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Experiencing the Other as the Self: Cultural Diversity Courses as Liberating Praxis
Author(s) -
Owens Pamela Jean
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
teaching theology and religion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.165
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1467-9647
pISSN - 1368-4868
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9647.2005.00251.x
Subject(s) - diversity (politics) , praxis , experiential learning , multiculturalism , variety (cybernetics) , institution , pedagogy , consciousness raising , sociology , consciousness , cultural diversity , multicultural education , identification (biology) , psychology , style (visual arts) , social science , political science , computer science , law , anthropology , history , botany , archaeology , artificial intelligence , neuroscience , biology
. In response to our increasingly global and multicultural world, undergraduate degree plans have come to include courses, which meet the Diversity requirement. While diversity may have a variety of definitions, clearly the educational institution believes that all students earning a degree should complete course work that exposes them to cultures not their own. Courses that fulfill Diversity requirements often include “Introduction to World Religions,” among others. Even a traditional‐style teaching of such a course will accomplish a certain degree of broadening of students’ perspectives. The risk, however, is that at the end of the course the students are simply better informed about sets of people whom they would still objectify as the other . This article describes an experiential method of teaching which enables students to begin to change their consciousness, as well as their body of information, by learning to experience the other as self . The author calls this the identification/participation method .