Challenging Racism and White Privilege in Undergraduate Theology Contexts: Teaching and Learning Strategies for Maximizing the Promise of Community Service‐Learning

This paper explores the possibilities and challenges inherent in employing community service‐learning as a pedagogy for engaging undergraduates in theology and religious studies courses that contribute to racial reconciliation. The paper summarizes research from the scholarship of teaching and learning on best practices for structuring service‐learning projects and processes that hold the possibility of students' genuine engagement with issues of race and the wisdom of the Catholic tradition.     

Extending the Knapsack: Using the White Privilege Analysis to Examine Conferred Advantage and Disadvantage

This article describes a self-awareness activity that utilizes a directed reading on privilege and a small-group discussion format to examine unearned disadvantage and unearned advantage in one’s life. This exercise can help clinicians to better understand systemic and individual sources of power and privilege in society. Beginning with my previous work on white privilege, students can extend this analysis to other domains of privilege, including, for example, gender, class, sexuality, age, nationality, and physical ability, to name a few. The primary goals of this reflective exercise are to help clinicians understand how clients’ lives are influenced by societal disadvantages and advantages, to encourage a new understanding of oneself, and to increase empathy towards clients.     

Embodying Learning: Post‐Cartesian Pedagogy and the Academic Study of Religion

This paper explores the concept and practice of “embodied pedagogy” as an alternative to the Cartesian approach to knowledge that is tacitly embedded in traditional modes of teaching and learning about religion. My analysis highlights a class I co‐teach that combines the study of Aikido (a Japanese martial art) with seminar‐style discussions of texts that explore issues pertaining to embodiment in the context of diverse spiritual traditions. The physicality of Aikido training makes it an interesting “case study” of embodied pedagogy and the lessons it offers both teachers and students about the academic study of religion. Ultimately, the questions and insights this class generates illustrate how post‐Cartesian pedagogies can expose, challenge, and correct epistemological assumptions that contribute to one‐dimensional views of religion and that fail to address our students as whole persons. A final part of the paper considers other possible venues for embodying teaching and learning in the academic study of religion.     

Speaking (Un‐)Truth to Power: Conspiracy Mentality as a Generalised Political Attitude

Conspiracy theories explain complex world events with reference to secret plots hatched by powerful groups. Belief in such theories is largely determined by a general propensity towards conspirational thinking. Such a conspiracy mentality can be understood as a generalised political attitude, distinct from established generalised political attitudes such as right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) (Study 1a, N = 497) that is temporally relatively stable (Study 1b and 1c, total N = 196). Three further studies (combined N = 854) show that in contrast to RWA and SDO, conspiracy mentality is related to prejudice against high‐power groups that are perceived as less likeable and more threatening than low‐power groups, whereas SDO and RWA are associated with an opposite reaction to perceptions of power. Study 5 (N = 1852) investigates the relationship of conspiracy mentality with political behavioural intentions in a specific catastrophic scenario (i.e. the damage to the Fukushima nuclear reactor after the 2011 tsunami in Japan) revealing a hitherto neglected role of conspiracy mentality in motivating social action aimed at changing the status quo. Copyright © 2013 European Association of Personality Psychology.     

Eating together apart: patterns of segregation in a multi‐ethnic cafeteria

Research on segregation has tended to focus on relations located at a macro‐spatial level of analysis and unfolding in contexts where boundaries to interaction are formally established. This research, by contrast, investigated segregation as a micro‐ecological process by observing patterns of seating in a multi‐ethnic cafeteria. A total of 3114 seating positions were coded over a 2‐week period and the resulting data were analysed using both adapted segregation indices (P and D) and loglinear and logistic regression techniques. The results suggested that ethnic segregation existed both at the level of interactional groups and in the form of broader patterns of racial clustering and dispersal in the cafeteria. Moreover, the magnitude of segregation was predicted by the gender composition of seating groups and by variations in the density of the cafeteria's population over time. Some implications of these results for social psychological research on contact and desegregation are considered. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rudd's Apology to the Stolen Generations: Challenging Self‐Sufficient Arguments in “Race” Discourse

While the public debate on whether to apologise to the Stolen Generations ended on 13 February, 2008, public opinion was still divided, reflected particularly in the arguments against apologising that were common in political and public discourse. We examine the ways in which differing arguments can be flexibly deployed and combined within a political context to not just resist, but also to support, an act of reparation for historical injustice. In particular, we consider how Rudd makes use of specific rhetorically self‐sufficient arguments to justify offering the apology; precisely the same arguments that had previously been used by political leaders and members of the public to oppose the apology. It is the use of such arguments in combination with each other and additional common tropes drawn from egalitarian and liberal discourse that allow for the building of a rhetorically powerful case for offering the apology. Rather than the traditional focus of such research on the ways in which racism is accomplished in talk, we suggest that Rudd's apology to the Stolen Generations can be seen as a practical tool‐kit for building an “anti‐racist” rhetoric in the context of Indigenous and non‐Indigenous relations in Australia.     

St Benedict's Rule as the Antidote to Regulatory Inflation The Way of St Benedict,Rowan Williams,Bloomsbury, 2020 (ISBN 978‐1‐4729‐7307‐8), 160 pp., pb £8.99

There is much to learn from what Rowan Williams calls the ‘undramatic and transformative wisdom’ of the Rule of St Benedict. Expanding on Williams' penetrating reading of the Rule, this article analyzes aspects of Benedictine spirituality that might be useful in contemporary political and social debates, especially around issues of race and affirmative action. From the viewpoint of Benedictine spirituality, true empowerment comes from affirmation and recognition based not just on external regulations but also on inner and personal validation. Unconscious biases can be effectively tackled not only through external censure but especially through the demanding discipline of self‐knowledge. The promotion of both inner validation and self‐knowledge requires an environment of trust. The main challenge for healthy communities is creating the conditions for converting self‐defensiveness and suspicion into trust.     

The flip side of the other‐race coin: They all look different to me

Poorer recognition of other‐race faces than own‐races faces has been attributed to a problem of discrimination (i.e., telling faces apart). The conclusion that ‘they all look the same to me' is based on studies measuring the perception/memory of highly controlled stimuli, typically involving only one or two images of each identity. We hypothesized that such studies underestimate the challenge involved in recognizing other‐race faces because in the real world, an individual's appearance varies in a number of ways (e.g., lighting, expression, hairstyle), reducing the utility of relying on pictorial cues to identity. In two experiments, Caucasian and East Asian participants completed a perceptual sorting task in which they were asked to sort 40 photographs of two unfamiliar identities into piles such that each pile contained all photographs of a single identity. Participants perceived more identities when sorting other‐race faces than own‐race faces, both when sorting celebrity (Experiment 1) and non‐celebrity (Experiment 2) faces, suggesting that in the real world, ‘they all look different to me'. We discuss these results in the light of models in which each identity is represented as a region in a multidimensional face space; we argue that this region is smaller for other‐race than own‐race faces.     

Beyond the information given: The power of a belief in self‐interest

How do we interpret other's behavior when we lack important pieces of information? Do we give the other the benefit of the doubt, believing that the other behaves in a fair manner? Or do we “fill in the blanks” with self‐interest? To address these questions, we designed a new method—the dice‐rolling paradigm—in which participants observed another person assigning outcomes by rolling two dice and allocating one of them to the participant, who only had information about one of the two dice. Using different baselines, the results revealed that participants underestimated the outcomes the other allocated to the participants, and overestimated the outcomes the other allocated to self, indicating that people assume self‐interest from others when information is incomplete. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developing cognitions about race: White 5‐ to 10‐year‐olds' perceptions of hardship and pain

White American adults assume that Blacks feel less pain than do Whites, but only if they believe that Blacks have faced greater economic hardship than Whites. The current study investigates when in development children first recognize racial group differences in economic hardship and examines whether perceptions of hardship inform children's racial bias in pain perception. Five‐ to 10‐year‐olds (N = 178) guessed which of two items (low versus high value) belonged to a Black and a White child and rated the amount of pain a Black and a White child would feel in 10 painful situations. By age 5, White American children attributed lower‐value possessions to Blacks than Whites, indicating a recognition of racial group differences in economic hardship. The results also replicated the emergence of a racial bias in pain perception between 5 and 10. However, unlike adults', children's perceptions of hardship do not account for racial bias in pain perception.     

Beyond the Ethnic‐Civic Dichotomy: Cultural Citizenship as a New Way of Excluding Immigrants

In European Union (EU) countries, public debates about immigrants and citizenship are increasingly framed in cultural terms. Yet, there is no agreement within the citizenship literature on whether a cultural citizenship representation can be distinguished from the more established ethnic and civic representations and on how its measures relate to anti‐immigrant attitudes. The present study tested measures of citizenship representations among high school students (N = 1476) in six EU countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Sweden). Factor analyses favored a three‐factor model of citizenship representations (i.e., ethnic, cultural, and civic factors), which showed partial metric invariance. Across countries, ethnic and cultural scales correlated positively with each other and negatively with the civic scale. Moreover, ethnic and cultural scales related positively and the civic scale negatively to anti‐immigrant attitudes. However, when analyzed simultaneously, relations of the ethnic scale with anti‐immigrant attitudes were no longer significant, while those of the cultural and civic scales proved to be robust. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Responses to the AAR‐Teagle White Paper: “The Religious Studies Major in a Post‐9/11 World”

In October 2008 The American Academy of Religion published the findings of an eighteen month study (conducted with funding from the Teagle Foundation) on “The Religious Studies Major in a Post–9/11World: New Challenges, New Opportunities.” Re‐published here, this AAR‐Teagle White Paper provides the opportunity for four respondents to raise issues and questions about the teaching of religion in their own institutional contexts. First, Jane Webster describes how the White Paper's “five characteristics of the religion major” find expression in her biblical literature course. Then James Buckley suggests some of the general level teaching issues provoked by the study and analyzes how well the White Paper aligns with how the teaching of religion is conceived in his Catholic university context. Tim Jensen draws comparisons between the White Paper and the higher education structures and goals from his university context in Denmark, raising questions about what motivates students to major in religious studies, the “utility” of a religious studies major, and whether students' religious and spiritual concerns ought to enter the classroom. And finally Stacey Floyd‐Thomas finds surprising similarities between the state of the religion major and the various crises facing contemporary North American theological education.     

Beyond trigger warnings: Toward a trauma‐informed andragogy for the graduate theological classroom*

Although development of trauma‐informed pedagogy for elementary and secondary classrooms has developed significantly, a dearth of resources for trauma‐informed andragogy in graduate theological classrooms remains. Theological classrooms are a unique context in which many students and professors carry experiences of trauma with them. This article makes the case for the need for a trauma‐informed andragogical model for the graduate theological classroom by: discussing the pervasiveness of trauma; providing definitions of key terms that need to be understood for elaborating a trauma‐informed andragogy; recommending trauma‐informed principles for course design and class‐session planning based in safety, trust, choice, collaboration, and empowerment; and identifying a few next steps for cultivating trauma‐informed classrooms and institutions at the graduate level.     

Recasting Stigma as a Dialogical Concept: A Case Study of Rural‐to‐Urban Migrants in China

The present study explores stigma against rural‐to‐urban migrants in China, drawing on a dialogical approach. It investigates the processes of stigmatization from two sides: that of the stigmatizer and that of the stigmatized. Open‐ended individual interviews were conducted with 138 participants (60 urban residents and 78 rural‐to‐urban migrants) in Tianjin, China. Findings from this study indicate that migrants were stigmatized by urban residents as having an unattractive physical appearance, potential perils of disease or crime, and discredited places of origin. Such stigma was embedded in China's unique hukou system and generated from a social categorization of superior and inferior groups. Migrants reported a number of coping strategies to counter such stigma: blaming fate, stigma reversal and upward mobility. However, migrants did not view themselves contemptuously and expressed positive feelings about their lives as migrants. They regarded internal migration as a way of pursuing happiness. Overall, urban residents stigmatized migrants legitimated by the hukou system, while migrants were surprisingly resilient against stigma, and did not internalize it, due to their economics‐driven internal migration. This study underscores that stigma in a given society is dialogically interdependent with its socio‐cultural context and that the perspectives of both the stigmatizer and the stigmatized need to be taken into consideration. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Theory to social action: A university‐based strategy targeting prejudice against Aboriginal Australians

The level of racism in Australia against Aboriginal Australians is well documented. This has an extremely detrimental effect on the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal Australians. One part of the solution may be anti‐prejudice strategies, but to date few strategies that include a pre‐test and a post‐test assessment have been conducted in Australia. The present study describes the interventional qualities of a cultural psychology unit at an Australian university. Results indicated that after a 6‐week period, students reported a significant reduction in prejudice, acceptance of false beliefs about Aboriginal Australians, and the perception that Aboriginal Australians unfairly receive preferential or special treatment. The article concludes that cultural psychology units have the potential to be an effective way of developing acceptance of cross‐cultural differences.     

A Meeting of the Conceptual and the Natural: Wittgenstein on Learning a Sensation‐Language

Since the rise of modern natural science there has been deep tension between the conceptual and the natural. Wittgenstein's discussion of how we learn a sensation‐language contains important resources that can help us relieve this tension. The key here, I propose, is to focus our attention on animal nature, conceived as partially re‐enchanted (in the sense recommended by John McDowell). To see how nature, so conceived, helps us relieve the tension in question, it is crucial to gain a firm and detailed appreciation of how the primitive‐instinctive, a central part of animal nature, actually serves the conceptual. I offer such an appreciation by closely examining §244 of the Philosophical Investigations and Peter Winch's discussion of it. The general aim is to bring out a certain kind of Wittgensteinian “naturalism” (not as a theory but as a general reminder), a “naturalism” that is fully alive to the rootedness of conceptuality in nature. A concomitant aim is to illustrate the truth of Wittgenstein's saying that in philosophy one often has to pay close attention to details.     

The development of bodily self‐consciousness: changing responses to the Full Body Illusion in childhood

The present work investigates the development of bodily self‐consciousness and its relation to multisensory bodily information, by measuring for the first time the development of responses to the full body illusion in childhood. We tested three age groups of children: 6‐ to 7‐year‐olds (n = 28); 8‐ to 9‐year‐olds (n = 21); 10‐ to 11‐year‐olds (n = 19), and a group of adults (n = 31). Each participant wore a head‐mounted display (HMD) which displayed a view from a video camera positioned 2 metres behind their own back. Thus, they could view a virtual body from behind. We manipulated visuo‐tactile synchrony by showing the participants a view of their virtual back being stroked with a stick at the same time and same place as their real back (synchronous condition), or at different times and places (asynchronous condition). After each period of stroking, we measured three aspects of bodily self‐consciousness: drift in perceived self‐location, self‐identification with the virtual body, and touch referral to the virtual body. Results show that self‐identification with the virtual body was significantly stronger in the synchronous condition than in the asynchronous condition even in the youngest group tested; however, the size of this effect increased with age. Touch referral to the virtual body was greater in the synchronous condition than in the asynchronous condition only for 10‐ to 11‐year‐olds and adults. Drift in perceived self‐location was greater in the synchronous condition than in the asynchronous condition only for adults. Thus, the youngest age tested can self‐identify with a virtual body, but the links between multisensory signals and bodily self‐consciousness develop significantly across childhood. This suggests a long period of development of the bodily self and exciting potential for the use of virtual reality technologies with children.     

Toward the Scientific Study of Polytheism: Beyond Forced‐Choice Measures of Religious Belief

This article argues that zero‐sum, forced‐choice approaches to measuring religious belief do not work well outside of the Abrahamic world. Positive‐sum approaches to measuring religious beliefs (in the plural) are better suited to the study of polytheistic societies. Using results from a nationally representative survey conducted in 2011 Taiwan, we demonstrate that in a polytheistic society like Taiwan, religious belief is not zero sum. We also contrast our results with those of the Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS), and seek to show that our positive‐sum approach to measuring religious beliefs can help us better understand the disparate causes and consequences of different religious beliefs in polytheistic societies. The challenge of Christocentrism in quantitative studies of religion is also discussed.