Privilege and disadvantage

Course Description

Migrant students’ backgrounds vary, but it is safe to say that all of them share the experience of uprootedness, especially when they leave their home country when they are already old enough to have had their own circle of friends, and they have participated in community life. Refugee children, or children who have had to emigrate for their own safety and protection are doubly vulnerable, as they also have experienced the trauma of fleeing their home country through illicit or legitimate means. Thus, in our classes, we have layers upon layers of privilege and disadvantage and for this reason, we cannot operate on the notion of sameness. During this session, the participants explore firstly their own privileges and disadvantages (if any). From the personal, we move on to the classroom situation. Who are the privileged children? Why are they so? Why do we consider others disadvantaged? How can we address these disadvantages to provide as much an equitable educational experience as possible?

Estimated Lesson Duration: 40 minutes

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Learning Outcomes

By the end of the session participants will be able to: 

  • Explain what privilege and disadvantage entail, and why it matters;
  • Recognise their own privileges and disadvantages vis-à-vis their peers;
  • Identify types of privilege and disadvantages their students bring with them to school;
  • Develop strategies to address disadvantages in the classroom.

The Session

Introduction

Watch Video The privilege cartoon which is found in resources. It explains privilege in a nutshell.

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Access the PowerPoint presentation. It further explains what privilege and disadvantage entail. This will include a brief mention of the different forms of capital.

Find the handout ‘How privileged are you?’. It is time to focus on yourself and think about and explore privilege from your standpoint. Did you expect that result? Did you ever think of yourself as privileged/disadvantaged? What were the causes of your disadvantages? To what are your privileges attributed.

It’s time to look at our students now. First watch the video Children, privilege, and disadvantage.  Then take the handout titled: Students – the privileged and the oppressed. This activity allows you to think about your students. After you fill the handout, think of the student who is the most challenging. Can you identify if s/he is privileged, disadvantaged, oppressed? What do you think you  (or the school) can do to address the disadvantages the students come to school with? Identify strategies, resources, activities, practices, methods etc. that would be helpful in addressing disadvantage and oppression. How these can be used in class? How can policies be changed to be more inclusive and not work against children coming from a disadvantaged background?

Watch Ted Talk ‘Rethinking Privilege’ by Mariam Veiszadeh.

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Resources

PPT Presentation 

Handout: How privileged are you? 

Handout: Students – the privileged and the oppressed

Previous Module: Prejudice and Stereotypes

Next Module: Racism