It is time to review the schedule for the placement of your session in the AAACE Agenda. This is the final draft of the Schedule. When you look up your name, use the detail listing to check what days/times you asked to be placed. This is a huge program and we can accommodate necessary changes in day and time now, but may not be able to do so after September 1, 2013 except in emergencies. Please carefully check your placement and send any requests to Ginger Phillips, AAACE Conference Planner with AAACE Session Change Request in the subject line. We will respond to your email, but it may take us up to a week to do so. Thanks for your help in "fine tuning" this agenda!
Learner Resistance to Cultural Issues: Facilitation Strategies and Techniques
Type of Presentation
Shared
Session Abstract
Through case studies and presenter and participant discussion, this session will explore strategies and techniques to facilitate difficult discussions about culture in contexts where the predominant adult learner is privileged.
Target Audience
The target audience includes adult educators who address culture or cultural competencies and facilitate dialogue around such issues, including: professors in higher education who teach social foundations of adult education and leadership in multicultural organizations; diversity and cross-cultural trainers; practitioners in human resource development; and military educators. Adult educators will find the session content relevant for multiple contexts where an examination and reflection on culture are central.
Learning Outcomes
As a result of this session participants will have examined their own experiences facilitating difficult conversations focusing on culture. Participants will be able to identify situations when they facilitated emotionally charged situations about culture and in which learners dismissed or were resistant to alternative paradigms or worldviews. Participants will be able to identify dynamics and power issues present, what went well in facilitating a situation and/or share strategies for facilitating such topics. Participants will gain insights into strategies and techniques, which may inform their own practice with adult learners who resist examining alternative paradigms of culture.
Session Description
Conversations about culture including topics of microaggressions, white privilege, power, feminism, and social capital are important for adult educators and students to explore yet often are challenging topics to facilitate (Brookfield, 2013; Marcuse, 1965). This session addresses a context in which most of the participants are those of privilege and resist exploring alternative paradigms of culture. McKenzie (1991) argues that it is an ethical obligation for adult educators to examine their worldview construction to avoid imposing it on others; however, an environment of repressive tolerance can be created as the educator attempts to include all voices. The focus of this session is to facilitate a discussion about strategies and techniques for facilitating difficult conversations about culture with privileged groups. This session aims to foster a critical reflection of practice and explore strategies for facilitating conversations about culture within complex environments of learner resistance.
Efforts are made to try to schedule sessions on the day preferred by the Primary Presenter, though this cannot be guaranteed. Please check your preference.
Thursday November 7
Primary Presenter
Susan M. Yelich Biniecki, Ph.D., Kansas State University, Department of Educational Leadership, Adult Education Program
Work Title
Assistant Professor
Additional Presenters: Enters In Order.
Royce Ann Collins, Ph.D., Kansas State University, Department of Educational Leadership, Adult Education Program
Work Title
Associate Professor