Most of the courses I teach center on contemporary issues and inequality. It’s common practice now, I think, to talk about issues of privilege and advantage in courses on inequality. I know when I ask undergraduate to raise their hands to see who has ever been assigned Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege Checklist,” a portion of the class always seems to have come across it in one class or another. There are a variety of strategies for leading classroom discussions about privilege–some more successful than others.
I’ve seen a strategy put into use, however, that I think deserves more attention. It’s not something I’ve ever done in a class; but I understand the idea behind it.* Some teachers ask students to raise their hands to a series of questions about their social backgrounds and identity categories to get them to think about issues of privilege and inequality. In a more extreme example, students are asked to stand against a wall and to take steps away from the wall based on their answers to a series of questions about various advantages and disadvantages associated with their identities. So, depending on how you run this activity, the end result is either a group of young, able-bodied, heterosexual, white men standing against a wall watching other non-young, non-able-bodied, non-heterosexual, non-white, non-men walk away from them or vice versa.
While this seems like it might (and I stress might here) be a really powerful experience for the young, able-bodied, heterosexual, white men, I’ve always wondered what it might be like for everyone else in class.
Inequality by (Interior) Design 