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

Activity two
Who is most likely to suffer
from Discrimination?
Divide the students into pairs. Give each
pair a name card and ask them to think
back to the last two classes and use what
they learned there and from the handout on
Discrimination and Harassment to decide
how likely the person on their card is to
suffer discrimination in today’s society.
give them an opportunity to question this.
Then ask all the students standing in each space
to compare their reasons for assuming levels of
discrimination and to identify two key reasons
that they agree on.
Record the groups which the students have
placed at each level, and their key reasons on
the board and ask the students to copy these
into their folders.
There are 4 levels of likelihood of people being
discriminated against. They are:
Extremely likely
Fairly likely
Fairly unlikely
Extremely unlikely
Give the students about five minutes to make
a decision and to come up with at least two
reasons for their decision. They should record
the reasons in their folders.
Finish with a short class discussion on
the fact that they made their decisions
on the basis of just one aspect of each
person’s identity. Everyone has many
aspects to their identity and people can be
discriminated against on several grounds
at the one time – for example, a woman
with a disability could be discriminated
against on grounds of gender and
disability, or a Turkish Muslim on grounds
of ethnicity and religion. Encourage them
to draw out the significance of multiple
grounds for discrimination and the level of
inequality that can result.
The next step is to visually show the class
the groups which fall into each category,
through asking the students to stand in a space
representing the level of discrimination they
envisage. This can be done by naming each
corner of the classroom as one of the four levels
and placing one of the large signs on the wall,
or, if you have space, creating a spectrum across
the front of the classroom. Ask each pair, in
turn, to hold their card up so that it can be read
by the others and to stand in the appropriate
space. Randomly ask a number of the pairs to
explain why they choose that level of likelihood.
If anyone challenges where others are standing,
"Everyone has
many aspects to
their identity
and people can
be discriminated
against on
several grounds
at the one time"
82 SECTION 4 EQUALITY AND THE LAW