Equality and Diversity - Building a Culture of ... - Equality Authority

Lesson 8
Stereotypes and
Perceptions of Young People
Learning Intention
Students will explore the
emotional impact of negative
stereotyping by considering
their feelings about stereotypes
of young people.
Resources
Copies of the worksheet on
pages 37 and 38 – one for
each student
Activity one
‘Class Fortunes’ Game
This is a version of the popular TV show ‘Family Fortunes’. In
this game show, two family teams, each with five members,
are asked to guess the results of surveys, in which 100 people
are asked open ended questions, for example, ‘We asked
100 people to name something associated with the country
France’ or ‘We asked 100 people to name a breed of dog’.
In this version, the students will be asked to guess the most
common answers given to a survey on 'Images of Young People’.
Divide the class into teams of four and explain the rules of the
game. They have 3 minutes to list as many images as possible.
At the end of that time, they must leave down their pens. Ask a
reporter for each group to call out their suggestions and have two
students record the answers on the board, putting a tick beside
each idea which is repeated. When they have finished, the class
can clearly see which suggestions were the most common.
Ask for immediate reactions to the results. Did any group
come up with very unusual suggestions or were the
suggestions from each group relatively the same?
Ask them which of the answers they identify with most, and
circle these. Then look at the remaining answers and ask
them to consider whether they were based on reality or on
stereotypes of young people.
Activity two
What Did other Young People Think?
Hand out copies to each group of the findings from an actual
survey of young people and how they thought they were viewed.
The survey, Inequality and the Stereotyping of Young People 1 , was
carried out by in 2006 by Dr. Maurice Devlin from NUI Maynooth.
Ask the students to read through the findings and give them
10 minutes to discuss the questions. Finally, ask each group to
feedback on key points arising from their discussion, paying
attention, in particular to the ideas the students have on how
the stereotypes could be challenged. Ask them to keep their
worksheets in their folders for future use.
1
Devlin, Maurice (2006) Inequality and Stereotyping of Young People Dublin: Equality Authority. www.equality.ie/publications
36 sECTION 12 EXPLORING Exploring DIVERSITY
Perceptions & Stereotyping