Teaching about Inequality: Student Resistance, Paralysis, and Rage

Three classroom climates in courses focusing on inequality are identified, those of resistance, paralysis, and rage. In resistant classes, students deny the importance of class, gender, race, and other lines of stratification or fail to see their structural sources. In paralyzed classes, students are so overwhelmed by the pervasiveness of inequality that they become debilitated and depressed; social structures are reified, giving them a false aura of inevitability. In enraged classes, the existence of stratification sparks so much anger that students lash out in an unfocused manner that is often blind to the complexities of stratified societies. In this article, I offer suggestions for responding to each of these three classroom climates. What makes courses in stratification most exciting to teach also makes them most difficult. The issues of power and powerlessness, advantage and disadvantage addressed in these courses are charged concepts. They encourage viewing the world as inhabited by winners and losers, locating oneself on this social map and, consequently, taking sides. Personal identities are shaped and loyalties formed around race, class, and gender. Not only does this characterize students, but also instructors, who bring with them racial, class, gender, and other identities. Courses focussing on class, gender, race, sexual orientation, and global stratification also tend to draw more politicized students and those who feel strongly about ranking systems. Their passion brings life to a class but can also present problems in channeling student anger and resentment in positive ways. In this article I discuss three classroom climates-those of resistance, paralysis, and rage--that I have found in teaching courses on inequality over the last 15 years, first at a large state university and, most recently, at a small, private liberal arts university. These three classroom climates are not exhaustive, but they are the ones that I have most frequently encountered in teaching about inequality. These climates are a direct outgrowth of the heavy focus in such courses on issues of power and