ABSTRACT
As many educational institutions struggle to become more multicultural in terms of their students, faculty, and staff, they also begin to examine issues of cultural representation within their curriculum. This examination has evoked a growing number of courses that give specific consideration to the effect of variables such as race, class, and gender on human experience, an important trend that is reflected and supported by the increasing availability of resource manuals for the modification of course content. This chapter provides a framework for understanding students' psychological responses to race-related content and the student resistance that can result, as well as some strategies for overcoming this resistance. The creation of opportunities for self-generated knowledge on the part of students is a powerful tool for reducing the initial stage of denial that many students experience. The emotional responses that students have to talking and learning about racism are quite predictable and related to their own racial identity development.
