Cultivating change: an introduction and invitation to critical interpersonal and family communication pedagogy

For Better or Worse: A Critical Look at Marriage in Laurel Richardson’s Poetry

“…I take a Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication (CIFC) perspective on marriage and weddings, which means challenging dominant understandings of relationships, relational forms, and how we do our personal relationships by focusing on power, collapsing binaries between the public and private, being reflexive, and challenging the status quo (Faulkner, 2023; Suter, 2016). In the classroom, Critical Interpersonal and Family Pedagogy (CIFCP) means questioning the private-public binary, teaching to transform, and making the classroom a reflexive space (Droser & Castan.eda, 2021). I do this through a series of reflexive assignments that have students consider their assumptions about marriage and how their expectations of and for marriage may work or not work for them.…”

Poetic Portraiture as Critical Arts-Based Pedagogy and Methodology: Older Women’s Relationships Through the Life Course

“…ABR as a pedagogical tool is useful for the study of many of the concepts and experiences in the relational communication classroom: identity, subjugated perspectives, difficult experiences not easily talked about, multiple meanings and dialogue, and how power and cultural discourses about relationships influence their relating (Faulkner, 2022). The use of poetic portraits accomplished the three goals of Critical Interpersonal and Family Pedagogy (CIFCP) as it relates to curricula: abolishing the public–private binary, teaching to transform, and creating reflexive classrooms (Droser & Castaneda, 2021).…”

“…CIFCP is a framework wherein the classroom is personal and political, where dialogue creates opportunities for growth and transformation, and where reflexivity challenges us to not only acknowledge our power and privilege, but also understand how it functions within our relational lives. (Droser & Castaneda, 2021, p. 233)…”