TY - JOUR
T1 - Critical Whiteness Education and Cognitive Frame of Reference Elaboration
T2 - An In-Depth Descriptive Case of Transformation
AU - Grayman-Simpson, Nyasha
AU - Doucet, Fabienne
AU - Burgos-López, Luz
PY - 2019/7/1
Y1 - 2019/7/1
N2 - Critical race courses challenge today’s college students to cognitively grapple with issues of justice and the good society. In some instances, these challenges lead to positive, relational growth-fostering attitudes and behaviors. Transformative learning educator Jack Mezirow’s approach to facilitating cognitive shifts appears especially promising in its ability to promote such outcomes. In our own work, we apply this frame to guide our teaching, with an aim toward fostering and studying racially privileged (i.e., White) students’ cognitive shifts around the meaning of whiteness. The present case study is an in-depth description of one student’s whiteness frame of reference elaboration. Several tentative contributions to Mezirow’s theory emerge as a result. Namely, whiteness frame of reference elaboration may include (1) periods of cognitive homeostasis in addition to disruption, (2) positive affective experiencing in addition to negative affect, and (3) shifts in cognition that are subjectively encoded within the context of affective experiencing.
AB - Critical race courses challenge today’s college students to cognitively grapple with issues of justice and the good society. In some instances, these challenges lead to positive, relational growth-fostering attitudes and behaviors. Transformative learning educator Jack Mezirow’s approach to facilitating cognitive shifts appears especially promising in its ability to promote such outcomes. In our own work, we apply this frame to guide our teaching, with an aim toward fostering and studying racially privileged (i.e., White) students’ cognitive shifts around the meaning of whiteness. The present case study is an in-depth description of one student’s whiteness frame of reference elaboration. Several tentative contributions to Mezirow’s theory emerge as a result. Namely, whiteness frame of reference elaboration may include (1) periods of cognitive homeostasis in addition to disruption, (2) positive affective experiencing in addition to negative affect, and (3) shifts in cognition that are subjectively encoded within the context of affective experiencing.
KW - critical reflection
KW - reflective learning
KW - transformative pedagogy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85059943803&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85059943803&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1541344618821053
DO - 10.1177/1541344618821053
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85059943803
SN - 1541-3446
VL - 17
SP - 269
EP - 286
JO - Journal of Transformative Education
JF - Journal of Transformative Education
IS - 3
ER -