traditions.

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)

The inclusion of race-related content in college courses often generates emotional responses in students that range from guilt and shame to anger and despair. The discomfort associated with these emotions can lead students to resist the learning process. Based on her experience teaching a course on the psychology of racism and an application of racial identity development theory, Beverly Daniel Tatum identifies three major sources of student resistance to talking about race and learning about racism, as well as some strategies for overcoming this resistance.

Focuses on the social aspects of college life in the United States. Transformation of students; Transitions' production of changes in students' ways of knowing; Power of ideas; Faculty role; Public self; Multiple and competing commitments.

Three classroom climates in courses focusing on inequality are identified, those of resistance, paralysis, and rage. In resistant classes, students deny the importance of class, gender, race, and other lines of stratification or fail to see their structural sources. In paralyzed classes, students are so overwhelmed by the pervasiveness of inequality that they become debilitated and depressed; social structures are reified, giving them a false aura of inevitability. In enraged classes, the existence of stratification sparks so much anger that students lash out in an unfocused manner that is often blind to the complexities of stratified societies. In this article, I offer suggestions for responding to each of these three classroom climates.

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)

When I ask myself-Does gender matter in college teaching and learning?-I come up with two mutually contradictory answers. One is, I don't know. The other is yes. Because it's hard to frame an argument around two contradictory propositions, I shall tell you a story instead of presenting an argument. In stories, conflicts and contradictions are allowable and even desirable. The story I'd like to tell is about the ways in which my thinking about gender and teaching and learning has evolved over the years.