Teaching a Course in African-American Psychology

The increasing diversity of college students has necessitated increased attention to multiculturalism in content courses. Although few people would question the merits of incorporating issues of diversity within content courses, the means of doing so remain open to debate. In this article, I examine not only the reasons for infusing issues of diversity into psychology courses, but also some of the challenges involved. I make recommendations for judiciously addressing diversity in a process-oriented fashion that does not promote ethnocentrism.Current projections indicate that, within the next decade, Americans of non-European descent will constitute a third

Section: Discussion Remain At the Descriptive Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Including Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in Psychology Content Courses

Kowalski

2000

“…Similarly, publications on how to incorporate diversity issues into the classroom continues to grow (e.g., De Four & Paludi, 1991;Ford & Grossman, 1997;Junn, 1994aJunn, , 1994bMosley-Howard & Harris, 1993;Richard, 1996;Santos de Barona & Reid, 1992;Tatum, 1992;Weinstein & Obear, 1992;Whitten, 1993).…”

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confidence: 99%

Playing “Sherlock Holmes”: Enhancing Students' Understanding of Prejudice and Stereotyping

Junn

Grier

Behrens

2001

A very simple, innovative classroom exercise designed to heighten students' understanding of stereotyping and prejudice is described. Students' evaluation of the exercise was very positive.Students reported greater awareness and understanding of their own and others' stereotypes and prejudice and of the negative effects of prejudice, with females more than males reporting enhanced awareness of others' stereotyping. Students also rated the exercise as very enjoyable.There was a trend among Non-White more than White students to report that the exercise helped show them how to reduce stereotypes and more Non-White than White students offered solutions for reducing prejudice that involved actively reaching out and interacting with others different from themselves. Additional suggestions for instructors are discussed.

“…Unfortunately, current attention to and infusion of diversity and multiculturalism into psychology curriculum may generally occur as a function of demography rather than an institutional quest for knowledge, growth, or understanding (Gloria & Pope-Davis, 1997;Sue & Sue, 1999). Despite the emergence of psychology courses that focus on a particular ethnicity or culture (Bohan, 1997;Bronstein & Quina, 1988b;Mosley-Howard & Harris, 1993;Santos de Barona & Reid, 1992;White, 1994;Whitten, 1993), consistent integration of pluralistic perspectives and cultures into traditional psychology curriculum is lacking (Bronstein & Quina, 1988a;Gloria & Pope-Davis, 1997).…”

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confidence: 99%

Issues and Recommendations for Teaching an Ethnic/Culture-Based Course

Gloria

Rieckmann

Rush³

2000

In this article, we present potential pedagogical concerns and strategies for instructors who teach ethnic/culture-based courses. Four specific issues form the basis of this article: (a) student comfort with ambiguous concepts, (b) different levels of student ethnic/cultural identity development, (c) student fears in examining their biases and assumptions, and (d) student emotions when acquiring new and sometimes value-conflicting information. We provide recommendations to facilitate student learning and an open classroom environment.