Confronting racism and white privilege in courses on religion and the environment: An inclusive pedagogical approach

Abstract

Courses on religion and the environment must confront racism and white privilege in order to remain relevant for the diverse students who increasingly fill higher education classrooms. Recognizing that traditional approaches for understanding environmentalism can isolate students of color by failing to recognize their own communities and experiences, I offer two assignments – Ecological Footprint Journals and a community‐based research project – that empower students to think of environmentalism in new, more relevant ways. This approach has benefitted my students by displacing the dominance of Eurocentric thinking in my curriculum and creating a class culture that values diverse perspectives. It has also profoundly shaped my research trajectory, by helping me identify raced and classed biases that are embedded in my field, and leading me to develop a research project that complements my teaching by challenging some of those hidden assumptions.

Predictors of Scientific Civic Engagement (PSCE) Survey: A Multidimensional Instrument to Measure Undergraduates’ Attitudes, Knowledge, and Intention to Engage with the Community Using Their Science Skills

“…For example, faculty can create experiential learning courses for Spanish where students not only learn (and are assessed on) the language, but also apply their language learning to perform social services, urban education, or health services within their respective neighborhoods ( Moore-Martínez and Pongan, 2018 ). Cultural community-engaged pedagogy is focused on students working alongside community partners to expand their understanding of self within the local populace, thereby gaining insight on their sense of privilege (e.g., Baugh, 2019 ). Finally, we have political and anti-foundational community-engaged pedagogies, both of which are focused on the empowerment of underserved groups through activities similar to those mentioned above, but they take the next step by encouraging students to question pre-established norms and behaviors that maintain the status quo (similar to Westheimer and Kahne, 2004 ).…”