Resources Technology Workshops Services

Schedule of Events

Teacher Training

Teaching to Diversity

Using Technology

Large Class Teaching

Beginnings

Search TEP site

 

 

 

Home > Workshops and Classes > Teaching to Diversity > What does being white have to do with diversity? > Should and Can a White, Heterosexual, Middle-Class Man Teach Students about Social Inequality and Oppression? One Person's Experience and Reflections

Should and Can a White, Heterosexual, Middle-Class Man Teach Students about Social Inequality and Oppression? One Person's Experience and Reflections

We need to confront the expectation that traditionally oppressed people should teach classes about inequality and oppression. This expectation places an undue burden on these instructors for several reasons.

Oppression is not solely the problem of oppressed people; it is a white problem, too. White instructors, especially white males, need to show more initiative in this area to reinforce the idea that oppression is everyone's problem and that we are all responsible for eradicating it.

We thus have an opportunity to become role models for other white students and instructors who are trying to understand, take responsibility, and challenge their privileged positions.

My personal characteristics tended to lessen some white students' resistance to discussing these issues. In this regard, my viewpoint was seen as less threatening and was less easily dismissed by them.

Teaching a course on oppression provides white faculty, especially white men, an opportunity to grow as instructors and as people.

Gerschick, T. (1995).
Should and can a white, heterosexual, middle-class man
teach students about social inequality and oppression:
One person's experience and reflections.
In D. Schoem, L. Frankel, X. Zuniga, & E. Lewis,
Multicultural teaching in the university (pp. 200-207).
Westport, CT: Praeger.

 

---