Accepting the Inevitability of Politics in the Classroom

Abstract

Once we acknowledge that we cannot escape politics in the classroom, it is imperative that we, as instructors, adapt our pedagogy accordingly, with the knowledge that our choices in the classroom will replicate, reinforce, or resist the political status quo. The political embeddedness of religion makes this all the more urgent for instructors of Religious Studies, as we attempt to guide students through explorations of communities, identities, histories, ideologies, and representations of human experience which all have political implications in the present. This article delineates several parameters for crafting our pedagogical initiatives, offering classroom climate considerations to keep in mind while we establish our own best practices. It then offers several suggestions—structural, instructor-focused, and student-focused—of best practices to implement in the Religious Studies classroom so as to achieve optimal learning outcomes for all of our students. Key among our conclusions is that inclusive pedagogy is effective pedagogy in Religious Studies.

The Past, Present, and Religious Studies Future of Civic Engagement in American Higher Education

“…The history of civic engagement in America demonstrates that even supposed apolitical education-for example, an exclusive focus on servicelearning, or the championing of purely economic gains-effectively acts as a political choice by privileging certain kinds of political engagements (or lack thereof) over others. The task for educators today, then, is not to choose whether or not their classrooms will be political (see Fruchtman and Park 2020). Rather, the choice before us is what form of political engagement our courses will undertake.…”

The View From Late Antiquity

“…This claim, once accepted, requires instructors to adapt their pedagogy accordingly, recognizing that choices in the classroom will replicate, reinforce, or resist the political status quo. This is the starting point of the final article, "Accepting the Inevitability of Politics in the Classroom: A Proposal for How to Identify Best Practices in Effective and Inclusive Religious Studies Pedagogy" (Fruchtman and Park 2020). In it, Diane Shane Fruchtman and Chan Sok Park propose guiding principles ("classroom climate considerations") for discerning best practices in developing one's own religious studies pedagogy with attention to the presence of politics in the classroom.…”

The View From Late Antiquity

“…The articles in this issue developed via a fully collaborative process which has worked well to improve all of our individual thinking and (we hope) the final product (Upson-Saia and Doerfler [2020], Ronis and Proctor [2020], Gibbons and Fruchtman [2020], and Fruchtman and Park [2020]). The seven of us met via Skype (with myself, in the capacity of guest editor, acting as facilitator, rather than a leader or collector of materials), and together discussed what aspects of the problem needed the sustained attention of full-length research articles.…”