Introduction
As community college educators grapple with how to most effectively engage our students in English literature classrooms, we must make both content and approach relevant to students’ lived experiences. In a racially and socio-economically diverse environment like the college where I teach, this means vigilantly paying attention to the cultural backgrounds, knowledge, and assumptions my students bring with them into the classroom. Students also come to the classroom with varying understandings of and experiences related to power (their own power and power structures they have been socialized into or subjected to). Therefore, our work must also involve shaping the conditions for all students to acquire knowledge regarding how power functions in various socially-constructed systems, and empowering them to take this knowledge beyond the classroom.
There are two robust schools of theory and practice that can inform this work: intercultural pedagogy and critical literacy pedagogy. Intercultural pedagogy is not inherently critical, and/or is not always applied in a critical way. However, many of the principles and strategies of intercultural pedagogy align with critical literacy pedagogy. Critical literacy pedagogy can be enhanced by applying intercultural approaches to center the role of culture in power dynamics. In order for critical intercultural pedagogy to be used literature classroom, close attention must be paid to both content and approach. While there is a growing body of research that explores the intersections of these approaches, more work and ideation is needed to identify ways to integrate these theories and practices in community college literature classrooms.
The following sections provide context regarding the intersections of intercultural and critical literacy pedagogies in order to frame the specific ideas for teaching literature at the community college level that are included on this site. Special attention is paid to foundational texts in intercultural, critical, and critical literacy pedagogies, as well as research that provides insight into how these theories and practices can be combined and deployed in the literature classroom.
Interculturality and Difference
The field of intercultural studies has roots in social psychology, with foundational texts written by scholars such as Geert Hofstede and Ronald Inglehart. Since the 1990s, interculturality has become an interdisciplinary phenomenon, taking the strongest hold within the social sciences and humanities. In our contemporary higher education context, is difficult to find a business or communications department that does not offer intercultural competence courses, and intercultural pedagogy has become a staple of education departments. Likewise, intercultural approaches permeate World Languages and Cultures and English departments, from language to literature to composition courses.
In its most fundamental form, intercultural pedagogy focuses on understanding and negotiating difference. In the introduction to Perspectives on Interculturality: The Construction of Meaning in Relationships of Difference, Michal Jan Rozbicki writes: “An intercultural encounter is ultimately a relation of difference. It occurs in the space where people with distinct ways of interpreting the world reciprocally negotiate their otherness. It engages a wide spectrum of groups with discrete sub-cultures, identities, social positions, and rules of operation—from associations and professions to corporations, tribes, ethnicities, and nations—with varying levels of involvement and uneven degrees of internal coherence. The intercultural does not need a meeting in the same physical space; people may come into contact with ideas and things that originate in a culture that is not in direct proximity to them. Interculturality may be said to take place when people come into contact with cultural otherness. At that point they become aware that they have been taking for granted certain perceptions of reality shared by their own group, that is, that these perceptions are not universal but conventional, generated by their own environment. The responses to this realization may be defensive, adaptive, or coexistential, but whatever form they assume, intercultural relationships are one of the most dynamic forces driving historical change” (3).
In Rozbicki’s definition, the focus is on cultural difference and “otherness,” and negotiating these differences while cultivating an awareness of one’s own cultural specificity and lens. Although social position is mentioned in the definition (moving toward an intersection with critical theory), depending on the focus of the intercultural practitioner, power relations are not necessarily centered in this work. Frequently, power relations are only tended to when the study of these structural dynamics can give interculturalists greater insight into the “other” culture.
Composition professor Ulla Connor also gestures toward critical theory in her definition of intercultural rhetoric: “Intercultural rhetoric assumes that 1) the study of writing is not limited to texts but needs to consider the surrounding social contexts and practices; 2) national cultures interact with disciplinary and other cultures in complex ways; and 3) intercultural discourse encounters – spoken and written – entail interaction among interlocutors and require negotiation and accommodation” (2). Indeed, social contexts and practices are embedded within cultural contexts, and the interaction of national cultures is complex. This framing leaves room for critical analysis and application, but it is not at the core.
The general lack of critical approaches to interculturality was a dominant theme in this “Anti-racism for Interculturalists” panel discussion hosted by SIETAR (Society for Intercultural Education, Training, and Research) Europa. Five BIPOC interculturalists, Josephine Apraku, Juliana Santos Wahlgren, Farzana Nayani, Kelli McLoud-Schingen, and Tamara Thorpe spoke about their experiences with racism in the field of intercultural education, and advocated for a more explicitly anti-racist approach to interculturality that serves to decenter whiteness and uplift historically minoritized and marginalized voices in the field.
Intercultural pedagogy can serve to de-center dominant cultural narratives and challenge the social status quo. However, this occurs most frequently (and effectively) when intercultural educators also have a strong background in critical theory, including critical literacy.
The Socio-Cultural Underpinnings of Critical Literacy
In her literature review of critical literacy, Cara Mulcahy describes critical literacy as “a mindset; a way of viewing and interacting with the world. It is not merely a method or an approach to the teaching of literacy or language arts” (1). This description underscores the socio-cultural core of critical literacy. The underpinnings of this mindset (and the theoretical constructs of critical literacy) are informed by lived realities and extend far beyond the classroom. As such, it is impossible to separate the concepts of society and culture from the practice of critical literacy.
One of the foundational texts of critical literacy is Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Brazilian scholar Paulo Freire. In it, he describes how power dynamics that exist in society recreate themselves in classrooms at all levels of education. One of his best-known concepts is the “banking model” of education, which elucidates the power dynamics that exist between teachers and students. In the banking model, the teacher is viewed as the expert who “gives” knowledge to the students. The students “receive” and “bank” this knowledge, and must be prepared to produce it on command. In this model, student agency is stripped, and the lived experiences of students are not taken into account (much less valued) in the classroom.
While the banking model is often discussed in education circles in transactional terms, in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire goes on to describes this model as a narrative process (which is of particular interest as I consider the scope of this multimodal resource site). He writes: “A careful analysis of the teacher-student relationship at any level, inside or outside the school, reveals its fundamentally narrative character. This relationship involves a narrating Subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the students). The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated to become lifeless and petrified. Education is suffering from narration sickness. The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to ‘fill’ the students with the contents of his narration—contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance. Words are emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity” (71).
If we consider the elements that give words their “concreteness,” cultural associations and social/societal knowledge figure in heavily. In crafting, repeating, and upholding these “motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable” narratives, the teacher is essentially ignoring the socio-cultural realities that surround and exist within the classroom. One way to move beyond this, to begin to “cure” this entrenched “narrative sickness,” is to engage with the complex socio-cultural dynamics at play between teachers and students—and to co-create narratives that reflect this reality—instead of rehearsing the socio-cultural myths rooted in white supremacy.
Toward a Critical Intercultural Literacy
In Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks reminds us that “multiculturalism compels educators to recognize the narrow boundaries that have shaped the way knowledge is shared in the classroom. It forces us all to recognize our complicity in accepting and perpetuating biases of any kind” (44). Here, she is arguing for a critical multiculturalism that moves beyond the perception of cultural difference toward an interrogation of how dominant culture(s) exercise power over what knowledge is privileged in the classroom and how it is taught. In this video, editor Chris Jackson discusses the limitations and possibilities associated with multiculturalism in the literary sphere.
A critical multiculturalism that includes grounding our classroom practices in interculturality (understanding our own cultural frame and how we perceive and interact with members of other cultures) and critical literacy (examining the power structures inherent in texts, how they are discussed in academic settings, and what they reveal about the world beyond the classroom) allows us to comprehend and “recognize our complicity in perpetuating biases” – and power structures – “of any kind.” In doing so, we empower our students to do the same.
It’s also important to acknowledge that a growth mindset is essential for educators doing this work. If we are doing it effectively, our classroom discussions will push us out of our comfort zones. Practicing this approach will radically change the way we embody our roles as educators. At times, we may feel as though we are losing the control that we were so carefully socialized to maintain. This way of being in community with our students will open us all up to insights into the culturally constructed worlds within and outside our classrooms that we would never gain by maintaining the status quo.
Critical Internationalization
While critical internationalization is not the explicit focus of this project, it’s important to address this emerging field in higher education, seeing as internationalization initiatives can impact/shape the work that community college literature instructors do in the classroom. Critical internationalization also serves as a framework for thinking through the intersections of intercultural and critical pedagogies at an institutional level, particularly the alignment of institutional goals with specific programs and pedagogies.
Broadly speaking, internationalization is a framework for preparing global-ready students who are equipped to thrive in diverse professional and social settings in the United States and across the globe. While approaches vary by institution, internationalization typically involves the intentional integration of international content and a focus on intercultural development in courses, co-curricular activities, and study abroad opportunities. Internationalization has been implemented at an institutional level in four-year college contexts since the 1990s. However, internationalization in community colleges is a relatively recent phenomenon. Some community colleges are turning to this approach to system-wide intercultural development as a tool for student recruitment and retention (as a result of students seeing their cultural selves reflected in courses and in the work of the college as a whole). Within all higher education contexts, internationalization approaches can risk reinforcing white supremacy culture on campuses and/or replicating colonial patterns of privileging certain ways of knowing over others. As a result, the field of critical internationalization has emerged.
As expressed by the members of the Critical Internationalization Network, “Critical perspectives on internationalization have emerged that: voice concerns about the risks of reproducing uneven global power relations, representations, and resource flows; problematize and complicate the overwhelmingly positive and often depoliticized nature of mainstream approaches to internationalization, particularly in Western/ized institutions; and put forth new possible approaches to international engagements, pedagogies, and forms of knowledge production.” The approaches this group of scholars have used to interrogate current internationalization practices through a critical lens, such as “RADARS for problematic patterns of curriculum internationalization,” can be instructive for those of us engaged in this work within our literature courses.
Literature Classroom Praxis
This site is dedicated to the practice of critical intercultural literacy in community college literature classes. It is a space to try out ideas and find ways to collaborate with educators and students grappling with similar work at their institutions. I designed the resources on this site for use in an online teaching setting. Even before Covid-19, I was teaching 50% my literature courses online. Considering the circumstances surrounding Covid-19, our academic institutions will most likely be in either a 100% online course delivery mode or increased online course delivery mode for at least the next year. In order to make this framework as applicable as possible to my literature courses and those that my colleagues at community colleges across the country will be teaching over the next year and beyond, I will focus on online applications of these resources. However, they could easily be used in an in-person classroom setting with minor modifications.
I have organized the critical intercultural literacy pedagogy resources and literature classroom implementation ideas around four novels that align well with the following areas of inquiry: how cultural/social/racial selves are constructed, how systems are culturally/socially/racially constructed, how power functions locally and globally, and the historical and contemporary impacts of systemic oppression. Practically speaking, these are all novels that fit well into the current literature courses I teach: Introduction to Literature, Literature of Diversity, World Literature, and Young Adult Literature. Each novel has its own page on the website that includes a narrative around how I approach teaching that novel through a critical intercultural lens, resources, and specific ideas for classroom application.
The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus
Dream Country by Shannon Gibney
The Tattooed Soldier by Héctor Tobar
Tools
Below are links to tools for teaching literature that I designed to facilitate learning at the intersection of intercultural pedagogy and critical literacy pedagogy. You will find them integrated into the praxis pages for each novel. They could be used in myriad ways to support the creation of empowering literature learning environments.
Foundational Concepts Slide Decks
Multimodal Learning Experiences
Works Cited
Connor, Ulla. Intercultural Rhetoric in the Writing Classroom. University of Michigan Press, 2011.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Bloomsbury, 2018.
Hofstede, Geert, Gert Jan Hofstede, and Michael Minkov. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind: Intercultural Cooperation and Its Importance for Survival. 3rd ed. McGraw-Hill, 2010.
hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as The Practice of Freedom. Routledge, 1994.
Inglehart, Ronald, Miguel Basáñez, and Moreno A. Menéndez. Human Values and Beliefs: A Cross-Cultural Sourcebook: Political, Religious, Sexual, and Economic Norms in 43 Societies; Findings from the 1990-1993 World Value Survey. University of Michigan Press, 1998.
Mulcahy, Cara. “Critical Literacy: A Literature Review,”Connecticut Association for Reading Research, 2007.
Rozbicki, Michal. Perspectives on Interculturality. Palgrave, 2015.
Narrative (and) Power 