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White Privilege in Experiential Education: A Critical Reflection

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 34; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01490400.2012.652505

1521-0588

Jeff Rose, Karen Paisley,

Indigenous and Place-Based Education

Abstract Through narrative and critique, this critical analysis addresses the role and reification of privilege in the pedagogical processes of experiential education. Using whiteness as a critical and theoretical lens, we argue experiential education is a privileged pedagogy, aimed at maintaining the status quo and reproducing dominant power relations between racialized social groups. Participants, instructors, spaces, and activities often reflect the embedded whiteness of experiential education. We critically examine the use of challenge in experiential education and offer a language of possibility for future trajectories for experiential education which facilitates more just and equitable teaching and learning processes. Keywords: challengeoutdoor educationpedagogysocial justicewhiteness Notes Classifying historically marginalized races or populations in terms of what they are not (“non-White”) is problematic and should be avoided. Such techniques further the normalization and dominance of whiteness. Groups should generally be identified by terms that are embedded and generated from within. However, this opening narrative is meant to expose traditional perspectives I held at the time. Since this article explicitly questions White supremacy often found in experiential education organizations, we sought to avoid the APA-required capitalization of racial categories (e.g., Asian, Black, Latino, White). With editorial guidance, we have reluctantly abided by this stylistic practice in this article. All direct quotes used in this article are unchanged from the original authors’ capitalization. Experiential education organizations differ widely in the curriculum taught and the training methods used to educate instructors. However, it is not overessentializing to suggest most experiential educators are taught issues of risk management, group formation and development, leadership styles, and various technical skills. We have intentionally chosen to use the term “marginalized” as we feel it most accurately reflects the process in which we, as White educators, actively engage to disregard and devalue rather than to acknowledge and validate. Paulo Freire was a revolutionary educator in support of “critical consciousness” for all citizens, particularly in rural Brazil, where he did much of his work. bell hooks is a critical scholar of systems of oppression associated particularly with race and gender. Henry Giroux culturally critiques educational systems’ perpetuation of various injustices. Washburne's (Citation1978) marginality hypothesis claims that under-representation of African Americans in certain leisure activities is due to limited economic resources, often due to historical discrimination. The ethnicity hypothesis claims that lower minority participation rates come from variations in racial groups’ values, norms, and socialization patterns. When taken in context of a longer and more inclusive history, these outdoor education activities are certainly not the sole domain of White people. In fact, many contemporary outdoor activities were historically in the purview of multiple races and ethnicities, but as people of color were exploited, and dispossessed through colonization, many of their indigenous practices were marginalized. See Meeker (Citation1973) for further elaboration of this concept. This quote has been appropriated from the field of journalism, and is most likely traced back to the prominent newspaper writer Finley Peter Dunne near the turn of the 20th century. Since that time, this phrase has been used to link pedagogy and justice (Omatsu, Citation1999), as well as in other social justice contexts.