Intersectional Pedagogy

Complicating Identity and Social Justice

Kim A. Case

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317374220
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

Intersectional Pedagogy explores best practices for effective teaching and learning about intersections of identity as informed by intersectional theory. Formatted in three easy-to-follow sections, this collection explores the pedagogy of intersectionality to address lived experiences that result from privileged and oppressed identities. After an initial overview of intersectional foundations and theory, the collection offers classroom strategies and approaches for teaching and learning about intersectionality and social justice. With contributions from scholars in education, psychology, sociology and women's studies, Intersectional Pedagogy include a range of disciplinary perspectives and evidence-based pedagogy.

1 Toward an Intersectional Pedagogy ModelEngaged Learning for Social Justice

Kim A. Case

DOI: 10.4324/9781315672793-1

The first time I taught Psychology of Women as a University of Cincinnati graduate student, the textbook was extremely narrow in focus, lacking any hint of inclusion outside normative and privileged identities within the vastly diverse group called women. Due to this shortcoming, I created a supplemental packet with readings to address race, sexual diversity, poverty, and non-Western women’s experiences. This “solution” felt like a legitimate approach at the time to correct for the main book’s reinforcement of defining women via only white¹ heterosexual middle-class perspectives. On the first day of class, a brave student raised her hand to point out that the textbook did not represent her as an African American woman and seemed focused exclusively on White women. She was right. My co-instructor immediately defended the text saying “no one book can cover everything.” I then agreed with the student and pointed to the packet as one way to include diverse viewpoints and avoid the idea that all women are White, middle-class, heterosexual, U.S. citizens.

Over 15 years later, I view our supplemental packet and our response to the student as an insufficient, dismissive, and insulting Band-Aid that essentially perpetuated the marginalization of women outside the mythical norm as described by Lorde (1984). Just as Bowleg (2008) critiqued her previous research as additive in nature and lacking intersectionality, my original approach to teaching gender from a multicultural perspective served as a lesson in what not to do. At the same time, adding the packet allowed us to pat ourselves on the back as two White women instructors who believed we were acting as exceptional anti-racist allies. Not only was the packet an add-on afterthought residing outside the centralized (read: important; legitimate) textbook, but it also treated various social identity categories and their associated structural oppressions as separate considerations. That moment when the student expressed her own marginalization due to the course readings made a distinct impression on me as someone who feels professionally and ethically responsible for making sure students from a broad range of backgrounds feel represented in the course materials and get the message that their identities are worthy of academic study. In other words, intersectional theory translated to pedagogical practice is my professional and ethical responsibility (Grzanka, this volume).

Jones and Wijeyesinghe (2011) encouraged consideration of how teaching might be altered when instructors infuse intersectional theory. Without intersectional theory applied in the classroom, educational spaces serve to both perpetuate invisible privilege by focusing on personal oppression and construct only mythical norms as worthy of earning valuable real estate within course materials and broader curricular designs. Valid pedagogies must stop pretending, for example, that White women possess no race, Latino men are genderless, or Black and Asian women embody mutually exclusive gendered and racial social locations. Even though some privileged women in my gender courses insist race and sexuality are irrelevant to the study of women while men of color often resist the deconstruction of gender and gender identity in courses addressing race and racism, intersectional theory demands attention to the mutually constitutive nature of these interacting and intra-connected systems.

During and after graduate school as a lecturer at Northern Kentucky University, my first syllabus for a Psychology of Race and Gender course situated the two topics as isolated entities. The 15-week course included gender-focused content in the first seven weeks with race-focused content in the seven weeks following the midterm exam. Even though the course included multiple intersecting social identities, it pains me to admit that I mostly delivered them categorically (See Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Categorical Teaching of Race and Gender

Similar to Naples’ (this volume) early teaching experience, I taught from more of an additive model, kept social identity categories artificially separated, and struggled to incorporate multiple voices into the flawed framework. Although reading materials, lectures, and activities highlighted marginalized voices within each section, the course schedule essentially treated race and gender as distinct and disconnected categories. As Crenshaw (1989) warned, this limiting single-axis framework problematically treats race and gender as mutually exclusive, thereby erasing women of color. Even though the readings on gender included gender identity and sexual orientation, and the readings on race included some women of color, this co-existence fell far short of intersectional analysis. In the end, the gender section of the course privileged White women’s experiences while the race section privileged Black men’s experiences. Crenshaw (1989) argued that scholarship must avoid centralizing and privileging White women’s experiences as representative of all women and Black men’s experiences as representative of Black women and all people of color. This prompted me to ask:

• How can we teach about prejudice and racism without addressing how race interacts with sexuality, ability, class, nationality, and a multitude of additional identities?
• How do I teach about women and gender systems to help students think about gender beyond the idea of “woman” as a White, middle class, able-bodied, heterosexual, Christian, gender-identity privileged U.S. citizen?

To help answer these questions, the course could and should be taught with a deep and well-planned infusion of intersectional theory, readings, activities, application, and assignments which might look like this (See Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2 Intersectional Pedagogy: Individual and Structural Levels (art credit to Greg Kitzmiller)

Given that no one image or metaphor could ever fully encapsulate the theoretical foundations of intersectionality (see Dessel & Cordivae, this volume, for metaphor summary table), this image nevertheless demarks a more complex pedagogy that challenges additive modes of false boundaries. The intersectionality image could represent complicated identity patterns operating within an individual person or patterns of concurrent, codependent, and interactive structural systems of oppression. Considering the image from an individual perspective, the concentric circles might represent various systemic aspects of the self interacting and affecting each other as the circles rotate like the gears of a clock to propel each other and even alter colors and patterns. Larger circles illustrate more salient aspects of identity in a given social context such as race or gender. Circles oriented toward the foreground could highlight privileged group memberships with marginalized and oppressed identities pushed to the back where those experiences go unnoticed and dismissed by the normative culture. Circles within circles represent complexity within each aspect of the self and invisible within-group diversity so often overlooked. Class discussions might deconstruct how some aspects of self may collide or even repel each other depending on one’s viewpoint such as religion and sexuality or bicultural experiences of a middle-class professional from a working-class family.

At the same time, the image may call forth conceptions of interactions among the myriad facets of systemic oppression and privilege. For example, each set of concentric circles might represent one aspect of social identity such as ability, with privileged able-bodied groups toward the center and marginalized groups with physical and mental disabilities pushed to the outer circles. However, the ability/disability concentric circles are affected and altered by overlapping circles that represent race and social class with their respective privileged groups at the center. Several circles hidden behind others illustrate the invisible intersections and often forgotten aspects of systemic oppression such as immigrant status, global nationality, or imperialist/colonized citizenship (e.g., undocumented immigrant; born a U.S. citizen; citizen and resident of a colonized nation; see Kurtis & Adams, this volume). While certain intersections remain invisible, others occupy salient and centered spaces, such as gender, race, and sexuality, represented by larger circles at the forefront of the image.

In consideration of introducing students to the theory of intersectionality, using the Figure 1.1 image to facilitate their critique of false boundaries, additive approaches, and imagined categorical distinctions could open new spaces for analysis and set the tone for the course. Taking their analysis further, Figure 1.2 could serve as a prime for several pedagogical exercises that ask students to:

• contrast the two images using theoretical tenets of intersectionality;
• connect course readings or personal examples to the image’s illustration of intersectionality; and
• suggest new improvements to the latter image that would deepen the representation of intersectional theory and lived experiences at the individual, group, cultural, institutional, and structural levels.

For a complete description of infusing intersectional pedagogy throughout an undergraduate Psychology of Women course, see Case and Rios (this volume). In addition, Grzanka (this volume) presents the case for, and a roadmap to, intersectional infusion throughout a Psychology of Gender course.

Complex Interactions: Intersectionality Theory and Pedagogy for Social Justice

Most existing books, anthologies, and articles about teaching diversity, multiculturalism, or the impact of group identities, focused on a single aspect of social identity at a time such as gender or race (e.g., Aveling, 2002; Caplan, 2010; Case & Hemmings, 2005; Dottolo, 2011; Frankenberg, 1993; Good & Moss-Racusin, 2010; Lawrence & Bunche, 1996; McIntyre, 1997; Rothenberg, 2008; Tatum, 1994). To be fair, pedagogical practice certainly benefits from these contributions, and they clearly provided insights that advance teaching approaches. Only recently have attempts to unpack pedagogical approaches to teaching intersectional theory begun permeating the literature (Pliner & Banks, 2012). This edited book examines how educators and learners can address issues of intersectionality in a diverse classroom. Over two decades ago, bell hooks (1984) and Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) argued that individuals occupy unique and specific social locations built upon a set of simultaneous and multiple identities, such as race, sexuality, nation, class, ability, and gender. Introducing the term intersectionality, Crenshaw (1989) described these complex identities in opposition to categorical generalizations. Collins’ (1990) matrix of domination offered a pedagogically useful conceptual structure for unravelling situated social locations that include both disadvantaged and advantaged identities. The foundational contributions of these and other Black feminist scholars (Collins, 1990; Combahee River Collective, 1977/2007; Crenshaw, 1989, 1991; Davis, 1983; hooks, 1984; Lorde, 1984; Smith, 1980) advanced intersectional theory within women’s studies, law, sociology, humanities, and many additional disciplines such that use of the theory spread like wildfire in the 1990s and 2000s. During that time, the work of these Black women intersectionality scholars, Chicana lesbian activist scholars Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua (1984, 1987), and international scholars such as Chandra Mohanty (1984) and Gayatri Spivak (1988) paved the way for institutionalization of intersectionality (Grzanka, 2014). Although less often recognized, contributions from White lesbian scholars such as Adrienne Rich (1986), transgender activists including Kate Bornstein (1994) and Leslie Feinberg (1993, 1998), and indigenous activist scholars such as Winona LaDuke (1999) and Paula Gunn Allen (1986), aided the critique of mainstream feminist theory with calls for inclusive attention to the complexity of women’s identity and intersectional experiences of oppression.

Within the vast majority of disciplines, intersectionality remains marginalized, and instructors rarely incorporate intersectionality into diversity courses (Dill, 2009). Scholars also called for an intersectional focus to transform higher education (Berger & Guidroz, 2009), institutionalize intersectionality (Fitts, 2009), and imagin...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword: Teaching Intersectionality for Our Times—Elizabeth R. Cole
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Toward an Intersectional Pedagogy Model: Engaged Learning for Social Justice—Kim A. Case
• PART I Intersectional Theory and Foundations
• PART II Intersectionality and Classroom Applications
• PART III Intersectional Pedagogy for Social Justice
• List of Contributors
• Index