Why Would A Student Say That?
Strategies for Unraveling
Unanticipated Classroom Conflicts
Ilene D. Alexander, PhD
Resources at http://tinyurl.com/db7j2x
Goals of this brief session:
Gain an understanding of “flashpoints”
Review frameworks for understanding
& resolving classrooms conflict / hot
moments
Practice – through review of cases –
ways of assessing a classroom situation
by generating possible responses, then
selecting a plan of action with follow up
assessment
What Is Multicultural Learning?
 Sustaining Multicultural Learning involves
creating classroom climates in which students
and teachers can acknowledge and address the
discomfort of working across boundaries, learn
how to respond to difference and grow
intellectually and personally as a consequence.
 To make multicultural learning both possible and
effective, instructors must structure classroom
interactions to be respectful & challenging,
creative & meaningful, engaged &
transformative. In such an environment,
inaccuracies, mistakes, hasty generalizations,
intolerance are addressed with honesty and care.
Shifting Perspectives
The work of a teacher involves
(1) development of critical thinking
skills, so that students understand how
to organize data, analyze, synthesize,
evaluate, and draw conclusions;
(2) recognition of meaning attribution
and the power that emotions, values,
and personal experience have in
shaping one's interpretation of
information.
 “Bridging Emotion & Intellect” Jane Fried. College Teaching: Fall 1993.
Shifting Perspectives
The professor, therefore, becomes
responsible for teaching students three
sets of skills:
first is separating facts from cultural
assumptions & beliefs about those facts
second is teaching students how to shift
perspective
third is perhaps the most difficult to
learn, that of differentiating between
personal discomfort and intellectual
disagreement
Shifting Perspectives
Learning Is Uncomfortable / Dissonant
Cognitive development:
Dualism (All things are right/wrong, black/white.)
Multiplicity (Everyone is right…no one is wrong.)
Relativism (Well, everyone has his/her own
opinion and could be equally right.)
Commitment to Relativism (Some ideas are more
right that others. One has to look carefully at the
claim, supporting evidence, and other factors.)
Perry and Belenky, et al
Shifting Perspectives
 Jackson/Hardiman
Model of Social Identity Development
 Social identity development theory describes
attributes that are common to the identity
development process for members of all target and
agent groups…. In reality most people experience
several stages simultaneously, holding complex
perspectives on a range of issues and living a
mixture of social identities.
 This developmental model can be helpful in
understanding student perspectives and selecting
instructional strategies, but we caution against
using it simplistically to label people.
Diversity Flashpoint
… involves a difficult interpersonal
situation during a faculty-student
interaction that originates from an area
of identity difference (e.g., race,
ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation,
class, ability/disability, language or
linguistic ability, religion, age, size,
family structure, geographic origin).
Flashpoints – Perceptual Filters
We can anticipate having such
differences due to a number of factors
that create "perceptual filters" that
influence our responses to the
situation:
Culture, race, and ethnicity
Gender and sexuality
Knowledge (general and situational)
Impressions of the Messenger
Previous experiences
Conflict
 Conflict resolution involves series of steps including:
 Listening
 Finding common interests
 Reaching an agreement
 Creative response
 Empathy/Internal Civility
 Appropriate assertiveness
 Cooperative power
 Managing emotions
 Willingness to resolve
 Mapping the conflict
 Development of options
 Broadening perspectives
 Brainstorming possible solutions to the problem
 Considering multiple views of proposed solutions