Teaching Social Justice: How and why should we teach for social justice?
To get our students interested in social justice, we might jump right into a discussion about "Who is a typical person" when we look at all the people in the world. From here, we can launch into a discussion of social justice by discussing the following:
- What is social justice?
- What is social injustice?
- What is the extent of income equality in the United States?
- How do we educate our students about social injustice without having them lose hope?
- How can we teach for social justice ?
What is social justice?
Methods Activity: Take out a piece of paper and write your name and "Do Now Method" at the top. Then, spend 3 minutes writing a 1-2 sentence Do Now response to the following question: How would you define social justice?
- Next, get into groups of 4 and take 10 minutes to discuss your responses and come up with a consensual definition of social justice. Write your definition down on the paper provided and when done, tape it to the white board.
- How do our definitions compare and contrast? Can we come up with a definition with which we can all agree?
- Be sure to keep your "Do Now" method activity. It will go into your Portfolio.
Now, let's see what a research project conducted at a small, northeastern Jesuit university found when 61 of its students provided written responses to the same question. Keep in mind that one of the missions of this Jesuit university is to work for social justice. (Source: "Investigating Social Justice Understanding through Student Writing Samples: An Emergent Theme Analysis Approach" by Matthew McPherson, Patricia Terry, and Foster Walsch.)
- Students were considered able to define social justice if their responses included one or more of the following terms or concepts: justice, fair treatment, service, action/change/activism, advantages, equality, equal opportunity, or human rights
- About 25 percent (18 students) were not able to define social justice, gave definitions which indicated no grasp of the subject, or provided definitions which were incoherent.
- About 66 percent (43 students) were able to define social justice using at least one of the terms or concepts.
- About 9 percent (7 of the 43 students) were able to give more developed definitions which were not only based on at least one basic concept, but were also more precise.
- The first most common concept was equality, with over half of the respondents (33 out of 61) describing social justice in terms of equality, and this was expressed through phrases such as "equal opportunity," "equal rights," "same freedoms," and "equal treatment."
- The second most common concept was service, with almost one-third (21 out of 61) students describing social justice through participation in service activities - including ongoing voluntarism and community service.
- The third most common concept was change or action, with over one-third (23 out of 61) describing change or action: 11 students expressed a general sense that social justice requires action or change, while 12 of the students expressed concretely that social justice requires action.
Another discussion we should have with our students is the difference between being equal and being fair. As Rick Riordan has written in The Red Pyramid, "Fairness does not mean everyone gets the same. Fairness means everyone gets what they need." The above poster can help illustrate this.
So, what is the bottom line here? Most people do not understand what is meant by social justice. In coming up with our class definition, we have already addressed the first part of our first question for today's discussion - now, let's look at the next.
What is social injustice?
Methods Activity:I brought a special dessert for you to share today - an Earthday Cake. But I have decided that rather than dividing it equally among all you, we will instead divide the cake according to population allocation of the largest continent.
- About 60% (8 people) of you move to into this corner - you are Asian
- About 13% (1.5 people) of you move over here from - you are African
- Another 12% (1.5 people) of you move over here - you are European
- Another 9% (1 person) of you move over here - you are Latin American
- The final 5% (1 person or really 1/2 person) of you are here - you are North American.
You can see that you are now in groups roughly equal to your population distribution. Now, I could do one of the following:
- divide up the cake based upon your population, or
- divide up the cake based upon what people in each part of the world actually consumes in terms of resources.
In the latter, more realistic scenario, we will divide the cake as follows: the half person in North America will get 56% of the cake; the Europeans will get just over a quarter of the cake to share; the Latinos will get just under 10%; the Asians will get 5%; and and the Africans will get 2%.
Now, you have all experienced social injustice. How and why?
Obviously, the goal here is understand the idea of social justice by discussing the unequal distribution of resources and the resulting injustices. The "Earthday Cake" exercise is designed to get your students to think about the real world and real examples of how people try to "get more cake." As a follow up to the Earthday Cake activity, students might brainstorm about what they can do in their lives to address this injustice. This might provide a framework for a beginning discussion:
- What can you do to change the situation so that the cake is more evenly distributed? (take the cake from the North Americans, migrate to North America, selectively choose to share the cake, give the cake away to the most needy, etc. )
- And what would be the result of these actions? Discrimination, conflict, brain drain (only my friends can share the cake), more equality?
To help your students better understand how 19th Century imperialism and colonization of Africa redistributed the valuable resources of the continent and allocated the African resources to the more privileged, Western world, have them play the game "The Colonial Grab for Africa." (See Handout)
This should be a great introduction to justice and injustice. Now, let's begin a discussion about income inequality and how it contributes to social injustice.
What is the extent of income inequality in the United States?
Let's look at this map derived from CIA statistics that illustrates how U.S. American wealth distribution compares with other nations:
Blue countries are more equal than the U.S., red countries are less equal. The above map gives you a sense of just how severe economic inequality is in the United States; much higher than in any other developed country, and most developing countries as well. As the map indicates income inequality is more severe in the U.S. than it is in nearly all of West Africa, North Africa, Europe, and Asia. We're on par with some of the world's most troubled countries, and not far from the perpetual conflict zones of Latin American and Sub-Saharan Africa.
So, how do we learn more about income inequality. There are two excellent very recent resources that are quite useful - not only to inform ourselves, but to inform our students:
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The documentary
Inequality for All (copy in the HSU library - HC106.84 .I547 2013) which declares:
- In 2012, the U.S had the most unequal distribution of income of all "developed" nations - ranking 64th in the world on income inequality (i.e., 63 nations are more equal than the U.S.)
- The richest 400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined.
- The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer; in 1978, the typical male worker earned $48,302 and the top 1% earned an average of $393,682; in 2010, that worker earned $33,751 and the top 1% an average of $1,101,089.
- In the U.S., 42% of children who are born into poverty will not get out; in Denmark, the figure is 25% and in Great Britain it is 30%.
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The July 2013
PBS "On Point" broadcast of "Upward Mobility in America" which tells us that the United States is no longer the most upwardly mobile society in the world and upward mobility in the U.S. today can largely be determined by the region of the nation in which you live. Further, the
study upon which the podcast was based, found that
- Areas with greater mobility tend to have five characteristics: less segregation, less income inequality, better schools, greater social capital, and more stable families.
- Contrary to popular perception, economic mobility has not changed significantly over time; however, it is consistently lower in the U.S. than in most "developed" countries.
The following summarizes and provides excerpts from the findings of Sociologist Dr. William Dumhoff at UC Santa Cruz in his website Who Rules America at http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html:
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As this table indicates, in the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2010, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 35.4% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 53.5%
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In short, just 20% of the people owned a 89% of all privately owned wealth, leaving only 11% of the wealth for the bottom 80% of wage and salary workers.
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In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.1%.
According to Dr. Dumhoff, "In terms of types of financial wealth, the top one percent of households have 35% of all privately held stock, 64.4% of financial securities, and 62.4% of business equity. The top ten percent have 81% to 94% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and almost 80% of non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America."
Was this trend typical of most of the 20th Century?
- As can also be seen in the table, the wealth distribution was fairly stable over the course of the 20th century, although we see substantial gains for the top 1% in 1929 (right before the stockmarket crash) and a gradual increase in gains beginning in the 1980s under the Reagan Presidency. The only time we see gains for the bottom 99% were during the Great Depression, after World War II, and during the Nixon, Ford, and Carter Presidencies.
- By the late 1980s, wealth distribution was almost as concentrated as it had been in 1929, when the top 1% had 44.2% of all wealth.
- It has continued to edge up since that time, with a slight decline from 1998 to 2001, before the economy crashed in the late 2000s.
And who have been the wealthiest men in U.S. history? As the New York Times survey indicates, John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) - the wealthiest American to ever live - was an oil
tycoon worth $900 million when he died - a sum worth $192 billion in 2010.
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He is followed by Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) who was a shipping and railroads
tycoon worth $105 million when he died - a sum worth $143 billion in 2010;
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John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) who was a fur trade and real estate
tycoon worth $20 million when he died - a sum worth $116 billion in 2010.
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Stephen Girard (1750-1831) who was a shipping and banking entrepreneur when a died - a sum worth $83 billion in 2010.
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And "poor" old Bill Gates (1955-?) who is a computer software tycoon worth $61.7 billion in 1998 - a sum worth $82 billion in 2010 - comes in at 5th on the list.
Sources:
How do we educate our students about social injustice without having them lose hope?
We have already learned that when too many people compete for scarce resources, poverty results. Scarce resources, then, drives migration, conflict, and greater environmental destruction. And remember, a damaged environment can't produce as many resources.
So, perhaps it is best to begin by helping students understand their environmental footprint. While there are several ways to do this, here is a good beginning idea:
- Help students understand their footprint in regard to the all-time favorite North American meal - a hamburger, fries, and a coke. (See Handout).
- Have students discover their own environmental footprint - as well as how they can alter it.
- Have your students discover the extent of their water use at http://www.watercalculator.org/. Then discuss ways they can change it.
- Make sure students understand all their rights at school. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California has a great deal of information available on its website at https://www.aclunc.org/search?keys=student+rights
This information will give students a greater idea of the injustices in the world, but if we just teach students about injustices in the world we are doing them a disservice by failing to ask them what would comprise a just society - and what their role should be in helping to create such a society.
One of the ways you can encourage this is to create a model for a just society in your own classroom. And you can begin this process during the first week of school with four simple steps.
- Have each student introduce themselves, carefully pronounce their own name, and provide a bit of information about the history of their name.
- Help everyone in the class learn each others name and how to pronounce all their classmates names correctly within the first week of class.
- Ask each student who fluent in another language to teach everyone in the class five words in their language that they feel are important. Write each word down on a card with definitions and post these in your classroom. Refer to them regularly. Encourage students to use them in and outside your classroom. Encourage students to add new words to the board where they are posted and encourage students who are English-only speakers to ask their bi-lingual colleagues to add words they would like to see posted.
- Ask students to find out a bit about their history - especially where their family originated either within or outside the U.S. Have them come to class and locate their places of origin on a map of the world. Place a colored marker on the map for every student in your class. Keep the map posted all year and refer to it whenever possible.
You can also use the great online resources at the following sites:
How can we teach for social justice?
Teaching for social justice can be both complex and controversial. Some teachers have asked, how can we teach ocial justice related topics without the fear of getting fired. Here are two important points to consider:
- You are the person who ultimately has control over your classroom; you don’t need to ask permission to teach the way you want.
- You do, however, need to be prepared to respond to questions and/or criticism from fellow teachers, administrators and parents who may not want us to teach for social justice.
How then, do we prepare for such possible criticism?
- Carefully prepare your entire syllabus with all units you plan to study and distribute it to students and parents at the beginning of the year.
- Either tie each of your units to a standard, or be certain that as you teach each unit, you have identified and can justify how and why it fits the required standard.
- Give a copy of your syllabus to the principal and ask that it be placed in your file.
- Think about a social justice type theme for the entire class so that you can include social justice lessons and activities in most of your units.
- Try to avoid using the term "social justice" in writing as it has become a "dirty" word in some political and educational circles. Instead, after defining it with your students, describe it in other terms - equality, egalitarian, freedom, etc.
