Forum address difficulties of teaching diversity

No argument here: Teach diversity.

But how, exactly? How do students learn to think about their own and other cultures critically? What questions should they ask?

Mary Louise Pratt, a visiting faculty member, shared her thoughts on teaching cultural difference at a recent workshop sponsored by the Global Languages, Literatures and Cultures Forum in the College of Letters and Science.

The consensus among the faculty and students on the panel and in the audience was that it’s a daunting task for higher education to come up with effective ways to impart the meaning of and appreciation for cultural complexity and richness.

For more than a decade, UW–Madison has had an ethnic studies requirement for undergraduate degree candidates. Course choices currently number more than 100. In addition, Plan 2008 calls for, among other strategies, a freshman seminar as a way to improve performance, retention and multi-cultural understanding for all UW–Madison students.

The plan also urges the development of ethnic studies courses in university schools and colleges other than Letters and Science, where most of the ethnic studies courses currently are housed.

At Stanford University, which is privately endowed, ethnic studies evolved out of a movement in the late 1970s when a group of faculty sought to provide Stanford undergraduates with a common intellectual experience. The faculty advocates focused on ideas espoused in Western civilization, articulated by men, Pratt says. However, increasing participation in higher education by women and members of other ethnic groups required a rethinking of the curriculum. Pratt says that most of the traditionalists were surprised at the effect that a new, more inclusive curriculum had on their teaching.

“Many of the most vocal opponents actually were worried about whether they would be able to teach new authors and ideas,” she says. “Later, these one-time opponents became the strongest defenders of the new curriculum, after they saw how adding these fresh voices reinvigorated their own teaching.”

More recently, Stanford repealed the academic requirements, and more recently still, the institution replaced ethnic studies with freshmen seminars about scholarship in various disciplines, such as the humanities and social sciences. Pratt says ethnic studies components can be incorporated into those seminars, but teachers do need to be prepared for sometimes dramatic change.

“Cultural studies have a definite shelf life,” she says.

One concept Pratt says she would like to see in diversity studies canon is the “ethnicizing of white culture,” she says. “A lot of white students feel they have no culture at all.”

On the other hand, panelist Jo Ellen Fair, UW–Madison associate professor of journalism and mass communication and Integrated Liberal Studies, observes that it is not the function of ethnic studies to make students comfortable.

“I teach a course on global cultures, and you would be amazed at how many students want cultural tourism, with one day in Malaysia, one day in Senegal. They come into the course asking for that kind of approach, but I tell them it won’t happen. I tell them that instead, we’ll be looking at various cultures in a deeper, more meaningful way,” she says.

Fellow panelist Lisa Petrov, a lecturer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, wonders whether the new freshman seminar recommended in UW–Madison’s Plan 2008 is timed for greatest impact. “Freshmen are so busy making the transition to campus life. Do they have any energy left over to really come to terms with another culture?”

Pratt observes that the role of ethnic studies is to expose students to other ways of seeing the world and its inhabitants. “Cultural studies also are a tremendous empowerment for students of color,” she says. “What is comes down to is this: We have to figure out what kind of society we want to have,” and adjust educational initiatives accordingly, she says. “Emphasizing ‘difference’ in only one area can undermine that. We should expect difference among people in a variety of ways, along many lines.

“And we always have to keep in mind that we’re all in this together. If we want something to change, both faculty and students will have to be behind it.”