Youth Ideas & Questions

Workshops on Social Justice

Question

I'm a member of a student organization that is helping to plan a regional gathering for organizations like ours in other schools. I'd like to include some workshops on social justice. Do you have any suggestions for us?

Response

First of all, the more passionate the students are about the specific issues, the better. (It works so much better if they are genuinely concerned about an issue, instead of you trying to get them concerned about an issue that matters to you.)

In my experience, the following issues tend to evoke strong responses from students (in a positive sense).

  • issues of relationship violence (e.g. domestic violence, sexual assault, date rape)
  • issues of economic justice (particularly homelessness and child labor)
  • issues of discrimination (particularly in terms of race and sexual orientation)
  • issues of environmental justice (e.g. animal rights; global warming)

If there's a way of polling student attendees before making a final decision about topics, that'd be ideal.

Secondly, the more that students can be guided in developing a conceptual framework that enables them to accurately and compassionately understand an issue (and the people directly affected by it), and effectively respond to it, the better.

What I mean is that I believe it's important to impact students' way of seeing the world and their role in it, and not just give them good data/information about issues. Example: In an effort to counter students' tendencies to blame people in poverty for their situation, I often share the data about the significant portion of children and youth living in poverty in the US -- because I believe it should be obvious that children and youth aren't responsible for their poverty. However, there are students (and adults) who take that data and decide that it is evidence that adults living in poverty ought to be discouraged from having children. So I've learned that, before providing them with data/information/stories, I need to first impact the way they process such data/information/stories.

One way of impacting students' "conceptual framework" is to ask those who lead the issue-sessions (e.g. on homelessness, child labor, etc) to arrange the content of their session around key concepts. (I can send you the guidelines we offer to workshop facilitators for our conferences, if that would be helpful.)

Another way of impacting students' "conceptual framework" is to do something in one (or more) large-group sessions. (I have a list of key concepts, and descriptions of creative/interactive activities for each of them that can be used in large-group settings. Please let me know if you'd like me to send along any of this information.)

One additional suggestion: I believe it's important to devote at least as much time and energy to helping participants recognize their capacity to contribute to the "solutions" as it will to helping them understand the reality and causes of the "problems". It's important that there be action/response-ideas, and that students hear stories of other youth who have been involved in actions that make a difference.