Passionate pedagogy and emotional labor: students’ responses to learning diversity from diverse instructors

Authors

April Schueths, Georgia Southern UniversityFollow
Tanya Gladney, University of St. Thomas, MinnesotaFollow
Devan Crawford, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Katherine L. Bass, Eastern Illinois UniversityFollow
Helen A. Moore, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

11-2013

Citation

Published in International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 26:10 (November 2013), pp. 1259–1276; doi: 10.1080/09518398.2012.731532

Comments

Copyright © 2012 Taylor & Francis. Used by permission.

Abstract

This qualitative study examines emotional themes in student evaluations from required diversity courses at a predominately white, US public university. We analyzed two years of student evaluations from 29 instructors. Situated by the work of Acker, Jaggar and Hochschild, we find contradictory themes of perceived instructional bias and the balue of diversity lessons. Student evaluations resulted in systematic disadvantage for minority instructors that may be heightened for female instructors of color. Non-minority faculty (both male and female) gain privileges by avoiding dealing with diversity directly, which is reflected in student evaluations through the process of "ducking diversity." The organizational structure of required diversity courses marginalizes the scholarship and emotion work of minority instructors and inherently reproduces the very inequalities they are designed to combat.