FACILITATING THE CRITIQUE OF RACISM AND CLASSISM - AN EXPERIENTIAL MODEL FOR EURO-AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS STUDENTS

In the more conservative climate of the 1980s it was not easy to find approaches in the classroom that could effectively challenge racial an d class stereotypes. Younger Euro-American students grew up in a clima te especially hostile to perspectives that went outside market-based i deologies. in public discourse, analyses about the structural forms of oppression affecting people of color, women, and working people were attacked and marginalized. In this context I want to share my experien ce in teaching a course called The Community Tutoring Project. I devel oped and taught this course at a college whose students were largely y ounger, Euro-American, suburban, and middle class, and who were raised in families and communities that were steeped in the conservative eth os of such people.