Running Head: Racism, Psychology, Pedagogy A Sociocultural Approach to Teaching about Racism

Drawing upon previous research which finds that a sociocultural approach to teaching about racism results in increased consciousness about racism and support for antiracist policies (Adams et al., 2008b), we designed and implemented a tutorial consistent with this approach in our Cultural Psychology courses. The tutorial presented undergraduate students with media images involving stereotypical representations of people from various racially marginalized groups. Students indicated how much racism they perceived in each image and discussed different conceptions of racism, reasons for variation in racism perception, and potential consequences of exposure to these images. The instructor then presented findings from social and cultural psychological research addressing key issues in student discussions. This presentation reinforced a systemic conception of racism and encouraged students to consider the extent to which learning about racism from the target’s perspective can contribute to efforts towards social justice. Student responses were mostly consistent with the general idea that learning about racism matters, and more specifically with the proposal that a pedagogy emphasizing a sociocultural approach to racism can serve as a force for social justice. Racism and Pedagogy 3 A Sociocultural Approach to Teaching about Racism The study of racism has been at the center of social psychology for several decades. Reflecting its importance as a focus of social psychological research, the topic of racist oppression looms large in the pedagogy of academic social psychology. In fact, most social psychology textbooks devote a separate chapter to the topic. However, a review of the best-selling social psychology textbooks indicates that standard pedagogical resources reinforce an atomistic conception of racism as a problem of biased individuals (Adams et al., 2008b). One indication of this atomistic construction is evident in the way social psychology textbooks name the phenomenon they study. For instance, titles of chapters in which discussion of racism appears use concepts such as stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination, or intergroup relations, instead of making direct references to racism or oppression. The standard reference to stereotyping and prejudice implies an individualistic understanding that locates the source of racism and oppression in individual minds and hearts, rather than in the everyday environments in which those minds and hearts reside. Besides chapter titles, an atomistic construction of racism is further evident in common topics of discussion such as different forms of racist bias (e.g. automatic and controlled bias, Devine, 1989), changing norms for racism expression (e.g. modern racism, McCohanay, 1986), and various interventions for prejudice reduction (e.g. Aronson, Stephan, Sikes, Blarney, & Snapp, 1978). Once again, the main focus in these accounts is on individual level processes rather than sociocultural phenomena. Beyond choice of topics, the atomistic construction of racism is also evident in the portrayal of topics. For instance, most textbook discussions locate the essence of automatic racism (Devine, 1989) in deeply embodied habits of individuals rather in the Racism and Pedagogy 4 environmental associations that continually shape individual habits. Following this individualistic account of racism, most textbook accounts of antiracist action focus on interventions to change people’s prejudices or provide people with greater control over their deeply embodied habits rather than focusing on changing the systemic manifestations of racism that continually reshape individual habits. Scholars propose that the atomistic construction of racism as individual-bias within standard pedagogical resources is problematic for various reasons. First, research reveals extensive cultural differences in perceptions of racism within U.S. society, such that White Americans tend to perceive less racism than do people from various historically oppressed groups (Adams, O’Brien, & Nelson, 2006; Adams, Tormala, & O’Brien, 2006; Ai et al., 2011; Dach-Gruschow & Hong, 2006; Operario & Fiske, 2001; Rodin, Price, Bryson, & Sanchez, 1990; USA TODAY=CNN Gallup, 2012). Researchers suggest that one reason for these differences may be the implicit conception of racism people draw upon when considering instances of potential racism: White Americans prefer an atomistic conception of racism as differential treatment from hostile individuals, while people from historically oppressed groups prefer a conception of racism as a systematically embedded phenomenon in U.S. society (e.g. Bobo, 2001). From this perspective, the atomistic construction of racism as a problem of individual-bias within standard textbooks privileges White American conceptions and marginalizes the perspective of people from historically oppressed groups. Second, defining racism in atomistic terms as direct acts of differential treatment by biased individuals may lead people to perceive a small role for racism in American society. Recent work in social psychology suggests that the negative consequences of Racism and Pedagogy 5 systemic oppression are not limited to intentional or malicious acts of individuals, but also take more subtle forms (see Dovidio & Gaertner, 2004). This research further emphasizes how people can often perpetrate subtle forms of “modern” bias without intention or awareness (e.g., Fazio, Jackson, Dunton, & Williams, 1995; Greenwald McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998; Henkel, Dovidio, & Gaertner, 2006; Kawakami, Dion, & Dovido, 1999). From this perspective, such implicit or automatic manifestations of racist oppression may play a much larger role in U.S. society than many White Americans may realize. Finally, to the extent that standard approaches lead people to perceive less racism in U.S. society, they might also lead to less support for antiracist policies or willingness to participate in collective action against racist injustice. From this perspective, standard approaches to teaching about racism may unwittingly serve as sociocultural affordances to deny the extent of past or present racism and to maintain an unjust status quo. A Sociocultural Approach As an alternative to standard accounts, Adams and colleagues (Adams et al., 2008a; Adams et al, 2008b) have a proposed a sociocultural approach to the study and pedagogy of racism. Rather than a case of individual-bias, a sociocultural approach conceptualizes racism as a systemic phenomenon embedded in U.S. society. This approach serves as a potential corrective to limitations of standard accounts we previously discussed in several ways. First, a sociocultural approach resonates with the understandings and experiences of people from historically oppressed—as opposed to dominant—groups. More generally, this approach addresses the topic of oppression from ‘‘the target’s Racism and Pedagogy 6 perspective’’ (Oyserman & Swim, 2001; Swim & Stangor, 1998). By adopting the target’s perspective, a sociocultural approach illuminates the extent to which systemic oppression can have negative consequences even in the absence of intentional acts of differential treatment (see Major & O’Brien, 2005). For instance, social psychological research suggests that the mere knowledge of systemic oppression can be sufficient to harm potential targets of oppression by leading to academic underperformance (Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002) or decreased well being (Schmitt, Branscombe, & Postmes, 2003). In this regard, a sociocultural approach that is grounded in the perspectives of the oppressed (Martín-Baró, 1994) promotes greater attention to a broader range of systemic oppression and associated suffering than do standard accounts. Second, unlike atomistic constructions that limit the range of racism to individual acts of malice or discrimination—and hence imply that racism and oppression are relatively rare or “abnormal” occurrences—a sociocultural approach that adopts the target's perspective suggests that racism and oppression occupy a much larger place in U.S. society than most people realize. Rather than locating the essence of racism in individual bias, a sociocultural approach locates the essence of racism in the “biased” stuff of everyday worlds such as sanitized representations of U.S. history (e.g. Salter & Adams, 2012), dehumanizing stereotypes regarding race (e.g. Goff, Eberhardt, Williams, & Jackson, 2008), or ethnocentric conceptions of merit (e.g. Croizet, 2008), national identity (e.g. Devos & Banaji, 2005) and official holidays (e.g. Kurtiş, Adams, & Bird, 2010). As such, this approach helps to reveal the typically invisible, ideological bases of everyday reality that scaffold individual experience in ways that reflect and reproduce the legacy of historical oppression, regardless of individual intention or awareness. Racism and Pedagogy 7 Finally, by revealing the extent of racist oppression in U.S. society and highlighting harmful effects of past and present racism on historically oppressed groups, a sociocultural approach to racism has the potential to increase greater awareness of and willingness to combat racism. Without relieving individuals of responsibility for their actions, a sociocultural approach to racism further directs efforts at change to environmental affordances that guide individual experience. Adams and colleagues (Adams et al, 2008b) examined the implications of standard versus sociocultural approaches to teaching about racism in two studies. In particular, they randomly assigned a sample of White American, Introduction to Psychology students to one of two tutorials about racism: a standard tutorial that drew upon textbook presentations and a sociocultural tutorial that drew upon the sociocultural account of racism. They then compared the effectiveness of these tutorials in raising consciousness about the extent of racism in American society. Findings revealed that relative to the standard tutorial, the sociocultural tutorial led to greater perception of racism, greater support for anti-racist policies and a tendency to define racism as a more systemic phenomenon. One implication of this research is that the standard portrayal of racism may fail to increase awareness of racism and endorsement of anti-racist policies. Alternatively, a sociocultural approach to teaching about racism may increase awareness of racism and endorsement of anti-racist policies. Teaching about Racism in Cultural Psychology Courses Drawing upon these insights, we designed a tutorial on racism and oppression in a manner consistent with a sociocultural approach, which we implemented in the Cultural Psychology courses we teach at our respective universities. Before describing the tutorial, Racism and Pedagogy 8 some contextual information regarding the course might be useful. Although approaches vary, the version of the Cultural Psychology course we taught had four organizing themes. The first theme concerned diversity in psychological functioning. Most studies in psychology are based on a limited range of the world's people: typically young, middle-class, college students of European descent living in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (i.e., WEIRD; Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010) settings. Accordingly, one goal of the course was to consider what happens when the same studies are conducted with more representative samples in majority-world settings—that is, among people associated with the “developing world” who represent the majority of humankind (Kağıtçıbaşı, 1995). The second theme addressed cultural foundations of psychological experience. Here our goal was to examine the extent to which patterns of psychological experience—like selfenhancement, romantic love, or an open approach to friendship—are not "just natural", but instead are products of particular constructions of reality. The third theme concerned cultural foundations of psychological science. In other words, we explored the extent to which psychological science—despite its claims to universality, objectivity and valueneutrality—is in fact itself a cultural product that reflects the understandings and beliefs of its producers (see Salter & Adams, 2013a). Finally, the fourth theme emphasized global social justice. Although the course primarily focused on the conceptual contributions of cultural psychology, this fourth theme emphasized the extent to which cultural psychology has practical, real-world relevance, and can illuminate ways of being that serve broad interests of humanity (see Kurtiş & Adams, 2013). Throughout the semester, we applied these themes to diverse psychological Racism and Pedagogy 9 phenomena such as self and identity, development, perception and cognition, emotion, motivation, relationship, and health. The last unit of the course dealt with racism and oppression. Each course adopted the standard social psychology textbook for teaching cultural psychology (Heine, 2011, 2 nd Edition). Subject matter relevant to racism and oppression in this textbook appears in the “multicultural worlds” chapter as one of the four chapter objectives: (1) appreciate the problems that acculturation research has to deal with, (2) learn about how people acculturate and what affects how they do that, (3) learn about how multicultural people deal with different self-concepts, and (4) see the farreaching implications of discrimination. While the chapter highlights the psychological consequences for targets of discrimination, the textbook does not define racism or discuss the cultural (re)production of oppression as a central theme. Therefore, we sequentially developed a sociocultural tutorial on racism and oppression to supplement the textbook. The third author (Glenn Adams) provided the conceptual framework for the course and the tutorial on teaching about racism. The second author (Phia Salter) designed the interactive in-class activity and selected materials for the tutorial. The first author (Tuğçe Kurtiş) adapted the activity and materials and implemented the version of the tutorial we describe below. A Tutorial on Racism and Oppression Part 1: In-class activity and discussion. On the first day of the unit, students participated in an interactive class exercise examining their perceptions of racism in ambiguous events. The first part of the tutorial involved a class activity in which the instructor presented students with nine controversial images from mainstream media involving stereotypical representations of people from various racially marginalized Racism and Pedagogy 10 groups and asked them how much racism they perceived in each image. She informed students that there is not a single correct answer to these questions, encouraged expression of divergent ideas, and asked students to stand by one of the four response options placed on four walls of the classroom (e.g. “Strongly Disagree”, “Somewhat Disagree”, “Somewhat Agree”, “Strongly Agree”) to indicate their response. Students reported their perceptions by standing next of the one of the signs and discussed their rationale for their ratings. This activity generated a highly engaged form of collaborative inquiry into different conceptions of racism, reasons for variation in perceptions of racism, and potential consequences of exposure to these images. Three key features of the pedagogical method are worthy of mention here. First, the activity was dialogical. It built on dialogue between learners in a collaborative setting. Even students who did not verbally express their opinions participated in the co-construction of meaning and knowledge by physically taking a stand on the topic. Second, the activity was critically reflexive. It encouraged students to critically examine their perceptions and understanding of the social world, and the potential origins and consequences of these perceptions and actions from a broader perspective. Finally, this approach was dynamic. Students not only physically moved around the classroom from one sign to another upon hearing each other’s insights and perceptions, but also experienced first hand how perceptions and opinions may vary in light of different or new knowledge. In a Freirean (1970) sense, the activity opened up the students to new knowledge and a new way of perceiving social reality. Figure 1 illustrates one of the media cases that afforded greater perception of Racism and Pedagogy 11 racism relative to the other eight cases included in the activity. It features two similar photographs side by side. The first is a photograph showing a Black man wading through chest-deep water with grocery store merchandise and describes this action as “looting” a grocery store. The second is a photo showing two White people in a similar situation and describes this action as “finding” food from a local grocery store (Kinney, 2005; Washington, 2005). Most students in the classroom “strongly” or “somehow” agreed that this example involved an element of racism. One reason for this might be due to the fact that the juxtaposition of these two photos with the differential representation of similar actions provided a “clearer” case of media bias than some of the other media images presented to students in isolation. Figure 1. Hurricane Katrina Figure 2 illustrates another case that afforded moderate to high perception of racism on average. It features a Mexican themed sorority party at Penn State University where students are wearing ponchos, sombreros, fake moustaches and holding signs that say "will mow lawn for weed + beer" and "I don't cut grass, I smoke it." While the In top photo, the person is described as “looting” and in the bottom photo the people are described as “finding” food in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina Class Exercise Racism and Pedagogy 12 majority of students agreed with the offensive and insensitive character of these signs, a group of students, some of whom self-identified as members of sororities or fraternities, refused to label this incident as a case of racism and suggested that these parties provide occasions for students to just have some fun with no bad intentions. Others refuted the possibility of racism on the grounds that a sorority or fraternity party with the theme of “rednecks” would involve similarly offensive or insensitive caricatures of White Southerners, implying once again that the main motivation of such cases would be more aptly characterized as having fun, rather than displaying racist bigotry. Figure 2. Mexican Themed Sorority Party Figure 3 illustrates a case where in which the majority of students did not perceive racism. It features celebrity figure Paris Hilton wearing a “seductive squaw” outfit for Halloween. The majority of students in the class argued that Halloween is a time where “people dress up as different characters or people not to be racist but because they either just simply like the outfit or trying to be cute”. Penn State Sorority throws Mexican-themed party Class Exercise Racism and Pedagogy 13 Figure 3. Paris Hilton at Halloween Figure 4 illustrates another case where perceptions of racism were relatively minimal. It features two sports team logos: Cleveland Indians and The Washington Redskins. As in the case of Halloween outfits, a large number of students thought claims of racism were “out of context” and having these figures as sports team logos were ways of recognizing and celebrating Indigenous Peoples. One reason for the relative absence of racism perception in this and the previous case might be that both images concern stereotypical representations of Indigenous Peoples, who remain relatively invisible in mainstream U.S. culture except in the form of brand images, Hollywood figures, or school mascots (Fryberg & Townsend, 2008). Another reason for students’ low levels of racism perception in response to these cases might be the relative absence of Indigenous voices in academic contexts, including our own classrooms and departments. Paris Hilton in “seductive squaw” costume Class Exercise Racism and Pedagogy 14 Figure 4. Sports Logos Finally, Figure 5 features a case in which a major change occurred in student responses. The students first saw a cover of Vogue magazine featuring basketball player LeBron James with model Giselle Bundchen. While the majority of students perceived little to no element of racism in the magazine cover itself, responses rapidly shifted when the image was presented side by side with a famous World War I propaganda poster that appears remarkably similar. While some students expressed “shock” and moved from “strongly disagree” to “somehow agree” or “strongly agree” signs, others maintained the position that referring to basketball players as “beasts” serves as a “compliment” rather than a racial offense. Class Exercise Racism and Pedagogy 15 Figure 5. Vogue Cover To summarize, the activity provided students with opportunities to engage in critical dialogue, examine their different perceptions and responses to social reality, and learn from each other’s perspectives and insights. The majority of students also indicated experiencing a high level of enjoyment and engagement, and recommended the inclusion of more activities of this nature in future versions of the course. Part 2: Online reflection. As a follow-up to the class discussion, the instructor next asked students to reflect on the class activity and post their responses on the course site. A key point of controversy that became evident in both class discussions and online reflections concerned the role of intention. Students debated whether an action or actor can be qualified as racist even if there was no conscious intention to discriminate. Below is an excerpt from a student who claimed that regardless of historical context or problematic associations, an image or situation cannot qualify as racism unless it reflects malicious intention: “For me a lot of the images came down to intent. Was this image or were the Class Exercise Racism and Pedagogy 16 words spoken with some form of malice behind them? For example if I used the phrase "hip hip hooray" or said "rule of thumb" more than likely no one would take offense. However the context behind these phrases is quite dark. Hip hip hooray is an old Nazi war cry and rule of thumb was a phrase that meant a man could beat his wife with any stick as long as it was not thicker than his thumb. These phrases seem commonplace to me and I am not a wife beater nor Nazi supporter. The difference is intent. When I say hip hip hooray I do not mean it in the context of support[ing] nazism more than likely it’s a celebratory phrase. Does racism still exist? I think so. What defines racism? I believe it’s intent” Other students challenged this view and proposed that an image or situation can still qualify as racism even without the conscious awareness or malicious intention of their producers: “I personally do not think that something cannot be racist without the intent to be racist. For example, I do not think that Paris Hilton is racist simply because of the Halloween costume that she chose to wear. I don't even know if she personally understood the racism behind it, but it does not change the fact that the Americanized, stereotypical outfit that she wore labeled as a seductive squaw is racist. The problem is, until people are willing to address it and face it instead of blowing it off, people won't know that things like that are not okay. Many people do and say racist things out of pure ignorance, not because they are inherently racist, but that won't change until people stop letting ignorance fly as an excuse