GCPE Social Justice Resource Guide

estimated time for this section: 2 hours minimum

ACTIVITY: Wheel of Power and Privilege 

For practitioners who work with diverse students and communities, it is important for each of us to understand and navigate our social positions in the world -- and also in the classroom. Below is the wheel of power and privilege, created by Sylvia Duckworth. Look at the wheel and note that Power is located at the center of the wheel, while a spectrum of Marginalization radiates outward. Each of the twelve spokes on the wheel refers to an area of one's social identity (these categories are located on the outer perimeter of the wheel). These are aspects of what make up who you are, how you are seen, and can highlight where you hold the most privilege, as well as where you have been marginalized. 

Assess your own proximity to power and marginalization for each spoke of the wheel / category of social identity. You can place a symbol or circle on your position across the various identities.

A few reminders: Be kind with yourself as you do this self-assessment; as the intention here is not to judge where you are located, but rather to have a well-rounded awareness of where you might be privileged/marginalized in life. Note where you may feel uncomfortable or brings up strong emotions, and simply allow these to exist. Facing our own various privilege and marginalization is necessary to build empathy and understanding of others. To do our work we must become comfortable with feeling uncomfortable and holding space for our differences. 

Note: This graphic does not represent all forms of social identities and their marginalizations. The intent here is to provide a framework to view power and privilege. As you identify additional areas of marginalization (such as: age, religion, single/[blended] family, appearance/beauty, etc), take time to reflect on how you might represent that within this model.

Reflection questions: Once you've completed reviewing your position on the wheel, ask yourself:

• What identities provide you the most privilege/power?
• What identities locate you as marginalized?
• What identities do you think about most often, and which identities do you think about least often?
• What identities would you like to learn more about?
• What actions might you take to use your power in a certain aspect to support those who are marginalized?

How does power and privilege impact you? There are some things to keep in mind when it comes to understanding power and privilege.

• Privilege is interconnected with power in our society, i.e., those who have privilege can create/maintain societal norms, often to their benefit and at the expense of others.
• Privilege does not mean that a person has not experienced struggles or that their life has not been difficult.
• Privilege does not mean that you did not work hard for the things you have.
• Privilege is fluid; it can change as you move through life.
• Privilege is contextual; identities you hold can give you an advantage or a disadvantage based upon how people perceive you.
• Privilege has strategically been set up as a taboo subject, allowing those in dominant groups to ignore embedded, and often invisible, forms of oppression.

When we say someone has privilege, we want their accessibility to resources to come to mind first. Those in power generally have unearned access to resources to which those not in power (typically members of marginalized groups) have less or no access. This notion of unearned access is where the inequity lies, because access is based upon an identity someone holds that has traditionally been associated with power. It is imperative to understanding the means required to remove the oppressive barriers marginalized persons experience. More resources, more critical understanding of power and privilege, and more commitment to systematic changes are necessary to achieve true fairness and justice for all. Only then can we achieve true equity.

Intersectionality

Watch this video of Kimberlé Crenshaw, a pioneer in critical race theory, in "The Urgency of Intersectionality" TED Talk (duration: 19 mins, Oct 2016. Content warning: graphic imagery of police violence against black women and girls, timestamps 16:30 thru 16:45).

Crenshaw explains how paying attention to a single social identity category, especially at the individual level, inhibits us from seeing the effects on individuals of systemic patterns that institutions and culture reinforce to advantage some and disadvantage others. Crenshaw’s work explains that membership in more than one oppressed social identity group (e.g., African American and woman) can result in compounded challenges. Whenever a person is a member of two or more social identity groups that experience marginalization and discrimination, intersectionality theory reminds us to look at the complexity of a person’s lived experience in its totality, not at a single identity category in isolation from others. Therefore, we must examine ourselves as individuals and as part of larger groups. We are constantly socialized through interactions and as part of larger social groups, including in higher education. (source: University of Michigan Inclusive Teaching Website).

Impact with communities

Watch this video on Power, Privilege and Oppression (duration: 6 min 35 sec, Denver University Graduate School of Social Work).

"Our relationship to identity groups can be the key to creating change. In the United States, since social inequities occur primarily to communities of color, social transformation requires a mobilization of identity. Social movements based in identity, such as the Black Liberation Movement, Chicano Movement, and Women's Rights Movement harness identity to educate people about social structural inequality and its impact on them... As people committed to social change, the questions for us are: "How much do we really understand about the histories and legacies of the communities in which we work? And as both insiders and outsiders of these communities, how do we use the power of narrative to informed by cultural histories of contribution, resistance and justice to activate change in grassroots community organizing" and community development? 

Additional Resources

• An Instructor’s Guide to Understanding Privilege (University of Michigan Inclusive Teaching Website): Helps instructors to understand better and attend to how privilege operates in the classroom.
• "Integrating Critical Autobiography to Foster Anti-Racism Learning in the Urban Studies Classroom: Interpreting the “Race and Place” Stories of Undergraduate Students" by Courtney Knapp

  Planners are bound up in the reproduction of racialized exclusion. This fact inspires demands for equity, cultural competency, and anti-racism within the profession. This study examines the impacts of a “Race and Place” autobiography writing assignment on undergraduate students’ racial identities and understanding of racism. It combines: (1) a content and narrative analysis of student essays; (2) a post-course survey; and (3) qualitative interviews with a sample of students. Critical autobiographical writing may help students understand their own identities, build empathy for peers, and identify personally with structures of inclusion/exclusion in ways that inspire longer-term commitments to racial justice.