Ariel J. Mosley, Ph.D.

Department of Psychology

University of California Davis

Teaching

Dr. Mosley's Teaching Philosophy:

"My teaching philosophy combines aspects of active learning, critical thinking, and appreciation of unique and diverse social identities. It is important that my students explore how our own social groups and collective narratives influence the way we think about the complexity of the self and our social worlds. My research and teaching reflects my beliefs that science can help bring understanding and significance to the way people live and navigate their relations with others. I adamantly share with my students the importance of conducting research for solving real world social issues, and communicate the benefits of engaging in academic career. In my teaching, I am intentional about incorporating themes from my own research into the lecture, discussion, and activities, and tying those themes to current events and real-world applications to facilitate students understanding.

In terms of teaching, it is a goal of mine to be sensitive and respectful to the different personal backgrounds, experiences, and worldviews of my students, both when creating class materials and during classes when I am interacting with students and facilitating group discussions. To overcome individual barriers, I have engaged in significant efforts to advance equitable access to education regarding the course curriculum. For example, I have created diverse study groups and learning teams to facilitate collaborative learning, providing guidelines for group interaction, and checks for group functioning through peer feedback. Such groups have been shown to reduce feelings of academic isolation and marginalization at the university. It is important for me to create a positive climate for meaningful intellectual discourse about diversity by making my classroom inspiring for underrepresented students. To do so, I like to discuss the intellectual contributions of diverse scholars in the field, providing role models from various backgrounds to communicate that everyone can be successful. Personally, I try to communicate and reflect on my own personal journey and experiences of navigating academia to build rapport, increasing community in the class, and make myself more approachable to students from similar backgrounds."

Teaching at UC Davis

Course Description:

This course is designed to give students an overview of a social psychological approach to the study of cultural appropriation—acts in which a person associated with one group makes use of, imitates, or takes possession of the cultural elements of another group, as well as racism.

This course will integrate social psychological theories with empirical evidence, as well as examples from popular press and digital media to help students gain understanding into cultural appropriation as a manifestation of racism. Emphasis will be placed on developing critical and integrative ways of thinking about theory and research on intergroup relations, identity, and social inequality.

We will also examine routes to cultural appreciation, using research that questions how outgroup cultural use can facilitate positive intergroup relations in an era of increased globalization and multicultural integration.

Summary of Course Content:

This course will examine the psychology behind how people perceive, respond to, and engage in acts of cultural appropriation, as well as the downstream implications for identity, social justice and equality. This class will provide undergraduate students with a critical understanding of how cultural appropriation can be understood as a framework for understanding social categorization, identity, and intergroup oppression through an “us versus them mentality”. Students will engage in simultaneous critical knowledge engagement and creation using a social psychological lens to uncover historical, cultural, epistemological frameworks for topics we discuss each week, which will be centered around a broad theme of cultural appropriation (e.g., exploitation, assimilation, identity, privilege, justifications of celebration).

Students will attend a bi-weekly interactive lecture, and be expected to communicate, discuss, and analyze academic literature, scientific research, media (popular press articles, YouTube videos, podcasts), and fellow class mates to understand the role of cultural appropriation in an increasingly diverse social world. Students will learn how to read and extract core points from empirical journal articles, gain experience thinking critically about acts of cultural appropriation in the media, and identify examples of how psychological research and theory relate to current social events.

The first weeks of class will introduce students to theoretical perspectives of cultural appropriation, the nuances of how can be defined, the different typologies (e.g., object, subject, motif), and the ways that it can be categorized based on the power relations of the actors involved. In these sections, we will discuss the diverse ways that cultural appropriation manifests in contemporary society, systematically investigating the aesthetic and moral issues to which cultural appropriation brings about in social discourse.

Next, we will explore topics of cultural exploitation and privilege to understand how cultural appropriation can manifest as a form of commodification, and how it can be an extension of intergroup oppression through harmful representations, stereotypes, and unconscious biases. We will also the cover topic of cultural dominance (commonly understood as “reverse appropriation”) —cases in which individuals from lower status groups take on cultural elements from the dominant/mainstream culture, and the implications this has for minoritized individuals. Students will be able to identify and understand how cultural appropriation is situated within different diversity ideologies (e.g., colorblind racism), and how these beliefs about racial sameness reinforce systematic inequalities rather than promote inclusivity.

Finally, students will gain knowledge about how outgroup cultural use can manifest as cultural appreciation, and the positive implications that it can have for the self (e.g., self-complexity, interpersonal growth) and intergroup relations (e.g., outgroup empathy, intercultural understanding). At the end of class, students should leave with the confidence to analyze and critically evaluate ideas, arguments, and points of view related to the psychological study of cultural appropriation and racism.