Page 266 - Microaggressions in Everyday Live Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

240 microaggressive impact on education and teaching

can be found in the following culture - bound and culturally biased forces
operating in schools at all levels.
How microaggressions make their appearance in the larger educational
setting can be analyzed from a broader systemic level, as we have seen in
Chapter 10 . Racial, gender, and sexual-orientation microaggressions can be
manifested in many areas:

• Faculty, administrators, staff, and students on an interactional level may
unwittingly invalidate, insult, or assail the identities of people of color,
women, and LGBTs.
• Microaggressions can make their appearance in the curriculum (cultur-
ally biased or culture-bound textbooks, lectures, teaching materials, etc.)
that ignore or portray marginalized groups in unfl attering ways.
• Low numerical minority representation among teachers and administrators
may act as a symbolic cue signaling a threat to a group ’ s social identity.
• The campus climate may be unwelcoming, not only through the actions
of individuals (harassment, racist/sexist/heterosexist jokes, etc.), but
also environmentally (foods served in cafeterias, music played at school
events, what and how events are celebrated, how classrooms or buildings
are decorated, etc.).
• Teaching and learning styles may clash with one another because of
differences in how groups learn.
• The types of support services offered by the school may come from a
primarily White European perspective that may be antagonistic to the
life values and experiences of certain groups (student personnel services,
counseling and guidance services, etc.).
• The programs, policies, and practices may be oppressive and unfair to
many marginalized groups and serve to oppress rather than liberate.

MICROAGGRESSIONS AND DIFFICULT DIALOGUES
ON RACE IN THE CLASSROOM

One of the most important educational forums in understanding how micro-
aggressions affect learning is in the classroom, where students spend a large
portion of their time. Some have made a distinction between schooling and
education (Cokley, 2006; Shujaa, 2003), in which the former is the process
and activities of going to and being in school while the latter is the by - product

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