"In this symposium, we wish to inquire into how our colleagues have enacted, augmented, or departed from these components of social justice education in their teaching. We also wish to inquire into learners’ experiences of and visions for equitable education and learning."
About the CFP:
Symposium Date: May 13, 2022
Submission Deadline: March 21, 2022
The Colloquium on Transcultural Approaches to Europe (Jason Groves, Olivia Gunn, Maya Smith, Kye Terrasi) invites proposals that engage the practices and visions of social justice pedagogy at classroom, community, disciplinary, programmatic, and institutional levels. We welcome submissions by undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff in the Humanities Division at the University of Washington. At this time, we are planning for an in-person symposium.
We borrow our symposium title from Social Justice Pedagogy Across the Curriculum, edited by Thandeka K. Chapman and Nikola Hobbel. In their introduction, they cite Sonia Nieto and Patty Bode on the four components of social justice education, which we excerpt here from Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education:
“It challenges, confronts, and disrupts misconceptions, untruths, and stereotypes that lead to structural inequality and discrimination based on race, social class, gender, and other social and human differences”; it provides “all students with the resources necessary to learn to their full potential”; it draws on “the talents and strengths that students bring to their education”; and it creates “a learning environment that promotes critical thinking and supports agency for social change” (2008, p. 11).
In this symposium, we wish to inquire into how our colleagues have enacted, augmented, or departed from these components of social justice education in their teaching. We also wish to inquire into learners’ experiences of and visions for equitable education and learning.
Above all, we wish to open a division-wide conversation that builds on ongoing conversations within individual units and our respective fields. This conversation might start with questions such as:
- What changes have you made in your teaching practices to overcome barriers to equitable learning experiences in the classroom?
- What are some ongoing barriers?
- What are your sources of inspiration and support in this work?
- Where do our professional organizations fit into this picture?
- What work needs to be done, and how can we move forward together?
Possible topics include:
- Teaching queer/trans-affirming language
- Beyond “diversifying the curriculum”
- Diversifying versus decolonizing curricula
- Marking whiteness in the classroom
- Activist pedagogies
- Revealing the “hidden curriculum”
- Problematizing objectivity
- Foregrounding positionalities
- Reassessing assessment
- Precarity and labor (in)justice
- Challenging the canon
Proposal Guidelines:
Proposals should be ca. 300 words and for one of the following types of presentations:
- 15-minute talk.
- 45-minute panel of talks from multiple presenters proposing three related presentations
- 45-minute workshop where presenter(s) lead participants to engage in a topic related to the conference theme and help work on participants’ own materials.
- 45-minute identity caucus group in which facilitator(s) lead a group of conference attendees with a shared identity (e.g., Black queer caucus, high school educators caucus, first-generation graduate student caucus) in a guided discussion of topics related to social justice pedagogy in regards to the specific needs, responsibilities, and/or experiences of the caucus group.
- Poster for a poster session.
Please submit proposals as an email attachment in Word or PDF to transculturaleurope@gmail.com. Please include the following:
- Type of presentation
- Title of the presentation
- Presenter’s name(s), professional title(s) affiliation(s), and email(s)
Deadline for submissions: March 21, 2022