Academic and disciplinary narratives that inhibit teaching for racial justice

Abstract

ABSTRACT Within the United States’ academic system, faculty often confront academic norms and practices that contradict liberatory curricular and pedagogical practices. Using data from a critical race participatory action research study based in the United States, this study explores how academic and disciplinary narratives inhibit faculty consciousness and demonstrates how faculty members’ consciousness relate to the curricula and pedagogy they utilize. In this study, three psychology faculty members describe inhibiting academic and disciplinary narratives including: race only belongs in courses centered on issues of diversity, racist knowledge that is part of the cannon must persist, and the inclusion of race into a course requires extensive expertise. This study utilizes the framing of critical race conscience to analyze the academic and disciplinary narratives that inhibit faculty members’ consciousness and thus, the curricula and pedagogical practices they implement.