A social worker's reflections on power, privilege, and oppression.

Star power: an experiential learning exercise to foster ecological perspectives on power, privilege, and oppression.

The purpose of this article is to describe the utility of Star Power as an experiential learning exercise applied in a community psychology undergraduate course. This exercise simulates systems of power, privilege, and oppression while fostering an ecological perspective that raises students' awareness and knowledge about power differentials within society. The simulation of trading and lawmaki...

Identity and oppression: differential responses to an in-between status.

Oppression operates at various levels, with varying degrees of negativity, and groups respond in markedly different ways. In this paper, the in-between status of the colored South African group is used to illustrate issues of identity and oppression under the Apartheid system-and differing ways in which oppression was experienced and used. The colored group had many social advantages over Black...

Domination, Subordination and the Dialogical Self: Identity Development and the Politics of ‘Ideological Becoming’

In this paper I present an approach to understanding the dialogical self that considers the role that social, cultural and institutional dynamics of domination and subordination, and structures of power of privilege, play in the development of identity. To accomplish this I expand Penuel and Wertsch’s (1995) ‘mediated action’ approach to identity development to include a dialogical process of w...

Encouraging critical reflections on privilege in Social Work and the Human Services

Men, Feminism, and Men’s Contradictory Experiences of Power

In a world dominated by men, the world of men is, by definition, a world of power. That power is a structured part of our economies and systems of political and social organization; it forms part of the core of religion, family, forms of play, and intellectual life. On an individual level, much of what we associate with masculinity hinges on a man’s capacity to exercise power and control.0 But ...