Revisiting Whiteness Pedagogy: Examining the Discursive Practices of Diverse Students in an Intercultural Communication and Conflict Course

Abstract

ABSTRACT Our study explores discourses of whiteness amongst a diverse group of undergraduate students within the context of critical intercultural communication pedagogy. Through a qualitative analysis of two sets of student essays, we look across discourses of students who primarily identify as white and students with nondominant identities to identify convergences and divergences. We found that many white-identifying students used strategic rhetorics to maintain the invisibility of their whiteness and/or enact white privilege even while expressing awareness of it. Many students with nondominant identities expressed tensions in defining those identities within the liminal spaces constructed by whiteness. Some challenged the constraints of whiteness by drawing from complex histories, highlighting the potential of hybridized identities as cultural bridges, and using their privilege towards deeper learning.