Identity in Education (review)

Identity in Education (2009) presents a combination of new and reprinted scholarly essays, narratives, and empirical findings regarding the role and function of social and cultural identities in college and university classrooms. The volume's editors are Susan Sánchez-Casal and Amie A. Macdonald and is the third in a series sponsored by the Future of Minority Studies (FMS) research project. The book is primarily geared to other scholars working with issues of social and cultural identity in higher education contexts. The contributors represent varied fields of research and teaching, including philosophy, English, ethnic studies, literature, teaching pedagogy, and higher education. Moreover, the discussion is not contained within the borders of the U.S., both Canada and Germany provide social contexts for discussion.

The editors and contributors collectively advocate a realist theory of identity and realist pedagogy in the classroom to engage diverse identities around "communities of meaning" (Sánchez-Casal & Macdonald, 2009). As the editors note in the introduction: "As realists, all authors in this volume hold the theoretical position that identities are both real and constructed, and that identities are always epistemically salient" (p. 3). This is not an essentialist perspective on identity, although it does oppose radical deconstructionist views of identity. Among the goals of the book is to "democratize conditions in college and university classrooms and campuses" (p. 4). Although the editors claim a primary concern with "racial democracy" (p. 1) in higher education, the discussion in the essays is not limited to matters of race, but engage diversity broadly defined and inclusive of gender, social class, sexual orientation, disability, and religion.

The book is organized into three sections following the introduction. The first section, "Critical Access and Progressive Education," includes two chapters that lay out the philosophical and theoretical foundation of the book (Sánchez-Casal & Macdonald; Moya) and a third chapter that presents empirical findings by Richard Reddick regarding cross-racial mentoring of African American students by White faculty at Harvard. Paula Moya's chapter is particularly rich and provides further elaboration on how the realist theory of identity and realist pedagogy (further discussed by the editors in chapter one) actually operate in the college classroom. She introduces the notion of "communities of meaning," organized around commonly held identity facets among students in the classroom. However, she takes pains to acknowledge that these communities of meaning are shifting entities given the multiple identities possessed by each student in the class. Further, Moya argues that careful incorporation of these student groupings in the realist classroom could potentially connect students to each other across lines of visible differences based on other hidden identity aspects and create safe havens for students to speak about sensitive topics. These two chapters in particular must be read to have a contextual understanding of any of the essays that follow them.

Reddick's essay advances a new framework for faculty-student mentoring. Coined as "critical theory of difference," Reddick integrates realist notions of identity with institutional practices aimed at providing "critical access" to students of color. Critical access goes beyond increasing structural diversity of minority groups on campus to examining and reshaping institutional structures to provide for full democratic participation for minority students (Sánchez-Casal & Macdonald, 2009). Similar to the framework advanced by Sylvia Hurtado and her colleagues (1998), these authors recognize that simply admitting a diverse student population will not lead to the structural changes necessary to retain those students, nor will it automatically lead to positive, educational engagement with issues of difference between majority and minority student populations on campus. Critical access and Reddick's critical theory of difference take an additional step to assert that specific structural changes must be made to democratize student engagement on campus, making the benefits of participation in higher education equally accessible and beneficial. This also complements Shaun Harper's (2009) recent findings that institutions must be "race conscious" and intentionally engage students of color in meaningful ways on campus.

Part 2...