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Critical Identity Classrooms As Turbulent Spaces: Exploring Student and Instructor Experiences with Identities, Privilege, and Power

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CRITICAL IDENTITY CLASSROOMS AS TURBULENT SPACES: EXPLORING STUDENT AND INSTRUCTOR EXPERIENCES WITH IDENTITIES, PRIVILEGE, AND POWER by Victoria Kannen A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto © Copyright by Victoria Kannen (2011) CRITICAL IDENTITY CLASSROOMS AS TURBULENT SPACES: EXPLORING STUDENT AND INSTRUCTOR EXPERIENCES WITH IDENTITIES, PRIVILEGE, AND POWER Doctor of Philosophy 2011 Victoria Kannen Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education University of Toronto Abstract This qualitative study focuses on students and instructors who study, teach, and learn critical concepts of identity, such as gender, race, and dis/ability. The participants’ reflections on these university classroom experiences are examined in order to explore the ways they understand their encounters with privilege and power. In classes that take up discussions of identity – critical identity classrooms – the intention is often to teach, study, and learn how (our) identity or identities manifest in social life, how these manifestations can be problematized, and how these explorations can lead to social change. Often, these courses centre on discussing identity in terms of oppression, rather than investigating the intersections of privilege and oppression. A major contention of this study is that a lack of discussion about privilege in the academy enables the pervasive invisibility of many unearned social advantages to remain under-theorized and ‘invisible.’ This study questions how it is that we come to understand concepts of identity to be one- dimensional, rather than understanding privilege as dynamic and situated. Using in-depth interviews with 22 undergraduate students and 8 instructors from 2 contrasting universities, this study explores 3 main questions: (1) How do students in higher education who are engaged in critical identity studies interpret privilege, both for others and themselves? (2) How do the participants understand their experiences inside and outside the classroom to be related to notions of privilege and oppression that often arise in critical identity classrooms? (3) How does using a multi-site approach to study critical ii identity classroom experiences extend the ways in which students’ understandings of privilege can be explored? Using these research questions, the intersections of space/location, power, and identities as they inform notions of privilege and oppression are demonstrated. The participants’ reflections expose how questions of belonging, safety, and ‘place’ contribute to the silences around the study of privilege. The study suggests that understanding privilege and oppression as located within the same network of relations, rather than as binary opposites, will aid in making privilege more accessible as a topic of study in critical identity classrooms. iii Acknowledgements This dissertation is possible only because of the wonderful people that have surrounded me from its inception to its completion. Thank you to my brilliant supervisor, Sandra Acker. Your insight, vast experience, friendship, and confidence in me encouraged and inspired me throughout this process. It has been a great honour to have shared this experience with you. Thank you to Kari Dehli and Minelle Mahtani for posing questions that supported and challenged me in all of the ways that I most needed. Thank you to my external examiner, Magda Lewis, who provided me with more support and inspiration than I had ever expected. Thank you to Elizabeth Smyth for taking the time to engage with my work and providing me with insightful feedback on such short notice. Thank you to my participants. All of you have inspired me more than you will know. The myriad ways in which you all reflected on your studying, teaching, and learning inspired me to forever question that which I take for granted. Thank you to my brilliant partner, Neil. None of this would have ever happened without you. After letting me dwell aloud with every decision, reading every word (more than once), and being the shoulder I needed when I didn’t even realize I needed one, this thesis is as much yours as it is mine. My friends and family are the most supportive people that I could ever imagine. Your unwavering commitment to me and my work has allowed me to persevere even on some of my hardest of days. And, finally, I thank Penelope for crayon-filled office visits, impromptu Lady Gaga dance parties, and for reminding me of the joys of love every single day. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................................iv CHAPTER 1 A PRIVILEGED TERRAIN ? ENCOUNTERS WITH THE STUDY OF IDENTITY Introduction................................................................................................................................................1 ‘Never-Not’ and Fluid? Questioning Identity...........................................................................................6 Bodies as Project(ion)s..............................................................................................................................8 Research Questions..................................................................................................................................11 Theoretical Underpinnings – Feminist Poststructuralism......................................................................12 Exploring Key Terms..............................................................................................................................14 Power ..............................................................................................................................................15 Privilege .........................................................................................................................................16 Identity ............................................................................................................................................18 Space ..............................................................................................................................................20 Furthering My Personal Engagement.....................................................................................................22 The Ethics of Speaking Dominance........................................................................................................24 Summary and Dissertation Overview.....................................................................................................25 CHAPTER 2 FROM THE BODY TO THE CLASSROOM : EXPLORING KEY AREAS Scope of the Review................................................................................................................................28 Thinking Through Critical Spaces – A Case Study................................................................................30 Sociology of the Body.............................................................................................................................33 Bourdieu – Hierarchized Bodies ...................................................................................................34 Goffman – Encounters with (Other) Bodies .................................................................................35 Foucault – The Body and Power ...................................................................................................37 Turner – The Body as Sociological ...............................................................................................38 Feminist Engagements with the Body/Embodiment and Identities.......................................................40 Identity: The Body Appears....................................................................................................................43 Making Some Sense of Appearances .............................................................................................44 The Normal Human Ideal ..............................................................................................................47 Theorizing ‘Being Privileged’ .......................................................................................................49 Theorizing ‘Being In-Between’ .....................................................................................................52 Identity Privilege......................................................................................................................................54 Dis/Ability .......................................................................................................................................55 Masculinities ..................................................................................................................................56 Whiteness ........................................................................................................................................58 Limits of Class-Based Approaches to Whiteness ..........................................................................58 Feminist Approaches to Whiteness ...............................................................................................60
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