Adds up: how oppression accumulates over generations

This lesson plan is focused on the kinds of identities that are passed down through generations (see Irving Goffman's Tribal Stigma). Thinking about how privilege and oppression accumulate and compound over generations, exploring the way your family's history still marks your experiences today. Some examples of these oppressions are Classism, Racism, religious discrimination, and immigration issues.

These are the preparation materials, which would traditionally be the more passive, lecture component of the class. These are the materials that my students work with before we get together in class.

Prep materials.docx

This worksheet is what we would be doing in a 2-hour class period, where we have a chance to work together. This time is especially valuable because you can really apply the concepts you learned, while getting perspective and support from other folks. . The worksheet represents 2 hours of work in groups of 3.

This link will take you to a .doc file, for easier editing

adds up inheritability.pdf

This is a summary video I made for my online students. It might give you a sense of some of the ideas from the worksheet and an overall view of the ideas from that lesson.

Here are some great things that I couldn't include in the lesson, if you're interested, keep looking!

Extra materials.docx

Connecting to a previous lesson


This lesson is connected to the lesson on social identities, and the symbols on the social location map. I roughly categorized some of the dynamics around visibility and family patterns as a thinking exercise. None of the categories are perfect, or complete, but thinking about similarities might help us develop empathy.


social location map.pdf