This dissertation presents the first known Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) investigation of how marginalized students are included in syllabi. This study fills a gap in the literature due to the changing demographic of college students, the absence of faculty who share these marginalized identities, the syllabus being the first…

This study explores Latin American perspectives on heterodox economic development by analyzing 23 development economics syllabi and conducting 37 semi-structured interviews with educators and students. Using a Foucauldian framework and an Archaeology of Knowledge approach, this research uncovers regional viewpoints and variations in course…

This essay highlights a critical assessment approach for intercultural communication courses that engages in a "doing--undoing" practice for instructors, with the aim of "doing" culture as learned through society and traditional intercultural communication instruction with the limited, romanticized, and settler colonial…

I discuss White American students' experiences of reading racism-themed young adult literature (YAL), addressing the issue of police brutality, and using the concept of intersectionality to promote social justice awareness. Based on analysis of their written reflections and classroom discussions, I argue reading racism-themed YAL with an…

Syllabus-boundness constitutes an important attribute of a so-called surface approach to learning, whereby students are seen as highly assessment-oriented, doing what is minimally required from them, and wanting well-organized courses and clear instructions. When this concept emerged in the late 1960ies, it was linked to a discussion on issues of…

Background: Students with marginalized identities can experience identity threats in higher education. Instructors can help improve student outcomes by using identity safety cues (ISCs), which signal to marginalized groups that their identities are valued. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine whether including ISCs in course syllabi…

We hear calls to globalize, internationalize, decolonize, and diversify higher education from all corners of the world. What changes do they actually seek? Who is behind them and whose interests do they serve? How much are curricula actually changing? In this article, we explore these questions from outside Europe and the United States by…

This article investigates the pedagogical power of teaching and learning alongside Octavia Butler's "Kindred." I examine the stories of students enrolled in a special topics undergraduate honors seminar centered on personal discovery, race, and family using grounded theory and narrative textual analysis. Students' narratives reveal the…

Purpose: This study was designed to assess the efficacy of pedagogical and relationship-building strategies employed to foster student engagement and success. Also, it was meant to demonstrate the importance of faculty to engagement and success, and emphasize a faculty member's role in lessening the power divide that can exist in classrooms.…

With increasing threats to democracy, we call for communication educators to renew and re-examine their commitment to advancing civic engagement in the basic course. Given recent scholarly criticism that civic engagement pedagogies falsely present democratic practice as neutral or apolitical and reinforce the status quo, we set an agenda for basic…

Three colleagues critically reflect on their experiences as educators, curriculum designers, leaders, and activists who set out to apply social justice education and transformative leadership scholarship to the creation of a Leaders of Social Justice in Education course. They begin with their background, the diverse change agents selected to build…

With this paper, we present an autoethnographic account of how two higher education teachers have navigated the classroom as they deal with their own traumatic experiences. This includes discussions of how each individual's trauma developed and manifests in the classroom, as well as discussions of various pedagogical implications/strategies for…

Social justice is a hallmark of social work practice. The call to end oppression and discrimination are voiced in the Grand Challenge, Achieve Equal Opportunity and Justice, the National Association of Social Work Code of Ethics preamble, and the Council on Social Work Education Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards. However, none of…

Power is a complicated and uncomfortable topic that affects everyone to varying degrees. A traditional view of power would be a force that someone wields over others. However, Michel Foucault's view of power turns it into a relationship between two or more individuals that becomes quite liberating (1994). Through power-relationships, freedom of…

Understanding how power is communicated by instructors and students is important to student motivation and learning. To examine how power is communicated online by instructors and how receptive (or not) students are to this, I examined four online graduate seminars using two analytical tools: community of inquiry (COI) theory and McCroskey and…