Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication Pedagogy

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. Faulkner is Editor of Communication Studies (2025-2027)

• IntroductionSection 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 PedagogyChapter 2: Cultivating Change: An Introduction and Invitation to Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication PedagogyChapter 3: On Being Sex Affirming: Advocating Progressive Sexual Ideals and PracticesChapter 4: (Re)Introducing Graduate Interpersonal Communication: Reifying new traditions through attending to who is nextChapter 5: Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication Pedagogy: Reflecting, Questioning, and Re-Constructing Assumptions about Gender and Sexuality in the ClassroomChapter 6: A Critical Race Counterstory of Teaching and Learning Interpersonal and Family CommunicationChapter 7: Challenging Dualisms in CIFC Traditions: Journeys to Critical PraxisSection 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 SuicideChapter 9: Intergenerational Connections: An online community engagement projectChapter 10: Cultivating Empathy and Transformation at the Intersections: A CIFC Teaching ActivityChapter 11: #Thatsfamily: Interrogating Family Discourses and Politics Through Social MediaChapter 12: Transforming the Paradigm of Aging: Community Engaged Learning and Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication PedagogyChapter 13: Disrupting Master Narratives Through Intersectional Reflexivity in the Interpersonal Communication ClassroomSection 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 Chapter 15: Life in the Learning Zone: Student Engagement Through a Pedagogy of the Taboo Chapter 16: “It's All in the Family”: BIPOC Professors, Critical Interpersonal Family Communication (CIFC), and Students’ Personal Histories in the Diversity ClassroomChapter 17: Reconciling Difficult Classroom Conversations with Reflexivity, Dialogue, and Vulnerability

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.