A Paper I Wrote on "That Class I Hated"

A Brief Analysis of Classroom Dynamics in the Introductory Course for Comparative Studies Graduate Students

While the very nature of the Comparative Studies Department is meant to encourage inclusion and diversity, the forces we seek to dismantle (namely, racism and sexism) are subtly at work in the classroom as well. This essay is not intended to blame any particular person or group for the inequality seen in the academy, but simply to foster awareness of the way we may be instinctively reproducing damaging power dynamics.

Comparative Studies 710, the introductory course for graduate students, is a seminar that requires every individual to participate. By tracking the actual participation by (apparent) ethnicity and gender, it is clear that we fall short of equality. It is important to note that these statistics and analyses were tracked over three classes, during weeks seven and eight of a ten-week quarter, so the power dynamics in place had essentially solidified. From my personal conversations, I know that the students who didn’t participate did not feel that it was their choice, but rather felt shut down by their classmates. I, too, frequently felt blocked by my “more educated” classmates, and this was the motivation behind my retreat into note-taking.

For the numerical portion of my analysis, I noted speaking turns as any time a student was able to share his/her thoughts on the topics presented for discussion. In the first class I recorded, men took 69 speaking turns, while women took 99 turns. This suggested an implicit sexism to me, because out of 13 students present, only four were male. The proportion of speaking turns to presence in the classroom did not match what one would expect from equal participation. Perhaps more surprisingly, the number of women of color was equal to the number of men, but women of color only had nine speaking turns in that class period. All nine turns were taken by the woman who was a native speaker of English, while the three silent women were speaking English as a Second Language.

On the other days I recorded, men spoke between 27 and 41% of the time, though they only made up 23 and 31% of the class participants, respectively. In these classes, women of color did attempt to speak up more, although there were many instances when they were ignored or interrupted. Two of the international students spent the majority of their time on the computer, viewing entertainment-oriented foreign-language websites, which prevented them from having meaningful participation in the discussion. It’s not possible to determine whether this is due to the stifling atmosphere of the seminar, or simply as a personal choice.

One of the most salient aspects of the inequality apparent in this classroom was the way in which people referred to their classmates. Only once in the first class I recorded did a white male refer to anyone by name, and in that case it was another male student to whom he was referring. On the other hand, the women in the room addressed men by their names several times.

Gendered language also had a strong effect on the speaking turns taken. Generally, women were more likely to defer to a male interruption, and men tended to speak more loudly and hold the floor for a longer period of time. Examples of female deference included phrases such as:

“We’d like to try it, if that’s okay...”

“Sort of?”

“I suppose...”

“Go ahead, I was blabbing.” (in response to interruption from a male student)

“I don’t want to assume...”

“Maybe we should talk about...”

“I think I’ve said enough...too much actually.”

“I don’t know if I got it wrong.”

- among other phrases that admitted a lack of understanding of the subject matter. On the contrary, I documented no instances where a male student admitted confusion or not understanding. There were a few hedge words (typically associated with female speech) uttered by men, but much more rarely than those spoken by women.

A possible explanation for the lack of participation from non-native English speakers and students outside the Comparative Studies department could be the language used by those in charge of the discussions. There were numerous references to a presumed knowledge outside of the class readings. Ideas were described as “Machiavellian” and “Orwellian” in one class, expecting that each student had the Euro-American education necessary for an understanding of these authors.

Unnecessarily complex vocabulary may also be to blame for the exclusion of students educated outside the United States. One direct quotation from a white male student claimed there “is a wrinkle in the infrastructure/superstructure section...a twist on normative dialectical materialism.” A white female student tried to explain the “metaphor of topography promulgated by Marx himself.” Rather than admitting that the readings were difficult, one white woman claimed that Freud is “super-fun to read, good for a summer’s day.” Such a comment made it extremely difficult for other students to admit that they were having trouble comprehending any of the readings.

While I would hesitate to claim that the classroom dynamics were specifically intended to exclude certain students, it is obvious that the language and references used in the seminar worked to silence anyone not educated in the Euro-American tradition. In my personal discussions with (female) classmates, I learned that I was not alone in feeling that certain debates only served as a demonstration of prior knowledge, rather than a genuine engagement with the assigned readings.

Certainly, in order to ensure that students from all demographic backgrounds feel welcome in higher education, further study of the power dynamics at work in the classroom would be critical.