1. Topic: Discrimination

Title: Discrimination: Its Meanings and Its Implications

(Adapted from Teaching Human Rights in Ontario, Ontario Human Rights Commission)

Level: Intermediate

Outcomes:

1. To explore the meaning of discrimination.

2. To identify a range of ways in which people are discriminated against.

3. To discuss the effects of discrimination.

4. To generate ideas and approaches to counteract or lessen acts of discrimination.

Curriculum Connections:

To demonstrate skills and behaviours which contribute to physical, emotional, and social growth and development. (Health)

To demonstrate an understanding that effective citizenship requires a sense of personal commitment, a willingness to act and a concern for the future. (Social Studies)

To demonstrate awareness of the power of spoken language to influence and manipulate, and reveal ideas, values, and attitudes. (Language Arts)

Resources: Glossary of Terms. (attached).

Strategies and Activities:

1. Students, working in small groups, are asked to explore the concept of discrimination. They are to formulate a definition for discrimination. In their discussion, they might want to answer the following questions:

a. What are stereotyping and prejudice and what are the differences between the two?

b. How are stereotyping and prejudice different from discrimination?

c. What does fairness mean?

d. What is the effect of discrimination on a person?

2. Using the student generated list of examples of discrimination in activity 1, ask students to work in pairs to write brief case study scenarios which depict a type of discrimination.

3. Ask pairs to exchange scenarios and to generate a list of words to describe the feelings of the person(s) discriminated against in the scenario received.

4. Ask pairs to form a group of four to share their list of descriptors with each other and to add to the lists if they can.

Next have the group of four generate ideas or approaches to counteract the type of discrimination exemplified in the scenarios they created.

Implications for Teaching/Learning:

Students may consider how it feels to be in a situation where they are discriminated against. They may also extend the discussions in this class to other subject areas such as art or music in creating pieces which reflect these feelings.

Reflect on how the ideas or approaches generated in this activity can be put into practice in the class, in the school, in the community.

Student evaluation could be linked to:

the creations produced in art or music classes,

plans generated to address the issue at the class, school, or community level.

Glossary of Terms

Discrimination: an act of differential treatment toward a group or an individual as a member of a group, which usually creates a disadvantage for that individual.

Prejudice: A mental state or attitude of prejudging (generally unfavorably) and attributing to a person characteristics which are attributed to a group of which the person is a member.

Stereotype: beliefs held by individuals about the presumed physical and psychological characteristics of members of a social category. These beliefs can be either positive or negative. When applied so generally that individuals are not recognized, or even defined, they are considered impediments to quality human relations.

Fairness: equitable treatment to promote respect for individuals and their human rights.

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