Teaching Uncomfortable Topics: An Action-Oriented Strategy for Addressing Racism and Related Forms of Difference

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to provide one pedagogical model for addressing uncomfortable topics in the classroom. More concretely, the model reconceptualizes the process of teaching and learning and generates an action-oriented strategy for dealing with a topic that typically creates classroom discomfortrace and racism. Traditional modes of learning are critically evaluated, highlighting how elements of these approaches can negatively impact one's understanding of race and racial differences. The paper then offers an alternative, action-oriented strategy grounded in the notions of collective responsibility, dialogue, and intersubjectivity, the Gramscian (1971) intellectual, the dialectic, and praxis. This strategy is concretized using examples of teaching and learning about racism and related forms of difference that occur both in and outside of the classroom.