What COVID-19 Taught Us About Pedagogy and Social Justice—Pandemic or Not

The COVID-19 pandemic (in conjunction with the Black Lives Matter Movement) exposed pervasive inequities, challenges, and opportunities to explore and implement "best” pedagogical practices to improve how we address social justice issues. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic intensified intergenerational gaps for the already vulnerable, under-resourced, and marginalized in our society. In response, we propose four "best practices” to embrace in our classrooms. These are: (a) fostering flexibility to bridge equity gaps;(b) rethinking the pedagogical panopticon;(c) emphasizing listening to and affirming students' struggles;and (d) employing student-centered accountability. The authors detail some specific inequalities that were brought to the surface during the Spring and Summer of 2020, offer "best practices” in response to such inequities, and stress the need for a student-centered pedagogy that serves to improve teaching and learning not just during a crisis, but also in semesters and years to come.

"Spat On and Coughed At": Co-Cultural Understanding of Chinese International Students' Experiences with Stigmatization during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This paper examines Chinese international students' lived experiences of being stigmatized during the early onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. To understand their dual-marginalization due to Othered Chinese-ness (e.g. racialized immigrant Others and foreigner Asians) and presumed contagiousness (e.g. suspected, diseased, and infectious), we adopt co-cultural theory to centralize their experiences of coping with COVID-related stigmatization. Semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis demonstrate how Chinese students in this study heightened their sensitivity to ambiguous yet hostile stigmatization and how they often opted for nonassertive, non-confrontational, and threat-avoiding coping strategies. We reflect on how current health and racism crises further marginalize immigrant Others in general and Chinese immigrants in particular. We conclude with discussing theoretical application of co-cultural theory to understand stigmatizing and stigmatized health communication.