Discursive Conflict in Communities and Classrooms

Abstract

In a 1989 CCCs Staffroom Interchange piece, Delores Schriner and William Rice describe a situation in which a foreign student writes an extremely homophobic message to a class mailing list-advocating the death penalty for homosexuals, something which is "a practice common in his homeland" (477). They say that the instructor recommended on the list that "students who were offended by the discussion should feel free to ignore it and go on to other 'items"'-advice that was itself ignored by some students, so that the argument did continue. Schriner and Rice conclude: