Day of Social Justice

Description

Day of Social Justice Students are invited to complete a participant-observation assignment on the psychology of social justice. The purpose of this assignment is to put the course material into action in daily contexts, applying social psychology research findings on bias, prejudice, and stereotyping. Step I: Participate in the Day of Social Justice To participate in this event, your challenge will be to identify someone different than you and set up a face-to-face interview. Interview the person about what social justice means to them, and their experiences with social justice. When carrying out this assignment, consider institutional as well as personal forms of injustice or privilege. That is, don’t just ask about obvious acts of bias, segregation, and exclusion; think deeply about the injustices that various groups face on campus, in the local community, and in the world more generally, and try to explore these injustices. It is up to you to define what social justice is and the questions you will need to explore it with your interviewee. Step II: Document Your Experience Turn in a social psychological analysis of what the day was like (limited to one double-spaced page using 1″ margins and 12-point font). Here are some sample questions you might address:
• List 5 ways that this person is different from you? Which one of these is the reason why you asked for the interview in the first place?
• Did you and this person have things in common that you did not know about before this interview?
• If you had to group the majority of the differences into a category which category would you choose (physical, character, personality, interests/hobbies, etc.)? What about the similarities? • How did you define social justice, and what did you focus your efforts on? What were your questions?
• If you were to predict your behavior one month from now, do you think it will be changed in any way as a result of this interview? If so, how? If not, why not?