ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of race/ethnicity as a social construct in general and then explains how it is explored within the communication classroom. It deals with suggestions for applying this knowledge to the classroom, opportunities for research reflection, and directions for future research. The chapter supports the position that curricula and research on classroom instruction and race/ethnicity are powerful and essential to disrupting "traditional" communication curriculum. It offers a review of research essential to understanding the important and critical contributions scholars have made to instructional communication research that involves race/ethnicity, the impact of this scholarship on the goals of social justice within communication pedagogy research, and a discussion of the knowledge claims of research on race/ethnicity in the classroom. Scholarship on race/ethnicity and pedagogy is concerned with course content and student experiences that surround these potentially volatile course topics.
