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.

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.

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 9: Intergenerational Connections: An online community engagement project

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

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

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

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

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

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 Classroom

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