Toward Critical Reflexivity through Critical Intercultural Communication Pedagogy: Student Discourse in an Intercultural Conflict Course

Abstract

Critical reflexivity, situated in a critical communication pedagogy framework, enables students and instructors to critique their identity positions alongside broader contextual structures enmeshed within the dynamics of intercultural conflict. This study therefore examines undergraduate students’ discourses of critical reflexivity following a retreat workshop experience in an intercultural conflict course. After collecting data through reflection papers, we found uneven understandings and applications of critical reflexivity that reflect the potential of critical reflexivity in helping students to question various assumptions about themselves and others but also the challenges of disrupting dominant ideologies such as individualism to increase understanding of structural factors.