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Great Khan academy video that explains the concept of self and social identity through a psychology perspective. This video is a good stepping stone for educators to learn more.

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Self concept, self identity, and social identity | Individuals and Society | MCAT | Khan Academy

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What are the factors that make up our cultural identity? Provides a nice visual to understand the working parts.

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Why it is important to talk about and acknowledge cultural identity in the classroom- a good background read for PHE teachers to read before teaching.

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This video describes the experience of Indigenous students in the classroom and how their identity was misrepresented and not acknowledged.

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The video for What I Learned in Class Today: Aboriginal Issues in the Classroom is available here for you to view any time. The version that you can access here is presented in a format best suited for online viewing. Note that on many computers, you may be able to watch this video full-screen (check to see if you see the two-arrow symbol in the lower right-hand corner of the player).

If you would like a higher quality video to watch at home, in your organization, office, or educational institution, a copy of the video and a disc-based version of the IVT (requires a DVD drive on your computer) with the accompanying Users Guide is available for purchase. Please contact us for more information about ordering a copy.

The edited video is based on the full interview records, accessible on this site through the Interactive Video/Transcript Viewer, the IVT. We encourage you to use the IVT, which sychronizes individual interviews with their transcripts, so as the video plays, the transcript updates automatically. The IVT also allows you to search transcripts for key words or phrases, and play the interview from that point. The IVT allows you to explore interview participants' comments from the edited video in greater depth as well as watching the full interviews, if you wish. The IVT also includes a feature that allows you to create a playlist of clips from interviews for use in workshops, classes, and meetings. For more information, and for instructions on using the IVT, please visit the interviews with students, which are available in their full-length using the Archive pages.

Discussion topics based on situations and issues identified by interview participants have been created to accompany the edited video and IVT. These modules were created as a result of feedback from audiences who wanted to use the video with the sensitivity required of the subject matter. The discussion topics provide some discussion and analysis of these situations and issues, as well as materials intended for use in workshops and meetings for instructor training purposes.

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The video for What I Learned in Class Today: Aboriginal Issues in the Classroom is available here for you to view any time. The version that you can access here is presented in a format best suited for online viewing. Note that on many computers, you may be able to watch this video full-screen (check to see [...]

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Building relationships with students starts by knowing/pronouncing their names correctly and how it is important to their identity.

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Pronouncing Students’ Names Correctly Should Be a Big Deal (Opinion)

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As a South Asian American student, Punita Chhabra Rice spent over a decade mispronouncing her own name to make it easier for teachers to say. Now that she’s an educator, Rice shares eight pronunciation tips for teachers of students from diverse backgrounds on how to get names right the first time.

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Lesson plan that explains the process of creating a word cloud online that include elements of a student's identity.

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Students use activities such as Guess Who to explore the different sides to identity. They learn that identities are complex and develop over time features examples and lesson plans

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A short video to understand elements of privilege and how it your identity is intersectional. This exercise could be done in class but trust and relationship needs to be built before.

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Activity that allows students to brainstorm parts of their identity but also reflect on what identities they think is the most important in shaping themselves. This includes extension activities and discussion topics.

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Overview

The Social Identity Wheel worksheet is an activity that encourages students to identify social identities and reflect on the various ways those identities become visible or more keenly felt at different times, and how those identities impact the ways others perceive or treat them. The worksheet prompts students to fill in various social identities (such as race, gender, sex, ability disability, sexual orientation, etc.) and further categorize those identities based on which matter most in their self-perception and which matter most in others' perception of them. The Social Identity Wheel can be used in conjunction with the Personal Identity Wheel to encourage students to reflect on the relationships and dissonances between their personal and social identities. The wheels can be used as a prompt for small or large group discussion or reflective writing on identity by using the Spectrum Activity, Questions of Identity.

Please leave a comment at the bottom of the page with your thoughts or experience with this activity and be sure to check out our other resource guides and activity guides to further your knowledge and practice on inclusive teaching!

Activity Goals:

To encourage students to consider their identities critically and how identities are more or less keenly felt in different social contexts. The classroom and the university can be highlighted as a context as a way to approach questions on barriers to inclusion.

To illuminate how privilege operates to normalize some identities over others. For example, a student who speaks English as their first language can reflect on why they rarely need to think about their language as an aspect of their identity while some of their peers may identity language as the aspect of their identity they feel most keenly in the classroom.

To sensitize students to their shared identities with their classmates as well as the diversity of identities in the classroom, building community and encouraging empathy.

Application in a STEM Course:

Fostering a sense of community in your classroom can create a sense of belonging. According to a CRLT study on retention in STEM courses, "students reported that classroom climate (including their anxiety levels, how welcome they felt in class...and instructor rapport with students) significantly influenced their decisions to stay in or leave STEM disciplines." If students feel that they are part of a community, they will feel more comfortable engaging and participating in the classroom. In another study, peer interactions and support in STEM courses led to gains both academically and socially. The Social Identity Wheel is a great way for students to engage with each other on a personal level, creating connections that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. Taking the time to complete this activity at the start of the semester will help students form meaningful bonds, allowing them to better collaborate and support each other throughout the semester.

Application in a Large Course:

Cooperative learning and small group approaches in a large course can greatly benefit student learning, engagement, and overall sense of community. Research has shown that leveraging such approaches can lead to the development of key skills such as active listening, empathy, consensus building, leadership, constructive conflict management and resolution as well as decreasing racial prejudice while increasing interracial tolerance. This activity allows students in your large course to learn from and about each other and to reduce the feeling of anonymity that can be pervasive in a large course setting. By making your large course feel smaller through this activity, you are actively working toward making a more inclusive space for all students.

Citation: Cooper, J.L. and Robinson, P. (2000), The Argument for Making Large Classes Seem Small. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2000: 5-16. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/10.1002/tl.8101

Application in an Online Course:

Online learning can feel impersonal and disconnected, but there are inclusive teaching practices you can leverage to build community and connection in your online course. Taking the time to get to know each other's identities through this activity can help build trust between students, which is a key indicator of whether or not students feel comfortable participating. In one study, researchers asked the question, "what did graduate students who were enrolled in an online course about teaching online find most valuable about online moderation and community building?" From the study, students stated that Student Needs and Community Building were essential components to online learning. Regarding Student Needs, one student stated, "It is necessary that everyone feels safe, comfortable, and welcomed before they will fully engage, enabling them to make personal connections and grow from each other." Regarding Community Building, another student stated, "Learning communities often develop naturally in a traditional classroom environment, but in an online course, the instructor must make that happen."

Social Identity Wheel Activity Guide:

Related Posts:

Facilitating the Social Identity Wheel in Your Classroom:

Social Identity Wheel starts at the 6:46 mark

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In this activity, students will identity social identities (race, gender, sex, socio-economic status, etc.) and reflect on the various ways those identities impact their lives and perceptions.

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This exercise looks at markers of your identity such as sex, race, age etc... In filling out the flower, you gain an understanding of areas of your identity that hold privilege and systems of oppression.

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Learning Objectives- At the end of this module, you will be able to:

1. Visualise how your identity lines up dominant groups

2. See which identities give you unearned privilege and which identities do not

3. Understand the assumed norm (aka dominant identity) in the various systems of oppression

You may already be familiar with the "Power Flower". It is used in many anti-oppression trainings. The goal is to determine the identities that have privilege in our Canadian society and where we as individuals fit. This version of the exercise is adapted from: Wenh-In Ng's A Tool for Everyone: Revelations from the "Power Flower.

Process

Download and print the "Power Flower" image (or if you are creative you can draw your own Power Flower on a piece of paper). In the innermost petal/section list the identity categories (e.g. race, gender, sexuality etc). On the middle petal write your personal identity (e.g. white, cisgender male, gay etc). Finally on the outer most petal write the social identities that experience privilege in society.

Download a Power Flower here.

Here is a sample of what a completed Power Flower looks like.

Download the flower power exercise

This exercise tries to demonstrate, visually, how does your personal identities compare with societal power structures and identities.

This exercise illustrates how and where your personal identity connects to the dominant group in each identity. Here are some questions to reflect on as you review your completed flower:

1. How do your social identities relate to those who have societal power?

2. Do you share certain identities?

3. What does this exercise illustrate about oppression and power structures?

4. Who holds power and who does not?

Systems of Oppression

Here is a chart that walks us through the systems of oppression. It has been adapted from

Youth Environmental Network's Green Justice Guide.

Missing from this chart is religious oppression. Please take a few moments and answer the following questions:

1. What is the assumed norm?

2. What is considered to be marginal or not in the norm?

The Power Flower exercise is also a good way to help us visualise systems of oppression. There are many forms of oppression: race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, age etc. Oppressions have a long history and a part of our society in every context-political, economical and social. What we consider the norm and what we think of as the "other" is based in oppression. Something as trivial seeming like hair and what we value as a society is deeply rooted in historical oppressions. For example, there have been several media reports of school children being sent home or suspended because their hair was not deemed suitable for school. Florida School Forces Black Student to Cut Hair or Face Expulsion

Please check each oppression that the youth we work with may experience:

Oppressions are like jigsaw puzzles or lego pieces where the different forms connect together and support each other and they do not occur in isolation. For example a gay man of colour faces homophobia and racism, just as an older trans woman endures ageism and transphobia.

It is important not to rank or rate oppressions. All forms of oppression require resistance from and work to end. Focusing solely on one inequality does not address the root causes. Here are some other reasons we must not rank oppressions from the Youth Environmental Network

"The practice of ranking oppressions, then:

Leads to disputes over which forms of oppression are the worst and least severe;

Fails to recognize how different forms of oppression intersect or work together to oppress people;

Avoids looking at structures of power and privilege because people end up spending time arguing over which forms of oppression are the worst instead of focusing on how power structures divide struggles against racism from struggles against sexism (e.g. 'divide and rule' strategies);

Overlooks the fact that all forms of oppression are harmful and unjust, and it fails to recognize that the best strategy to end oppression involves tackling all forms of oppression at once."

Sources:
Aran, I. (2013, November 26). Florida School Forces Black Student to Cut Hair or Face Expulsion. Retrieved February 8, 2015, from http://jezebel.com/florida-school-forces-black-student-to-cut-hair-or-face-1472062679

Canadian Race Relations Foundation. (n.d.). CRRF Glossary of Terms. Retrieved February 9, 2015, from http://www.crr.ca/en/library-a-clearinghouse/glossary-a-terms-en-gb-1

Ng, W. (n.d.). A Tool for Everyone: Revelations from the "Power Flower". Retrieved February 8, 2015, from http://lgbtq2stoolkit.learningcommunity.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/flower-power-exercise.pdf

Youth Environmental Network. (n.d.). Green Justice Guide. Retrieved February 8, 2015, from http://antiracist-toolkit.users.ecobytes.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Green-Justice-Guide-Part-1.pdf

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Learning Objectives- At the end of this module, you will be able to: Visualise how your identity lines up dominant groups See which identities give you unearned privilege and which identities do not Understand the assumed norm (aka dominant identity) in the various systems of oppression You may already be familiar with the "Power Flower".

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Students can create a timeline of their life, making special note of times where they learned about an aspect of their cultural identity.

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The iceberg activity allows students to look at their personal identity and categorize which ones are more visible and invisible to others.