This set of activities was designed to enhance student knowledge of and engagement with the topic of stereotypes, prejudices, and gender roles and develop student empathy as part of a high school freshman Global Studies course.
Through a series of role plays and concrete case studies, students learn essential content information about what stereotypes and prejudices are, where they come from, how they work, why they matter, and how to overcome them. Students engage with their own role in imposing stereotypes on other groups of people and/or situations when others impose stereotypes on them. They also become part of the process of re-writing single stories in their own community. Students further attain an understanding of gender roles and how they can be harmful to people and society. Table of Contents Albatross Culture Activity - Where do our stories of other people come from? Stereotypes and Prejudices - free-writing on definitions and examples The Danger of a Single Story - their sources, power, and consequences Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - Role play on racial prejudice with reflection Storytelling and Image Branding - rewriting the narrative of a community Turkification and the "Immigrant" Experience - Stereotypes and consequences in practice
The Coronavirus and Racism - Prejudice in the news
Billy Elliot - Gender stereotypes and roles
Gender Roles and Toys
Gender Fishbowl - Role play scenarios and reflection
These activities can be adapted depending on the teaching environment. Where I teach in Slovakia, for example, students tend to emphasize "backwardness" and "poverty" as single stories that are imposed on the country. In this context, for the image branding/storytelling assignments, students all research innovative Slovak companies, ideas, and events in, for example, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) areas. They then write a magazine article about one of these innovations to balance the single stories told about the country.
The Guess Who's Coming to Dinner activity can also be adjusted throughout the world to encompass any marginalized group of people in a particular community.
Please view the lesson set here. A previous section of the course on environmental issues and climate change was shared here. More sections (e.g. globalization, poverty and development, global health, and migration and refugees) will be disseminated in future posts.