S1C "Calling In" Across the Curriculum: Promoting Accountability and Growth for Diverse and Equitable Classrooms

Presenters

Shannon O'Sullivan, Communication

Abstract

Regardless of discipline and on both sides of the classroom, instructors must remain acutely aware of how social location, as determined by factors such as race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and ability, profoundly shapes learning environments. This presentation encourages instructors to practice critical self-reflection regarding their own social location and to consider how it informs classroom management with an emphasis on interpersonal communication and group dynamics. With both in-person and online learning environments becoming increasingly collaborative, instructors need tools for understanding how social categories engender power differentials in complex ways within physical and digital classroom spaces. Attendees can gain an enhanced knowledge of the relevance of critical race theory, gender studies, and intercultural communication to their own classroom environments and inclusive language praxis writ large. Additionally, this presentation focuses on how to "call in" students upon making injurious or problematic remarks related to race, gender, class, and other social categories, as well as how instructors can recover from their own communicative missteps, depending on social location. This discussion will be of interest to instructors looking for specific pointers on how to manage conflict related to these wider systems of power in a manner that promotes accountability and growth, even if discussions of social justice and equity do not appear relevant to a specific discipline or course theme at first blush.

Session Recording