Complementing Intersectionality Pedagogy With a Missing Component—Positionality

Abstract

Teaching about race as an African American female instructor at a predominantly white university has its challenges, especially regarding classroom power and privilege dynamics. I use the concepts of intersectionality and positionality as frameworks to explain the experiences that I encountered in the classroom, usually as the only African American in the room. I share two scenarios that initiated my inquisitiveness to discover more about why the incidents occurred. At the conclusion of the paper, I reveal how the complementary value of intersectionality and positionality benefits all educators who desire to comprehend the hierarchical power and privilege that may interplay in the learning environment.