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Teaching the Problem of Racism in Higher Education

Authors: Andrea Werthmüller, Nikos Saul, Lukas Perka and Ulrich Hamenstädt

Paper for the ECPR General Conference 2014 at the University of Glasgow

Panel Number P338, Teaching Research Methods

Racism shapes our everyday practices and structures dominant discourses as well as influential

institutions. Based on that understanding we taught a course that tried to analyze our entanglements

with racism and its intersections with other power relations. The aim was to create awareness for

these entanglements and power relations and to encourage the students to rethink common

practices. This paper first presents the structure of the course, and the methods used to teach its

content. The second section of the paper reports and analyses the reactions and comments of

participating students from the course evaluation, an additional questionnaire, and the experience

delivered from the lecturer´s perspective as well. Finally, the paper will end with highlight important

elements and also problems that can occur while teaching the problem of racism in higher education.

Introduction

Racism is highly connected to Europe’s academic tradition from the very beginning. Sometimes

together, sometimes separated this connection seems to be like a net: one day it’s wider, one day it’s

closer. This net and connection differentiate over almost timeless periods. At one time it is hidden

and invisible just to emerge from new at another point in history. The beginning of this line is set in

ancient Egypt by trying to construct an explanation for human differences by divergent climatic

conditions. This construction is also part of writings in ancient Greece and extends in medieval

scholasticism. From the classical age to the modern this thought was subject to numerous

transformations, although many elements stayed unchanged or were incorporated to the new

“enlightened” thinking. In this context there are (among others) two important authors and

philosophical developments: At first Immanuel Kant’s introduction of the concept of “race” into the

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german linguistic area and second Hegel’s construction of Africa as a continent without history (cf.

Mills 1998: 202). This line is also part of scientifically practiced Eugenics of the Nazis in Germany in

the middle of the 20th century. More common and widespread than these explicit and obviously racist

theories is the ignorance in western science of theories produced by Black people and People of

Color1. The ongoing marginalization of scientists of Color and the formulating of syllabi at universities

from a white perspective causes Grada Kilomba to state that “science […] is not a simple apolitical

study of truth, but the reproduction of racial power relations that define what counts as true and in

whom to believe” (Kilomba 2010: 29).

We2 wanted to face this evident mischief by making racism subject of a seminar at university. We

decided to treat racism according to our comprehension how it influences the current world: Racism

is not just an exclusive Nazi-problem or an overcome phenomenon that is at best examined in an

historical approach. Racism should be analyzed as all-embracing power relation that is inscribed both

in social institutions and in dominant discourses as well as it shapes everyday individual interaction.

According to us racism is not only the conscious disparagement of Black people or PoC by white

people. Instead racism requires the following two processes: Firstly, persons in powerful social

positions draw borderlines between people using markers like scin color, hair type or eye form which

are constructed as “racial” characteristics. In a second step, certain attributes are ascribed to the

constructed groups so that they appear as homogeneous. In this context, there is no relevant

difference between attributes with a negative connotation like a lack of rationality and attributes with

a positive connotation like a remarkable talent for music or sports (cf. Hall 1989: 158). Much more

important to judge whether an action or a statement is racist is the position of the defining group in

social and discursive hierarchies. This power can lead to a spread of their attributions, a permanent

discourse in society and also to material privileges for the respective group itself. In an historical

perspective, white people came into such a position of power in the course of worldwide colonialism

right until today (cf. Arndt 2005: 343).

1 According to several racism critical authors we write the adjectives “Black” with big letters and “white”

italic. This highlighting should make clear that we see these categories as social constructs without a biological basic. Hereby the big writing of “Black” makes clear that it is a political self-designation with a basic potential of resistance. To separate “white” from this category of resistance the character of construction will be shown by writing it italic. Com. Micossé-Aikins/ Dodua Otoo 2012, S. 12 f. 2 “We” means from this point on the four authors of this paper. Three of this four are students who

made the initiative to address racism in a seminary. To realize this idea they talked to a lecturer of the political institute. The students were to a special degree responsible for the contentual and methodological conception of the course. The lecturer gave feedback to the conceptual examinations and was responsible for all formal tasks.

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For our seminar, this focus on racism as a power relation results in a fundamental power-critical

perspective. But this opens a grave didactic challenge: No matter how power is determined – as

relational concept in which A can affect the action of B (Weber 1921/1972: 28) or as a diagram of

balances of power which is in a steady movement (Deleuze 1992: 102) – at universities we are always

acting in ‘vermachteten’3 structures. A seminary that sincerely wants to reach a change in racist

structures needs (in a racism-critical view) to question regular customs, to address power hierarchies

and to break them up. To question social normalities, habits – especially the own habits – and also

own privileges grown out of asymmetric structural power relations can occasionally be a painful

process. On the other side, the aspiration to not exploit the powerful position as a lecturer over the

students can limit the possibilities to further this unpleasant process. This causes a paradox situation.

Taking a power-critical perspective may unpleasantly prompt white students to face up to their own

racism - an unpleasant process which many might not voluntarily want to enter - while the same

power-critical aspiration forbids the use of pressure towards the students. Elements of this paradox

may appear in a similar form in other courses. This paradox not only touches a sole part of our

course. In fact this paradox is a substantial part of the here presented course. This gives us the generic

ability to work here with the question of power relations in educational processes.

To converge to this issue we will at first present the conception and the history of this course. Initially

we will show basic decisions in concern of the course’s structure. Then we will exemplarily outline

aims, contents and methods of the first four sessions. Thereby we will respectively illustrate how the

examined paradox presents itself specifically and which dealing with it was chosen. In the second part

of this paper we will present the feedback to and evaluation of the course. On the one hand we will

use the standard evaluation of our Institute. On the other hand we developed a questionary to

complete our evaluation and our analysis. This questionary will be presented here in this text. At the

end we will reflect on the lecturer’s impressions from the seminary and on the experiences from the

discussions with students in this seminary. In the third part, we will show in a structural way some

additional experiences from the seminary’s execution and discuss then problematic points. The

central benchmark for this text will be the question of possibilities and limits to break up existing

power structures in context of university seminaries.

Structure of the seminary

Because of the previously introduced power-critical reflections one of the first fundamental decisions

we had to face was the development of the seminary plan. Normally the lecturers determine a course

3 Definition: to be structured and determined by power.

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completely for example by choosing basic literature for each session. They also set the course’s

content and give a clear specification of the design for the sessions. We decided to take another way.

We wanted to find a common agreement about the content of the seminary between students and

lecturers. The students had the freedom to prepare and moderate one session which included

choosing the literature and developing the methodical configuration on their own. So we started the

seminary without a fixed schedule and developed such a plan together with the students. Solely the

first four sessions were planned and structured by us. We took this way because we wanted to create

a common substantial basic and to give a certain time to the first working group to prepare their

session. Now we want to present with a focus on aims, contents and methods the four sessions which

were designed by us. A detailed presentation of these four sessions is not just necessary because we

as lecturers prepared them as access to the topic but also because these first sessions mirror the

challenges which will be discussed later in the seminary. A detailed presentation of these first

sessions allows us to show them to the readers in a closer and deeper way. Each presentation of a

session contains reflections of the paradox in the course and some explanations of the handling of

specific contradictions.

The following table shows initially the thematic structuration of the seminary and presents in some

keywords the content of the particular sessions.

Table 1: Course Syllabus

Session

Topic Content

1 Constituting session Contentual access. First group work about appearance

and conceptions of racism.

2 History of racism Finding of topics and segmentation of working groups

for designing the seminaries; advices to literature and

historical overview of the topic by the lecturers.

3 Language and racism/

Language and reality

Language as imaging and reproducing instrument of

power structures.

4 Basics of critical whiteness Analysis of personal privileges; focusing on personal part

to maintain racism

5 Relation of capitalism and

racism

Racism as explanation for capitalistic exploitation.

Common development and current forms and

implications.

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6 Relationship of racism (and

capitalism) and the European

border policy

Resumption of the previous topic with a specific look at

legal structures and the European border policy.

7 Intersectionality Notion, history and impact of Intersectionality. A

discussion on intersections of different power relations

in discourses on Muslim women wearing hijab.

8 Culturalism/ Antiziganism Historical look at antiziganism and the shift of its

legitimation from “race” to “culture”.

9 Interventions against racism

from a white position

Training of argumentation abilities against bar-room

clichés; possibilities and perils of white interventions.

10 Discrimination of white people

(Session design by the

lecturers)

Input about Critical Whiteness; presentation of everyday

racism. “Discrimination of Whites”: Differentiation of

situational and structural discrimination.

11 Racism in educational system Racism in school books and towards pupils of Color

12 (Anti-)racism in pop culture Disambiguation of pop culture; discussion of the

potential of subversion by reference to different

examples.

13 Racism in sports Nationalism in soccer and its relation to racism.

14 Ending Contextual summary and review of the sessions.

The first session should be used for a thematic introduction instead of talking about formalities or to

give out the topics for presentations after a preconceived schedule. The common preparation of the

seminary plan should be part of the second session after clarifying the substantial basic. At the

beginning of the session we prepared some groups of tables with different examples of

advertisement and internet blogs consisting of visual and textual documents. After the lecturers’

introduction the students got the task to discuss the different presented documents on the tables.

Hereby they should focus on the question, if they classify these documents as racist and if it is so,

they should expound why they think it is racist. In this introducing task the students went from one

table to the next so that every student was able to see each document. Following to that task, the

results of the analysis and different aspects which were determined as racist were collected in

plenum. On this basis and with an additional short definition of racism (DGB-Bildunsgwerk Thüringen

e.V.: 198) we developed a common understanding of the term racism and also gathered controversial

points for discussion in the next session. The central concern of the first session was to make clear

that racism in this course should be understood as a phenomenon in the society as a whole and not a

problem of the so called right wing. The way we planned and conducted the first introducing session

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of the seminary was also a decision to use our powerful position as lecturers to direct the contentual

orientation of the course before we determined the next sessions and the ongoing seminary schedule

together with the students. This decision to address racism as all-embracing structure with everyday

impacts was necessary in our view to make sure that within this seminary the wanted examination of

our personal position in these structures could take place.

After this contentual access which should bring the students directly into topic we collected initially at

the beginning of the second session the student’s wishes for the contents of the following seminary

sessions. The students sat in this session in a circle of chairs – a form which was continuously used

through the whole seminary – because it is easier for the participants to talk and to see each other’s

face in this way. We prepared cards and pencils which were used to write down some notices. In a

second step contentual similar topics were put together by the plenum and the lecturers. Afterwards

there was a polling about the topics we wanted to deal with. Then the chosen topics were divided up

to the remaining eight sessions. Depending on these prepared sessions we created working groups

which dealt with the chosen topics. The results of these working groups should then be presented by

them. The procedure applied here should make clear to the students – just like the solely contentual

access in the first session which resigns consciously the treatment of formalities – that the working

structures of this seminary were different to the normal procedures of university seminaries and that

there was space for personal interests and requirements of the students (Elverich and Reindlmeier

2009: 41). The common development of the seminary schedule shows our desire to take these

interests and requirements serious. We did not want to lay more weight on our personal notion

about the seminary schedule than on the student’s wishes. At the end of that session we were a little

skeptic because the majority of the chosen topics were very complex and needed certain

requirements. We had some doubts because basic topics were not under the chosen ones. But we

accepted the vote of the students and didn’t try to convince them of another seminary design.

At last, the second session was topped with an historical overview of the topic given by two of the

lecturers (referring to Arndt 2012, Geulen 2007 and Piesche 2006). This unit should show the

historical development and growing of racism. This should underline that powerful relations are not

natural but human made and changeable.

In the third session we dealt with the relationship of racism and language. Basically we address

hereby the meaning of language by creating social realities. As background literature we used a

general text on language and power suggested to the students (Butler 1998: 9-25) which was

deepened by a required reading of a text that explicitly focussed on verbal racialization processes

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(Hornscheidt 2005). Contentual in this session the role of language use in connection with the own

positioning of a talking person was worked out. Here we also examined the connection of language

and powerful relations. Furthermore we wanted to make clear that language does not mark biological

facts but creates social positioning. For illustration and as basic for discussions a scheme of

correlations was incrementally developed and explained by the lecturers on the bottom of the

seminary room. In the discussion’s process some central terms and self-designations were introduced

to speak adequately about racism, for example: People of Color or Black and white as terms for social

constructed positions. This was necessary because already in the first session many students had

problems that they couldn’t (suddenly) talk with their linguistic capabilities about the current

subjects. The necessary process of reflection of the (personal) language use and of contradictions

between the intentions of the talking person and the impacts on conversational partners was a basic

point in the complete seminary. So we problematied for example in some discussions that statements

like “I don’t mean it that way!” construct places of retreatment so that there is no need to deal with

personal racist speech acts (cf. Arndt 2012: 87 f.). Also in this session some contradictions with regard

to our powerful position appeared. On the one hand it was our distinct concern to avoid the

reproduction of terms with a racist word history in our seminary. On the other hand we didn’t want

to be like a speech-police dictating which terms should be used and which should not. We met this

paradox by addressing racist connotations of problematic terms and by introducing the above

mentioned alternatives for self-designations. Hereby we emphasized the complexity and dynamic of

linguistic conventions and tried to underline that we didn’t want to just replace some terms but also

that dealing with language can be a basis for self-reflection on internalized patterns of thinking.

In the fourth session we imparted the basics of Critical Whiteness Studies (Wollrad 2005) by

addressing the meaning of privileges and the personal contribution to preserving racist power

relations (Strohschein 2005). It was the aim of the session to convey to the students that the

consideration with racism should begin with the personal position, acting and thinking. We wanted to

make clear that it seems to be inappropriate for us as lecturers to focus on talking about people

which are affected negatively (wichtiger Unterschied!) by racism. We rather wanted to show that it is

our approach to take the perspective of Black people as starting point for our dealing with personal

racism from a white position and thereby we don’t want to query racist experiences because they are

no part of our empirical world (Elverich and Reindlmeier 2009: 38). For this the students should

become aware of their position within racist structures by a “ privilege flower” (on basis of McIntosh

1992). After this the students should take position in the room according to the degree of agreement

to statements about racism and to be white. Because of the participants’ movement in the room and

associated with this the interaction discussions have been initiated. Again the didactic challenge of

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the seminary, which we call in this paper paradox, comes clear in this session: The seminary aims for

the questioning of the personal social position by the students themselves and expects thereby

implicit the willingness for such a process of thinking. In the context of the animated self-reflection

we assumed certain defense mechanisms by numerous students which impeded this process. This

assumption confronts us with a double problem: First, we have to ask, which authorization we have

to attribute unconscious psychological processes to the students and take away with this their

possibility to counter because each dissent would be an acknowledgement of finding of the

mechanisms of defense. Independent of this consideration there is secondly the question for the

consequences of this finding. Our claim not to use the hierarchy of power towards the students

forbade us as lecturers to force a controversy by possibly unpleasant questions. Our claim to break up

racist powerful structures in society requires however this unpleasant dealing with questions how

each one of us in a white position consolidate and benefit from this existing relations (Pech 2006: 85

f.).

The here described situations will be discussed detailed in the third part of this paper. Approximately

in the next part the feedback to the seminary will be shown with special consideration of the first

four sessions. These sessions are thereby generic for the whole seminary and will be presented in an

extensive way with a focus on content and methodology.

Feedback to the Seminary

The feedback to the course relies on three sources: First, there was a standardized evaluation of the

seminary. This evaluation is conducted in all offers of the Münster University. Second, an additional

survey was prepared by the lecturers. This survey was much specific for this seminary and the results

will be presented as an extension of the standardized evaluation. At last we will discuss some general

points which were communicated by the students to the lecturers in course of the seminary or at the

end of a session.

Now we want to go into the standardized evaluation of the seminary. In figure 1 the model of

presentation is shown which summarizes the summarized results for four main themes of the

particular questions. The students could score the questions on a scale from 1 (no agreement) to 7

(total agreement).

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Figure 1: Results of the standardized evaluation of the seminary (n=16)4

Course evaluation (overall value) Overall value Mean

Lecturer’s commitment 6,1

Discussions in the course 6,3

Core readings for the course 6,0

Course materials 5,7

All in all, this evaluation shows that the students were very content with the seminary. Especially the

culture of discussion in the course was highlighted by the students. Also in private conversations and

in the conclusive feedback round the open atmosphere and the intense inclusion of the participants

by the chosen methods were praised. But there are two problems within this first approximation to

the evaluation of the seminary: On the one hand the questions are partly unfit with regard of the

chosen design of the seminary and also consistent generally formulated – so for example the answers

concerning the quality and the quantity of the seminary materials. This is a point that is judged very

different by each student. This refers to the second point: the wide spread (SD=0.8 to 1.2) by the

given answers. Therefore the additional survey will be now presented and discussed.

Also by the analysis of the additional survey a big variance of the answers can be predicted (comp.

Figure 2 in the annex; all references to answers in the following chapter correlate to this figure 2). In

many points this spread comes much clearer, especially by the question for the former examination

with racism and former dealing with similar contents in other courses. Many students stated that they

were confronted with racism in other seminaries but just rarely in an explicit form but in that way,

that the seminary topic transports racist contents without making this to a main topic of the course

itself (comp. answers 2 to 6). Going on, the motivation to take place in this seminary also varied

strongly: predominantly a generic interest in racism was mentioned (answers 1 and 2). In this survey

the quality of the chosen texts (answer 12) was positively judged just like the motivating effect of the

seminary for a continuing examination with racism (answers 10 and 13). Furthermore the four

introducing sessions which we presented in the previous chapter were positively evaluated by the

4 All results of the evaluation can be found on the following URL:

http://www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/fuchs/lehre/ws_2013_14-zivilgesellschaftliche_strategien_gegen_strukturellen_rassismus.pdf

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students. Both the content and the number of introducing sessions were judged in a (written)

feedback positively (answers 19 and 20). At last the survey makes clear, that the students were

indeed content with the support and the assistance by the preparation for their session – the

feedback by the lecturers were though very heterogeneous. This is an important point because the

challenge for lecturers was also the coordination amongst ourselves. Especially because the course

was moderated together by students and one lecturer we had to find our roles at the beginning of

the seminary. This needed initially some time.

The evaluation of the contents organized by the students was judged in a slightly different way: The

students preferred clearly the autonomous selection of the contents towards a predetermined

schedule (answers 15 and 16). The exchange within the student working groups was indeed all in all

positively rated but there is a relatively high spread and some answers tend to negative experiences

(answer 14). This mirrors the lecturers’ experiences. There was a very heterogenic need for support

within the groups (answers 23 to 25) and occasionally some students had problems to organize

themselves. At the same time this points at the role of the lecturers. They had, as mentioned above,

to work out there positions. The size of the lecturers’ team was a major factor that raised the effort of

coordination. Simultaneously we always had to work in the student working groups with various

forms of previous knowledge and different working levels what also raised obviously the effort of

coordination. Among others, periodically meetings and “common consultation-hours” of all four

lecturers were important steps to solve these diverse requirements. In this weekly consultation-hour

the students and their working groups could meet us as lecturers to talk about literature and the

design of the hour. Especially the last point was actively used. This helped many of the working

groups to get security and orientation in the seminary context.

Discussion

All in all, the students’ feedback to the seminary was very positive; also the experiences which the

lecturers could win in this seminary coincide with this impression. But there were also several

problems which should be taken up and discussed here. Challenging to the lecturers were especially

the motivation of the students to reflect on themselves, the difficulty to present satisfying courses of

action and partly to motivate the students to use the unfamiliar free space in this seminary. With

these three points we can again present and gather the paradox in the center of the discussion

aspired here in all its diversity. In all of these three points there is the question how to solve the

challenge by lecturers in an appropriate way without using institutional pre-shaped power structures.

The dealing with racism does not solely require to acquire information but also to question learned

models of acting, thinking and speaking. In this manner, especially for white people, deep rooted

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parts of our self-conception have to be raised to question. For this, a profound self-reflection is

necessary. But this reflection must not stay on a cognitive level but must involve the personal

emotions in a high extent. Especially the written elaborations to the seminary show certain

differences in penetration and independent reflection of the seminary contents. Internalized figures

of speaking and thinking stayed by some students till the end of the seminary and were also present

in their seminar papers. But here must also be said that the biggest part of the seminar papers were

characterized by a successfully initiated processes of reflection. We see reasons for obstacles by

questioning established models on partly on the cognitive and partly on the emotional level. A reason

for a lack of cognitive examination seems to be the unwillingness of students to read the prepared

texts when they belief to be well informed about the topics by former readings and examinations.

Because of the leading German media discourse racism is reserved as label for the Nazi-ideology and

because of the picture of an every time tolerant and enlightened society many people have such a

self-assessment without ever dealing with racism critical analyses. If the students don’t read the

prepared texts and analyses because they think they have enough information and that they know

everything about the topic an ongoing intensification of heterogeneity of knowledge in the group

occurs. This brings a certain danger: Students may not be able to follow the discussions or don’t

understand the used language of the group. Also central contents will be maybe not questioned by

such students. It can also be very problematic that the dynamic in the discussions of the group

stagnates or comes to a deadlock, because these students want to discuss other already answered

and cleared questions. This becomes visible when students rest on questions which they can’t solve

with normal familiar patterns of thinking. This is for example the question for the empirical feasibility

of changing our current society. Concretely this means the question for the possibility of another

world. When racism is such an all-embracing topic in so many social areas the demand to change will

occasionally retaliated by referring to this wide extent of the problem. Just because a problem is

extensive and many parts in social togetherness touching it does not mean in our view that it should

not be discussed any more or that you have to have a specific elaborations of an alternative world up

one’s sleeve. In fact, great social challenges need from our perspective an academic examination and

a sensitization of the next academic generation with such problems. This examination and

sensitization can happen by a subjective experience of the problem: but to such an examination

belongs also an examination of literature and other discussions. The first big challenge by examining

racism in university is to motivate all students to read the prepared texts so that they all have the

same knowledge of the topic.

On the emotional level the biggest obstacle lies according to us in the already above mentioned

defense mechanism of white people when they are confronted with their personal racism. It can be

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painful to realize that the existence of structural racism brings a variety of privileges for white

students at German universities and it also causes an internalization of racist thought patterns. The

examination of the personal privileges and of the internalized pictures can solely be supported in a

limited way in a seminary or by the lecturers because this is a very personal and private examination

of oneself. We just can give a kind of impulse. The partly different acceptance of these impulses is

grounded in the individual varying ways to unlearn longstanding thought patterns and in the

acknowledgement of the personal privileges. Another obstacle on this way is the relativization of

racist experiences from People of Color by referring to unpleasant experiences which can be affiliated

to being white. More than one time students talked about experienced injustice when they travelled

into regions with predominantly Black populations. This brought the proposition that racism is

convertible and that it can also be targeted at white people. This equalization of Black and white

experience hides structural inequalities and stands obviously against the acknowledgement of the

personal privileges with look at power relations which are shaped by racism. We also had many times

the impression that some participants avoided a self-reflection by discussing linguistic inaccuracies in

the texts or possible inconsistencies between different approaches. With the background of these

experiences we have to ask how the initiation of deep emotional processes of self-reflection is

possible in university seminaries. The wish, to stay at an abstract and theoretical dealing seems to

mirror to us the existing scientific paradigms of neutrality and objectivity as suppression of every

personal experience and involvement.

The willingness to embark on unusual thinking structures and to apply them personally cannot

happen by the authority of the lecturers but it has to grow out of the students’ motivation. But if the

students have the standpoint that they have enough information about the subject and if they don’t

accept the counterarguments of other students a wall in the seminary room is created. We tried to

face these challenges by breaking up the normal atmosphere in university seminaries by seating

arrangements and methods. But concerning this point we were confronted with the limits of the

possible.

The complexity of dealing racism points to the next topic: A seminary about racism cannot afford an

easy recipe for the dealing of the raised problems. The permanent reflection of personal social acting

and the multiplication of personal cognitions are possible solution proposals. This should not be a

problem because one aspect of university education is the dealing and the changing of personal

acting. But in times of political debates which reduce the role of universities to sole educational

trainings center students have to have a critical examining view. On this way some students have to

be escorted. Additional, this points to the question if the changing of power structures at universities

in the last years have brought more space and potential to formulate social critical answers to the

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problem of racism.

The last of the three points to discuss is concerned with the reaction of the students to the liberty

they have in the seminary. In the process of the course we noticed a very different demand for

consultation of the students by using this unfamiliar liberty. While some groups could use the open

form of the course for their working process and sensed this as additional motivation some other

students had severe problems with the omission of familiar patterns. So for some groups the

independent research of literature was an additional possibility to reflect once again their achieved

knowledge. Opposite to this, other groups tried to hold on frontal presentations and stayed with this

on familiar procedures from other seminaries. Equally, the students rated the unusual and less visible

hierarchies between them and the lecturers mostly positive; at the same time there were also several

students which were overstrained by the liberty and the possibilities to take part in designing the

seminary. These students claimed in the feedback a stronger guidance by the lecturers. This

requirement was for example mirrored in the repeated used figure of speech by one student who

talked with regard to the composition of the teaching staff about professors and employees. This is

simply not correct: The teaching staff consists of three students and one employee of the political

institute. The lecturer was no professor and the students no employees of the institute. By this, the

student may have tried to compensate the less strong possibility of subordination in this form of

seminary.

These are the challenges we had to face to deal with racism in a university seminary. The above

mentioned points appeared in a varying intensity in the course of the seminary. When a course has

the aspiration to question existing structures and power relations we cannot at the same time go

back to that resources without reducing this seminary to absurdity. Simultaneously the subjective

experience - which contains by the dealing with racism the possibility to question critical the personal

position and also refusal in the same way – contains an element which cannot be deprived of the

participants and so by an interaction in the course with certain examples can emerge discussions in

every direction. The here worked out moment of paradox is mirrored in varying teaching situations.

But in this case it is pretty obvious. Looking at this, a closer examination and discussion of the

seminary from a power critical perspective seems to be very profitable to find out something about

possibilities and limits of student-lecturer-interaction and about the mutual dependence between

them.

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Conclusion

This paper presents the experiences collected by the conduct of an introducing seminary about

racism. Hereby we decided that we will give no advices for the conduct of such a seminary but put a

paradox emerging from making this course in the focus of this text. We don’t want to give with this

paper a template for further courses but we want to present four alternative perspectives on the

university teaching which results from our personal didactic examination with this content in our

seminary.

First, we want to encourage to acknowledge ambivalences and contradictions in the personal

experience of lecturers which emerge from the existing institutional structures of power. As said

above, universities are no neutral places of objective production or transmission of knowledge but

places which are producing and reproducing social power relations. Because of this it is necessary for

all people who act in this context to deal with the consequences of these structures for their personal

possibilities and impacts of acting.

Connecting to that, we want to encourage secondly, to continue this perspective on the personal

position as a teacher. Instead of talking abstractly about theories we call up according to bell hooks to

understand “theory as liberatory practice” (hooks 1994: 59). Theoretical examinations are fruitful,

when they begin with subjective experiences of the participants and when they show options of

acting which exist for social changes outside of academic spaces.

Thirdly, this needs a new perspective on the relationship between lecturers and students. To make

this theory practical reality we have to have space for interests, previous knowledge and experiences

of the students in university teaching. The positive responses and our personal impressions

represented in the chapter about evaluation show that such participative seminaries are possible and

positively rated by students.

The last perspective we want to talk about is a racism critical one. Just like in the introduction

mentioned racism and academic institutions have a long common history. So according to us it is not

sufficient to put racism together with other topics in one seminary. Instead we claim a continuing

racism critical perspective in all university contents. All lecturers are supposed to ask themselves to

what extent white norm concepts are influencing their content and to address these influences in

their teaching.

15

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Appendix

Table 2: Additional survey

Mean

(SE of mean)

SD Variance Count

(n, valide)

The formal frame (time of the seminar, credit points etc.) was important to choose the course.

3,06 (.59) 2,44 5,93 17

I had a general interest to know more about the topic of racism.

6,47 (.31) 1,28 1,64 17

I wanted to exchange with other students about racism, to learn more about this topic.

6,41 (.26) 1,06 1,13 17

I have experienced incidents of racism at the university.

4,82 (.50) 2,07 4,28 17

Racism was already an explicit topic of a different seminar I visited.

3 (.60) 2,47 6,13 17

I already read texts at the University that I would label as racist.

5,35 (.38) 1,58 2,49 17

17

I would agree to the statement, that I am affected by racism in a positive way.

5,25 (.54) 2,14 4,60 16

I would agree to the statement, that I am affected by racism in a negative way.

1,82 (.39) 1,59 2,53 17

After taking the course, I feel better prepared for discussions and disputes about racism.

6,18 (.32) 1,33 1,78 17

I was already well informed about racism, before I took the course.

4,41 (.37) 1,54 2,38 17

I get knowledge of methods that I will adapt to other courses too.

5,35 (.50) 2,06 4,24 17

The literature and the essential readings for the course have been a step forward with regards to content.

6,18 (.25) 1,01 1,03 17

Through the course, I feel motivated to deepen my knowledge about racism.

6,29 (.31) 1,26 1,60 17

I would agree to the statement that the structure of the course – that was different to a “classic“ seminar with presentations and a fixed syllabus – influenced the discussions in the course in a positive way.

5,4 (.56) 2,16 4,69 15

The independent compilation of the syllabus was a positive experience.

6,06 (.37) 1,48 2,20 16

I prefer a fixed syllabus for a seminar. 2,19 (.33) 1,33 1,76 16

The atmosphere of the work and presentation groups was a positive experience.

5,67 (.39) 1,50 2,24 15

I was able to relate to the chosen topics and the syllabus of the seminar.

5,87 (.35) 1,36 1,84 15

I found it positive that the tutors arranged the first four seminar sessions.

6,38 (.24) 0,96 0,92 16

I would have welcome that the tutors arranged more seminar sessions at the beginning.

4,2 (.52) 2,01 4,03 15

I had difficulties to arrange a course session regarding the content.

1,86 (.38) 1,41 1,98 14

I had difficulties to arrange a course session regarding the methods.

1,85 (.34) 1,21 1,47 13

18

The mentoring the lecturers offered for the seminar presentation was helpful.

5,64 (.27) 1,01 1,02 14

I get adequate assistance from the lecturers for my seminar presentation.

6,5 (.25) 0,94 0,89 14

I was satisfied with the feedback for my seminar presentation.

5,08 (.61) 2,11 4,45 12