"We're Not All Dandelions": Pedagogical Caring Strategies for Cultivating Equitable Learning Environments

Background and Purpose: A caring encounter with a faculty member is strongly related to positive academic outcomes (Clifton et al., 2004; Rowland, 2009), and this association holds across students’ academic major and demographic background (Clifton et al., 2004). These caring encounters are often described as pedagogical caring (PC) or “students' perceptions that their professors generally care about their educational experiences” (Freeman et al., 2007, p.209). PC includes warmth, classroom management, and pedagogical decisions. Unfortunately, students’ perception of teachers’ PC tends to decline after students enter junior high school and worsen thereafter (Feldlaufer et al., 1988). While few studies have addressed PC in higher education classrooms, it is believed to be especially important for college students from historically underrepresented groups.

Methods: Drawing from community-based participatory research methods and philosophies, we explored PC and how faculty can cultivate a more equitable learning environment in higher education. We aimed to answer the following research questions: 1) what does PC mean in the context of higher education?; 2) why does (lack of) PC matter?; 3) what are the unique implications of (lack of) and PC for students with marginalized identities?; and 4) what can faculty do to show PC? College students who self-identified as belonging to marginalized social groups (N = 14) were recruited from a large public university in central Texas to participate in a work group. All students held at least two marginalized identities, typically based on race/ethnicity (71%) and sexual orientation/gender identity expression (78%). The work group met for six two-hour sessions and collaborated on the following tasks:

• Describe PC (e.g., ways faculty demonstrate PC; impact of professor’s PC on their SB; impact of PC on their education; how professors can improve their PC);
• Create a video and accompanying booklet for faculty describing the significance of PC as well as prescribe strategies for improving PC to cultivate student sense of school belonging.

To identify themes from the workgroups, we double coded each transcript using a hybrid of thematic analysis (Guest et al., 2012) and consensual qualitative research (Hill et al., 1997).

Results: Preliminary analyses identified three domains, PC, school belonging, and resources. Our preliminary findings illustrate the importance of training faculty on how to affirm students’ identities, establish an inclusive classroom environment, and provide genuine care and support. In addition, our data captures a nuanced understanding on the ways in which educators can better support students with non-dominant identities given the intersection of students’ multiple identities. Thus, intersectional analyses illuminate these complexities and allow educators, policymakers, and researchers to identify appropriate supports. Finally, our data illuminates common challenges and possible solutions for improving faculty’s PC for marginalized students in college classrooms.

Conclusions and Implications: In this presentation, we will describe themes that emerged from the work groups; present concrete strategies for how faculty may promote PC by sharing the video and booklet created by the workgroup; and discuss challenges and solutions for the implementation of PC strategies.