The Professor, Pluralism, and Pedagogy: A Reflection

Abstract

This essay discusses concrete approaches for faculty to use when teaching a student body whose demographics and cultural backgrounds are significantly different from that of the professor. As a white political scientist from the north teaching at a historically black university in the south, this work is particularly concerned with the dynamics of race and gender. However, the lessons from this essay are applicable to all of us who need to construct space in which our students can challenge their own preconceived notions. If the United States and other pluralistic democracies claim that our very strength is found in the sharpening of our individual interpretations against competing ideas to best approximate the truth, how can we replicate this process in our increasingly diverse classrooms? What might this dynamic look like when the professor at the front of the room is radically different in significant ways from the students he or she teaches? For our classroom this means that pluralism must be real. It does not preclude the search for truth and right, but it makes that search more complicated and authentic. We cannot merely construct truth in our own images; we must confront challenging contradictions. In the United States, this requires us to take seriously the competing arguments and frameworks presented by the Other, generally reflecting issues of race, class, religion, politics, sexuality, and gender. This article examines five elements that help ensure that this process of pluralistic discussion and discovery actually occurs in our university and college classrooms. More particularly, the essay examines the potential for classroom engagement in the area of diversity when we consider the factors of audience, grace, power, discomfort, and transformation. [Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of the Journal of Political Science Education for the following free supplemental resource(s): Appendices 1 and 2 containing examples of midterm assessment tools and student evaluation forms.]. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.