Document Type

Syllabus

Publication Date

Spring 2024

Course Description

In this class we are going to trouble difference and diversity. This will entail historicizing, problematizing, and deconstructing power and identity. Central to this class is the idea that differences are constructed and re- constructed through a variety of means, such as political economy, police and militaries, language and knowledge practices, science and medicine, media and discourse, and of course, schools and education. Education is usually seen as a tool that can work against repression, and we will begin the class by problematizing this idea, exploring how power is both repressive and constructive (both constraining and enabling), and how power operates not just at the level of the state and institution, but also at the level of subjectivity and the “everyday.” We will look at particular kinds of differences to uncover how they have been constructed and challenged over time, and how they relate to power. While we will be looking at distinct kinds of difference, this class will not proceed through the “rainbow of difference” (e.g., race, then gender, then sexuality, etc.). We will also spend a good amount of time on how we have, do, can, and should relate to and understand differences. This means challenging received ideas about accommodating diversity and advocating for difference, and showing how certain kinds of resistance and advocacy end up reinforcing hierarchies of difference (e.g., awareness, inclusion, diversity). We’ll focus in particular on the long 20 th century and how capital, white supremacy, and systems of domination worked to not only repress revolutionary struggles but, more importantly, accommodate and absorb them for profit. While we’ll do this throughout the course, the last unit will examine how people and groups are trying to work against such forms of resistance to enact truly liberating practices, ones oriented toward a world not where there are no differences or where differences don’t matter, but where differences don’t imply power and oppression.

Student Outcomes

The mission of the education studies department is to make/discipline you into three things: 1) critical educator; 2) transformative intellectual; 3) public pedagogue. Therefore, upon successful course completion, students will be able to… 1. evaluate different ways of understanding and encountering difference (critical educator); 2. describe different histories, politics, and theories (transformative intellectual); and 3. analyze theoretical tools to articulate the complexities of identity and difference in order to think about and intervene in broader contemporary discussions about education, power, and diversity (public pedagogue)

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