Whiteness and Neoliberal Diversity: The (Re)production of Ideology through College Students’ Diversity Discourse

Abstract

Diversity has become a proxy term used to talk about racism and other forms of systemic oppression on college campuses and in the classroom. Although scholars have suggested connecting diversity to power, privilege, and systemic oppression, whiteness can be used to challenge these systemic conversations bringing into question the usefulness of this suggestion. Based on interviews with 15 college students, I argue that college students’ diversity discourse functioned to (re)produce whiteness and neoliberal diversity by promoting individualism and meritocracy. I also suggest that instructors’ abilities to intervene in the (re)production of harmful ideologies are limited because students wanted classroom diversity discourse to focus on their perspectives and opinions which could challenge instructors’ attempts to connect individual discourses to systemic analyses. In turn, I propose dialogic instruction and critical communication pedagogy as an intervention. As instructors engage in these practices they should work to shift students’ understandings of racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression from an individual level toward systemic analyses.

Keywords:

• Critical Communication Pedagogy
• Diversity
• Ideology
• Instructional Communication
• Whiteness

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Dr. Lindsey Anderson, Dr. Elizabeth Toth, Dr. Rossina Zamora Liu, Matthew Salzano, and Elexis DeGale for their thoughts and feedback throughout the completion of this project. Additionally, the author would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments throughout the peer-review process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This study was conducted under IRB #1495110-3 at the University of Maryland.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Drew T. Ashby-King

Drew T. Ashby-King (M.A., University of Maryland) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland.