University of Texas at El Paso DigitalCommons@UTEP Open Access Theses & Dissertations 2018-01-01 Clashes in the Contact Zone: Student, Faculty, and Administrative Resistance to Intersectional Pedagogies in the Writing Classroom Gina Marie Lawrence University of Texas at El Paso, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd Part of the Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Educational Methods Commons, and the Rhetoric Commons Recommended Citation Lawrence, Gina Marie, "Clashes in the Contact Zone: Student, Faculty, and Administrative Resistance to Intersectional Pedagogies in the Writing Classroom" (2018). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 8. https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd/8 This is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UTEP. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CLASHES IN THE CONTACT ZONE: STUDENT, FACULTY, AND ADMINISTRATIVE RESISTANCE TO INTERSECTIONAL PEDAGOGIES IN THE WRITING CLASSROOM GINA MARIE LAWRENCE Doctoral Program in Rhetoric and Composition APPROVED: Kate Mangelsdorf, Ph.D., Chair Lucía Dura, Ph.D. Char Ullman, Ph.D. Charles Ambler, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School Copyright © by Gina Lawrence 2018 Dedication To Reese and Jordan -- You can do anything! CLASHES IN THE CONTACT ZONE: STUDENT, FACULTY, AND ADMINISTRATIVE RESISTANCE TO INTERSECTIONAL PEDAGOGIES IN THE WRITING CLASSROOM by GINA MARIE LAWRENCE, MA DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at El Paso in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Rhetoric and Composition THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO December 2018 Acknowledgements This dissertation was many years in the making and there were days that I thought I would never finish it. I would never have gotten this far if it had not been for my incredible committee members, Drs. Kate Mangelsdorf and Lucía Durá, who pushed me even when I was going nowhere. Also, to Dr. Amy Reed-Sandoval, who was here to support me for the bulk of this journey but now has a beautiful baby at home. And to complete my committee, I am eternally grateful to Dr. Char Ullman, whose excitement about this project was contagious and allowed me to find energy to complete it. I would also like to thank Dr. Manal Hamzeh at New Mexico State University for being my excellent femtor during my first year and a half as a new faculty member. Writing a dissertation while working full time is no easy task, and she provided me with so much support through her hands-on femtorship and our feminist writing group. I feel very grateful to be included with such great company each week. I had two wonderful colleagues with me while I worked on my dissertation. First, Dr. Lizbett Tinoco. I couldn’t have done this PhD without you! You were the best class buddy, roommate, and cohort twin and I miss you so often. Secondly, Marieka Brown, thank you for your support and friendship in our work and productivity dates. This work would have been impossible without my other cohort members who I now call friends. Thank you Drs. Beau Pihlaja, Zach Warzecka, and Consuelo Salas. We did this together and I know this experience would not have been the same without you all along the way. v Dr. Lou Herman, I thank you for putting up with me and giving me such a strong example of what it is like to run a writing center and write a dissertation at the same time. As if being a parent wasn’t already hard enough, I felt like you were one of the only people who understood my obstacles and managed to both encourage me and give me a hard time all at once. We both did it! And finally, I cannot write my acknowledgements section without acknowledging the most important people in my life. Miley, Reese, and Jordan. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for helping me find my purpose. Thank you for making my house a home. I love you endlessly and forever. Reese and Jordan, you two are so special and so smart and will be able to do anything you set your minds to! Miley, thank you for creating the two children who continue to inspire me every day, and thank you for filling my heart with joy and motivation as I cross this final hurdle in my education. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................v TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................ vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2: THE INTERSECTIONALITY UMBRELLA: THROUGH RACE, GENDER, QUEERNESS, STANDARD LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY, AND MORE ........................8 Introduction to Topic ........................................................................................................8 Personal Connections ........................................................................................................8 Intersectionality ...............................................................................................................10 Beginnings ......................................................................................................................11 Feminism and Gender .....................................................................................................12 Queerness ........................................................................................................................15 On Race ...........................................................................................................................18 Standard Language Ideology ..........................................................................................20 Whiteness ........................................................................................................................26 Resistance .......................................................................................................................31 Critiques ..........................................................................................................................36 CHAPTER 3: QUESTIONS, METHODS, AND DESIGN ....................................................40 Research Questions .........................................................................................................40 Methods...........................................................................................................................40 CHAPTER 4: PEDAGOGY, PRACTICE, AND PRAXIS ....................................................48 Results .............................................................................................................................48 Intersectional Pedagogy in Practice ................................................................................48 Bringing Perspective through Readings ..........................................................................49 Hesitations and “I would worry I would get in trouble” .................................................55 Instructor Identity and Other Reasons Instructors Choose Intersectional Pedagogy ......59 Personal Anecdote on my Identity as an Instructor ........................................................60 Connecting with Students Culturally ..............................................................................62 How Student Resistance Looks ......................................................................................65 Resistance and Power in the Age of Trump ....................................................................66 vii Who Should be Talking about These Issues? .................................................................71 The Complications of Silence and Resistance in Online Teaching ................................73 Observation of Resistance: The Aggressive Egg ............................................................78 In My Own Classroom: “White People are Oppressed, Too” ........................................81 Step into Somebody’s Intersectional Shoes ....................................................................85 On Not Tokenizing Students or Assuming their Position ...............................................87 On Emotional Responses ................................................................................................88 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND POSSIBLE FUTURE WORK .....................................93 So, What Can We Do to Address Resistance? ................................................................94 Who’s Your Audience? Students vs. The Straw Man ....................................................95 Future Work ....................................................................................................................96 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................98 APPENDIX ............................................................................................................................103 A. Email to WPA Listerv seeking interview participants .............................................103 B. Email to Interested Interview Respondents ..............................................................104 C. Interview Consent Form ...........................................................................................105