Identity and Intersectionality in the Classroom
Introduction to Intersectionality
Intersectionality is the concept that every person has multiple components of their identity (race, gender, class, age, sexuality, religion, ability, size, ethnicity, language, immigration status, education level, profession, subcultural affiliations, etc.) that intersect in ways that shape our unique experiences in the world. We can use this concept to help us see, respect, and engage the full humanity of the people we encounter.
Intersectionality was first coined by legal scholar and civil rights activist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 and expanded in 1991. The term originally was applied to a legal case of discrimination in which a company was not hiring Black female workers, but the company was not charged with discrimination because they did hire Black workers and female workers; however, the Black workers were all male and the female workers were all White. In this case, because the court considered race and gender separately, Black women fell through the cracks of the system. If the court had understood that the intersection of the various components of our identities produces unique experiences, the discrimination experienced by Black women might have been seen and addressed.
Everyone holds an intersectional identity, and our experiences are shaped by that unique intersection of identities. Intersectionality insists that we cannot consider any single axis of identity (gender, race, class, etc.) separately from or above the rest. Adopting an intersectional lens both necessitates and generates a complex understanding of how power functions in our society: depending on the intersection of our identities and the contexts in which we find ourselves, we may experience both privilege and oppression, alternately or simultaneously. As a basic example, a female faculty member is in a structural position of power over all of her students based on the authority of her position, but at the same time, her male students hold power over her based on the societal power that accompanies their gender.
Crenshaw briefly describes intersectionality and how it shapes the classroom in this video featuring Kimberlé Crenshaw. Adopting an intersectional lens in our classrooms specifically enables us to identify, analyze, and navigate the complex power dynamics at play in our AU instructional milieu in ways that support our students and ourselves.
Intersectionality is built on the earlier scholarship of Black feminists including, among others:
Sojourner Truth
An example of someone who advocated for understanding the lived experience of Black women as intersectional before intersectionality was theorized in the academy
Truth, S. (1851). Ain’t I a woman?
Anna Julia Cooper
Often cited as the first Black feminist working in academia, she researched and wrote about race, gender, and class
Cooper, A. J. H. (1892). A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman from the South. The Aldine Printing House.
The Combahee River Collective
A queer Black feminist collective that was active in the 1970s; they issued a statement in 1978 that continues to resonate with intersectionality today
The Combahee River Collective. (1978). A Black feminist statement. In Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism. Monthly Review Press.
Angela Davis
First and foremost a political activist, she writes and speaks extensively on race and gender, particularly as they intersect with education and incarceration
Davis, A. Y. (1981). Women, race, & class. Random House.
—. (1985). Violence against women and the ongoing challenge to racism. Kitchen Table.
—. (1989). Women, culture & politics. Random House.
bell hooks
Especially prominent in education and pedagogy, she was an early contributor to scholarship on Black feminism and later developed a critical pedagogy based on Black feminist theory
hooks, b. (1981). Ain’t I a woman? Black women and feminism. South End Press.
—. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.
Chandra Tapalde Mohanty
A post-colonial scholar who critiqued Western feminism for neglecting to consider the complexities of global experiences, thereby continuing to colonize Women of Color around the world
Mohanty, C. T. (1984). Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Boundary 12(3): 333–358.
Audre Lorde
Librarian, poet, publisher, scholar, activist, and more, she shaped intersectional approaches from many angles, offering a multitudinous lens through which to approach feminisms
Lorde, A. (1984). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. The Crossing Press.
Gloria Anzaldúa
A queer Chicana feminist, poet, author, scholar, and activist who theorized the complex liminality of the Chicane experience
Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Borderlands—la fontera: The new mestiza. Aunt Lute.
Coming out of the initial publication by Crenshaw (1989), scholars and activists have continued to develop the theorization and applications of intersectionality. These scholars and activists include, among others:
Patricia Hill Collins
Coined the term “matrix of domination” in 1990 to emphasize how the specific intersection of each person’s identities shapes how individuals experience power, privilege, and oppression
Hill Collins, P. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Unwin Hyman.
Julia S. Jordan-Zachery
Emphasized the intragroup differences, pushing against the misconception that intersectional analyses assume homogeneity within a particular intersection of identities
Jordan-Zachery, J. S. (2006). Commentary: The practice and functioning of intersectionality and politics. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 28(3-4), 205-212. https://doi.org/10.1300/J501v28n03_09
Kathy Davis, Richard Delgado, Devon W. Carbado, and Sumi Cho
Called to expand the application of intersectionality beyond Black women in order to highlight and explore the applicability of intersectional analyses to any group
Davis, K. (2008). Intersectionality as buzzword: A sociology of science perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful. Feminist Theory, 9(1), 67-85. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700108086364
Delgado, R. (2011). Rodrigo’s reconsideration: Intersectionality and the future of Critical Race Theory. Iowa Law Review 96(4), 1247-88.
Carbado, D. W. (2013, summer). Colorblind intersectionality. Signs 38(4), 811-45. https://doi.org/10.1086/669666
Cho, S. (2013, fall). Post-intersectionality: The curious reception of intersectionality in legal scholarship. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 10(2), 385-404. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X13000362
Jasbir Puar and Sirma Bilge
Most recently, some scholars, such as Jasbir Puar, questioned the utility of intersectionality as a theoretical framework, raising the concern that it reinscribes categories of identity that are created by and for oppressive systems; in response, scholars including Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge clarified intersectionality further and argued that intersectionality does not reinscribe those labels, but rather recognizes the reality of these oppressive systems that people must navigate.
Nash, Jennifer C. (2008.) Re-thinking intersectionality. Feminist Review, 89(1): 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2008
Hill Collins, P., and Bilge, S. (2016). Intersectionality. Polity Press.
Applying Principles of Intersectionality to Teaching
Building Self-Awareness
The first step towards supporting our students fully is understanding our own identities. We enter our classrooms with our own unique experiences and knowledge. Our lenses for understanding and navigating the world, including our implicit biases, shape how we design learning experiences for our students. Guided by personal preferences, cultural habits, and prior experiences, we each have our own academic interests, preferred ways of engaging with new material and with colleagues, and goals for our learning. Without regular reflection, and with our positions of power over students as faculty, we risk imposing those interests, preferences, and goals on our students in ways that can alienate them, make them feel invisible, or even deny their realities.
One way to raise our self-awareness of the implications of our identities and possible biases in our classrooms is through reflection. Reflecting on our teaching helps us ensure that our practices are aligned with our values and goals. There are many methods we can use to reflect on our teaching:
Watch this video from the National Museum of African American History and Culture to learn more about the roots and significance of intersectionality.
Journaling
Taking a few minutes to journal after each class can help you track trends and document what went well and what didn’t, how long activities and discussions lasted, student interest, etc. This can also be useful when revisiting the course in future semesters.
Classroom recordings
Watching recordings of our teaching – either alone or with the support of a colleague – can alert us to what we are doing well and what we might not be communicating with students in the ways we intend.
Colleague feedback
To support our reflections on our course, we can solicit feedback from colleagues or a CTRL Teaching & Learning Specialist.
Student feedback
Another way to raise our self-awareness of the implications of our identities in our classrooms is through student feedback. The standard surveys that the university distributes at the end of each semester provide us with some feedback from students, but these are often biased, and, due to the post-semester timing, the feedback cannot be applied to the course from which it was gathered. For insight into how our current students are experiencing a course, build regular feedback opportunities into your course. Feedback can be gathered with:
- anonymous surveys
- in-class discussions
- assistance from CTRL Teaching & Learning Specialists during our Midsemester Course Analysis period each semester
Regardless of the method for collecting feedback, be sure to thank your students for their feedback, discuss trends in their feedback with your students, and share any changes you will make based on that feedback (as well as any the reasoning behind any changes you won’t make).
Some questions you can use as an instructor to guide your reflection on your identity are:
- What aspects of your identity afford you privilege or marginalization at American University, and what does that look and/or feel like? *
- What aspects of your identity do you perceive to have the greatest effect on how others (students, colleagues) see and interact with you (positive or negative)? *
- How might your identities influence your relationships with your students from similar or different social identities? *
- How do your identities influence your approach to teaching? *
* These questions are copied from the Inclusive STEM Teaching Project‘s massive open online course under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
These reflective practices help us improve our teaching in many ways. To improve our self-awareness of our intersectional identities and their impacts on students specifically:
Self-reflection
Reflect on how we relate to our course material (subject, examples, assignments, etc.) and what gaps we might have in our own awareness and experiences due to our implicit biases.
Student feedback on engagement
Seek feedback on how engaged students are and whether students are finding ways to relate to the course material.
Student feedback on representation
Seek feedback on whether students see their identities and interests being represented in the course topics, materials, and assignments.
We should also reflect on any experiences or feedback that makes us uncomfortable as we work to understand the types of power at play in the situation. Sitting with that discomfort affords us the chance to understand more deeply the power dynamics at play in a given situation. In doing so, we can work to understand what kinds of power we have over others based on various identity factors.
It is important here to remember that, while all instructors have some power over students by virtue of their role as instructors, instructors and students will hold various other forms of power over each other based on other aspects of their identities. Considering feedback that makes us uncomfortable with our power is a skill we can all work on; recognizing when students are exhibiting bias against the instructor because of the instructor’s marginalized identities is a different skill that instructors who hold marginalized identities will likely need to practice. For support sorting through and acting on student feedback, set up a consultation with CTRL Teaching & Learning Specialists.
Honoring Our Students’ Identities
Our students enter our classrooms with experiences and knowledge that are shaped by their identities. Some of these identities are visible while other identities are not obvious or are even hidden by the student. Certain elements of students’ identities will be more relevant to their success in your classroom than others. The relevance is unique to each student’s personal situation and how they relate to their identities.
Because not every aspect of our students’ identities is visible, it’s important that we take the time to get to know our students as individuals. Here are a couple of ways to do that:
Surveys
Administering a survey at the beginning of the semester can illuminate some of the unseen aspects of your students’ identities that will impact their learning. Consider asking your students about their educational backgrounds, why they enrolled in your course, what they hope to learn or achieve in your course, and whether there is anything going on in their lives that they would be comfortable sharing that might impact their engagement in your course. Here are some CTRL tips for building a strong community from the start of the semester.
One-on-one meetings
If your class size is small enough, meeting briefly one-on-one with each student can serve a similar purpose as surveys with the added benefit of building closer relationships with your students early in the semester.
Welcoming and honoring the intersectional identities of your students also opens the possibility of centering their diverse epistemologies and experiences. This will enrich all your students’ learning experiences as they will have the opportunity to engage with perspectives beyond the limited canonical academic views. This CTRL resource offers a more in-depth treatment of centering students’ knowledge in our classrooms.
Some students may not initially feel comfortable or safe sharing all their relevant identities with you and their peers. They may have experienced discrimination, verbal or physical abuse, or other forms of harm when they have made these aspects of their identities known to others. For this reason, even though a particular aspect of their identity may influence their ability to engage with or their interest in your course, they may refrain from sharing this component of their identity. Hiding a relevant aspect of their identity, however, requires a constant exertion of cognitive and emotional energy, which takes a toll on their ability to learn. Additionally, because this aspect of their identity is not known to their instructor, the instructor may be less likely to share course material or design activities that are engaging to that student.
We cannot counteract all the negative experiences our students face in their lives, but we can work to create a respectful space in which our students feel that they can engage their full identities safely and be uniquely respected, valued, and supported. This is essential to student learning, and this is the purpose of an intersectional approach to teaching. See the CTRL resource on Universal Design for Learning for more ideas about how to address these issues.
Applying Intersectionality to Support Learning
One reason why intersectionality is so important to consider as we design our courses is because, to learn, humans need to feel safe and need somehow to find ways to relate to new content.
When we feel threatened, our cognitive and emotional energy is spent focusing on the threat. This leaves us with little or no cognitive energy to spend on engaging with new material. Students might feel unsafe when their instructor, their peers, or their course materials convey – implicitly or explicitly – bias against one or more of their identities. The CTRL resource on trauma-informed teaching includes many practical tips for creating classrooms where all students feel safe.
Even when our safety is not being threatened (or perceived as being threatened), to learn new material, we need to find ways to relate new materials to our preexisting knowledge. Commonly accepted theories of learning indicate that our brains store information in schemata. Beginning in infancy, human beings form concepts that enable them to categorize objects and events. Learners also pull concepts together into general categories of understanding. These general categories are called schemata. Advanced schemata help us access information more quickly, retrieve relevant information from our memory, identify patterns in new information, and more. Adding to a schema requires a connection between the new material and the existing schemata.
To help all our students build effective and efficient schemata, we can take steps to relate our course material to contexts or schemata that matter to our students by getting to know them and by using diverse examples that relate to their various identities:
Relatable examples
Use the information that students shared in their introductory surveys to help you select examples that relate students’ interests and experiences.
Flexibility
Build flexibility into your assignments and in-class activities to allow students’ personal, academic, and professional interests and goals to shape how they engage with material.
Another reason why intersectionality is important to consider while designing courses is that an intersectional approach to teaching the discipline itself can also support our students’ learning. Illuminating how intersectional approaches to scholarship look in your field will have multiple positive effects. The greater diversity of approaches will provide students with a more thorough understanding of your field and the power structures at play within it. Additionally, by incorporating representation of more identities and issues, each of your students will have more opportunities to connect with the course content on a personal level, which fosters deeper learning. Finally, taking an intersectional approach to your content will help your students build the skills they need to continue engaging with scholarship and with each other in intersectional ways, which works toward decreasing bias at the university and in the future of your field. As you incorporate intersectionality into your course, be sure to teach students how to talk about intersectional identities using respectful, asset-based language.
Resources and References
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1.8), 139-167.
Crenshaw, K. (1991, July). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 16(6), 1241-1299. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039
For an overview of the current state of scholarship on intersectionality, see: Al-Faham, H., Davis, A. M., & Ernst, R. (2019, October). Intersectionality: From theory to practice. Annual Review of Law and Social Science 15(1), 247-265. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-101518-042942
Identities & Positionality | Teaching + Learning Lab (mit.edu)
Reflective Teaching | Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning (yale.edu)
