Who Says It’s Common? Rethink Our Assumptions About Common Sense in Teaching

There has been strong advocacy for educators to extensively examine pedagogical assumptions to design more inclusive and accessible classes. However, our assumptions about inclusivity and the interplay of privilege and students’ “common sense” have received little attention. As such, a common sense gap exists, where faculty may regard certain content or information as familiar to all students without considering the more profound effects of institutionalized privileges on the educational experiences of students without privileged backgrounds. Adopting a critical lens to examine foundational assumptions about common sense has meaningful implications for the ideal of higher education as a credible pathway to social mobility for all. This paper illustrates how the creation and dissemination of “common sense” are bounded by social class and socialization processes. We consider how blind spots about “common sense” in management learning and education shape the experience of less privileged students, which then helps create and perpetuate stigma and inequality in workplaces and society. Furthermore, we integrate the literature on stigma and higher education to confer suggestions for educators and institutions on how to destigmatize education and effectively design and deliver inclusive classroom experiences.