Teaching Racialization Critically: A Course on Constructing Race and Ethnicity (ISCORE’s UST 321x)
- Michael Benitez (Iowa State University)
Abstract
Well into the 21st century, the notion that race is an inherent and biological difference has been debunked. Conversations about ethnicity and nation have also shared some spotlight with race as intersecting formation systems at play. Counter narratives, literature, and research over the past century have exposed race as an Anglo-white supremacist, and, generally, Eurocentric imagination turned social construction. Still, much discussion revolving around race and ethnicity in classrooms addresses these issues as permanent identities without addressing historical foundations of racial formation, systemic racialization, whiteness, and intersecting identities. This presentation seeks to provide a pedagogic and content-curricular overview of UST 321x (ISCORE course), engage participants in critical discussions about teaching race/ethnicity in the classroom, expose ongoing practices that fail to examine race and ethnicity critically, and provide different theoretical lenses through which to engage dialogue about race and ethnicity.