1st Edition

Critical Interpersonal Communication Pedagogy Charting New Futurities

Edited By Mick B. Brewer, Sandra L. Faulkner Copyright 2025
    280 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This volume establishes critical interpersonal and family pedagogy (CIFC) as a distinct academic area of inquiry, highlighting the intersections of identity, power, culture, pedagogy, and IFC concepts, theories, and methods.

    This practical, theoretical, and aspirational collection by interpersonal and family communication (IFC) scholars and teachers shines a spotlight, through a diversity of methods, on some of the ways that power both emanates within the classroom and informs intellectual instruction. Providing examples that connect critical theories and concepts with topics common in IFC classrooms, such as conflict, relational tension, disclosure, listening, and family dynamics, the book illustrates how critical concepts can be uniquely addressed and unpacked in IFC classrooms through a variety of assignments, teaching activities, and discussion prompts, and promotes and normalizes the ongoing reflexive practices of IFC instructors.

    This book will interest academics and upper-level students working in the areas of Critical Methodology, Interpersonal Communication, Family Communication, and Relationship Science.

    Introduction

    Mick B. Brewer

    Section One. Activating the Bridgework: Coupling Interpersonal and Family Communication Research with Criticality.

    Chapter 1: Towards a Pedagogy of Suspicion: Inaugurating the Promising Entanglement of CIFC and Critical Communication Pedagogy

    Mick B. Brewer

    Chapter 2: Cultivating Change: An Introduction and Invitation to Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication Pedagogy

    Veronica A. Droser and Nivea Castenada

    Chapter 3: On Being Sex Affirming: Advocating Progressive Sexual Ideals and Practices

    Tony E. Adams

    Chapter 4: (Re)Introducing Graduate Interpersonal Communication: Reifying new traditions through attending to who is next

    Katherine J. Denker, Kathryn Bradley, and Brooke Morenze

    Chapter 5: Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication Pedagogy: Reflecting, Questioning, and Re-Constructing Assumptions about Gender and Sexuality in the Classroom

    Madison A. Pollino

    Chapter 6: A Critical Race Counterstory of Teaching and Learning Interpersonal and Family Communication

    Charnell Peters

    Chapter 7: Challenging Dualisms in CIFC Traditions: Journeys to Critical Praxis

    Jordan Allen

    Section Two: Praxiological Criticality: Applying the CIFC Framework in the Classroom.

    Chapter 8: Crystalizing, Quilting, and Running for Queen and Community: Practicing Anti-Transcarceral Grief Pedagogy Following a Loss by Suicide

    Erin K. Willer

    Chapter 9: Intergenerational Connections: An online community engagement project

    Sandra L. Faulkner, Wendy K. Watson, and Jaclyn Shetterly

    Chapter 10: Cultivating Empathy and Transformation at the Intersections: A CIFC Teaching Activity

    Tasha R. Dunn

    Chapter 11: #Thatsfamily: Interrogating Family Discourses and Politics Through Social Media

    Salvador Guzmán-Villegas and Charissa Stone

    Chapter 12: Transforming the Paradigm of Aging: Community Engaged Learning and Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication Pedagogy

    Elizabeth A. Suter

    Chapter 13: Disrupting Master Narratives Through Intersectional Reflexivity in the Interpersonal Communication Classroom

    Olivia Watson and Astrid Villamil

    Section Three: Ruminations from the Front Lines: Reflecting on and Confronting Power in and Around the IFC Classroom.

    Chapter 14: Performing Female: Using Communication Accommodation Theory to Critically Interrogate Gender Identity Salience in Classroom Encounters

    Carli Álvarez and Sandra L. Pensoneau-Conway 

    Chapter 15: Life in the Learning Zone: Student Engagement Through a Pedagogy of the Taboo             

    Mark P. Orbe and Jou-Chen Chen

    Chapter 16: “It's All in the Family”: BIPOC Professors, Critical Interpersonal Family Communication (CIFC), and Students’ Personal Histories in the Diversity Classroom

    Tina M. Harris, Allie Hatchett, and Akie Fukushige Wenk

    Chapter 17: Reconciling Difficult Classroom Conversations with Reflexivity, Dialogue, and Vulnerability

    Maddison Russell and Keith Berry

    Biography

    Mick B. Brewer (Ph.D., Southern Illinois University Carbondale) is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Lincoln University of Missouri. His research is situated within the critical tradition and spans various communication subfields including interpersonal communication, critical media studies, sexuality studies, and communication education, and has been published in multiple edited volumes and academic journals including Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Communication, Culture, & Critique, and Sexuality & Culture.

    Sandra L. Faulkner (Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University) is Professor of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University where she writes, teaches, and researches about close relationships. Faulkner’s interests include qualitative methodology, poetic inquiry, inclusive pedagogy, and critical perspectives on interpersonal and family communication. She engages in community-based research focusing on aging and communication across the life course and uses poetry as a form of social justice and activism.

    Mick B. Brewer (Ph.D., Southern Illinois University Carbondale) is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Lincoln University of Missouri. His research is situated within the critical tradition and spans various communication subfields including interpersonal communication, critical media studies, sexuality studies, and communication education, and has been published in multiple edited volumes and academic journals including Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Communication, Culture, & Critique, and Sexuality & Culture.

    Sandra L. Faulkner (Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University) is Professor of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University where she writes, teaches, and researches about close relationships. Faulkner’s interests include qualitative methodology, poetic inquiry, inclusive pedagogy, and critical perspectives on interpersonal and family communication. She engages in community-based research focusing on aging and communication across the life course and uses poetry as a form of social justice and activism.