Chapter 8: Religious Oppression
Maurianne Adams, Marcella Runnell Hall, Abed Jaradat, Hind Mari


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A. Quadrant Grid

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Quadrant 1

Welcome and Overview

Name of Activity: Religious Oppression - Welcome and Overview (INT)

Instructional Purpose Category: Tone setting / developing group guidelines

Instructional Purpose: The purpose of this activity is to go over the conceptual frameworks used to discuss and learn about religious oppression and Christian advantage in the U.S.

Learning Outcomes: To provide a framework for the participants so they understand the approach in the course or workshop

Time Needed: 20 minutes

Materials Needed: Information below as slides or on poster paper

Degree of Risk: Low

Procedure:

  1. Present the Overall Goals of the Workshop:
    • Understand religious oppression in U.S. history and contemporary life
    • Understand the historical background for U.S. Christian hegemony, the advantages for Christians and disadvantages for subordinate religious groups such as Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Native American Indian religions, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Wiccans, and Atheists
    • Understand at least two specific histories of religious oppression: Antisemitism globally, and Native American peoples within the U.S.
    • Understand the roles and functions of religion in relationship to social institutions, political/national identity (the state), political nationalism, culture, current politics, and patriotism
    • Understand stereotypes and experiences of subordinate religious communities in U.S. history and contemporary life
    • Use theories and models of social oppression to analyze historical and contemporary examples of religious oppression
    • Understand interconnections and interactions between religious oppression and other forms of social oppression, such as classism; sexism, heterosexism, and transgender oppression; ableism; ethnocentrism and racism; and nationalism
    • Recognize examples of religious oppression in everyday interpersonal interactions and institutional, social, and cultural life; examples globally
    • Explore personal implications of your own religious/non-religious journey in relation to your extended family and cultural context
    • Plan ways of taking action against different types of religious oppression
    • Understand the role and limitations of Constitutional protections of religious freedom–the 1st Amendment and related Supreme Court decisions
  2. Explain the Facilitators’ Assumptions:
    • Because this is a complex and difficult topic, we will explore, but not resolve, this issue
    • Our role is to provide information, help to clarify assumptions, and facilitate conversations
    • We need to listen actively, engage with each other’s world views, and hold each other with compassion, assuming that we are all here to learn
    • Our focus is on the social role of religion, and not on individual or personal religious beliefs
    • We’ll explore (but not resolve) current manifestations of religion in recent U.S. politics
  3. Take Questions (and in most cases, put them in the parking lot)

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: None

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Instructor Facilitator: None
Name(s) to credit for this activity: None

Community Building

Name of Activity: Religious Oppression – Community Building, Option A: Introductions (INT, ELS & ID)

Instructional Purpose Category: Icebreakers; Early learning / socializations

Instructional Purpose of this Activity: The effectiveness of social justice education (SJE) depends to a large extent on the quality of the learning community within which participants will take risks, expose themselves to new learning, share information about them- selves with their peers, and respect and value the experiences their peers share with them. They will make mistakes and rebound from their mistakes. This activity enables participants to know about each other at a meaningful level, and prepares for the next phase.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Understand that the ingredients needed for an SJE learning community start with participants knowing each other in the context of the topic
  • Prepare to build such a community

Time Needed: 30 minutes; depending on the size of the group, and the degree of detail modeled or asked for by the facilitator, more time is often needed

.

Materials Needed: Instructors and facilitators should review the section in Chapter 2 where they will find a detailed segment on establishing a learning community.

Degree of Risk: Low to moderate

Procedure:

  1. Introduce yourselves to the class by explaining what brought you to your interest and about this issue and how that intersects with your own religious identity. Offer your perspective on why it is important to discuss and understand the history and manifestations of religious oppression in the U.S., and place our own religious heritages in that context. Say something about your extended family’s religious history, and note how your other social identities (race and ethnicity, class, gender) affect your experience of religious identity. It is valuable to link the religious group memberships of one’s extended family with their “entry point” into the U.S., since the relationship between religion and immigration will be an important discussion later. Explain that while in some classes or workshops the initial introductions are often superficial, this learning community asks participants to “position” themselves, to the extent they feel comfortable doing so, in relation to this topic.
  2. Then, ask participants to give their names, and say something briefly about their religious identity and that of their extended family. If they know something of their family’s “entry” to the U.S., they can say something about it. If participants do not have this information, they can “pass” on it and perhaps they will inquire of their families at a later time.

The purpose of this activity is to build a learning community by enabling participants to see themselves and each other in a shared historical context, based on what they know or can guess about their family religious and ethnic legacy.

If time and readiness permit, there are ways to go more deeply and devote more time to this community-building activity:

  1. You have already modeled this group-building activity by talking about your own family’s religious and ethnic backgrounds. Now ask participants to discuss their family’s religious heritage, their family’s ethnic or national heritage, whether their names reflect religious traditions, whether their family surnames changed during immigration or reflect slavery or colonization, or whether their families had multiple-religion backgrounds or sectarian backgrounds (Christian and Jewish, Methodist and Baptist, Protestant and Catholic). Participants might want to talk about religious rituals or traditions in their families, or their experience of sameness or difference in their home neighborhoods. Some participants may not have thought about the historical, ethnic, or religious significance of their names before. If they find difficulty in giving the back- ground of their names, facilitators might ask if they have any guesses about whom they were named for or what their names might mean within their family traditions. No one’s name is unimportant. Participants can be encouraged to ask their families about the legacy in their names as personal follow-up to this class.
  2. It is important for facilitators to model this deeper sharing. For example, one of the co-authors uses the following: “I am named after my maternal German great-grand- mother whose name was Marianna, after the Christian name (“Mary”), which suggests that her Jewish-German family was fairly assimilated. I am also named after my paternal grandmother Miriam (she was an orthodox and observant Russian-born Jew), but since she was still living when I was born (and my maternal great-grandmother was deceased), I was named Maurianne instead of Miriam. Miriam is a more recognizably “Jewish” name. I find it interesting to notice that my first name reflects a degree of assimilation as well as religious identifiability.” [The co-author usually stops at this point. If the group is one that can dig more deeply into roots, the co-author then continues: “However, part of the special legacy of my name “Maurianne” is that it is shared with a cousin, approximately my age, who died in the Holocaust. Since I was only eight years old when I learned of her death, this connection was deeply meaningful to me while I was still a young child, and I often thought while I was young about this special legacy in my name, and whether it “meant” anything. I think this personal meaning to my name is an early root for my commitment to do social justice and religious anti-oppression and SJE work.”

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: This activity enables participants to share their own religious background information with each other. It is important to model the tone and content you want to elicit from participants and, as noted above, to be clear in advance the level of depth and risk you feel comfortable modeling and that you think is appropriate for the group (their familiarity with each other, with the topic, their general maturity and level of experience).
It may also prove challenging to strike a balance between getting enough information from the participants and having an activity that takes too long. Decide whether to do this as a whole-group or small-group activity, and estimate how long each participant can take for the introduction, depending on the number of participants in the class.

Recommended Readings/Materials for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Instructor or Facilitator: None

Name(s) to credit for this activity: None

Group Norms and Guidelines

Name of Activity: Religious Oppression Group Norms and Guidelines, Option A: Creation of Group Norms and Guidelines (INT)

Instructional Purpose Category: Tone setting/developing group guidelines

Instructional Purpose: In teaching about religious oppression, it is important to create a learning community among the participants and the instructor. This learning community should be a challenging, yet safe-enough space for participants to actively engage in learning about religious oppression. Creating a space for introductions helps set the tone that everyone in the group matters, and begins to build a cohesive learning community. This activity creates space for the development of community agreements about learning together about religious oppression that can ensure a productive learning space for participants.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Develop community agreements and shared norms
  • Help participants get to know each other and begin creating community
  • Review key concepts

Time Needed: 10 minutes


Materials Needed: Newsprint paper, markers, index cards

Degree of Risk: Low


Procedure:

Community Agreements—Guidelines

  1. Explain to participants that the purpose of this activity is to collectively develop a set of agreements/guidelines for a positive and effective learning experience that can encourage everyone to take risks and step out of their comfort zone in order to learn.
  2. Distribute index cards to participants, and ask them to write down two guidelines that they find important and necessary for the learning community in order for them to actively engage in learning about religious oppression. Let them know this can include ways we engage with each other, as well as access needs (e.g. processing time, captions for videos, frequent movement breaks, etc.). Ask them to also come up with examples to explain their guidelines, which they will be sharing later in the larger group. Give students three to five minutes to write down their guidelines. After students have written down their guidelines on their index card, ask students to pair up with their neighbor to share their guidelines with one another using the following prompts:
    • Why is this guideline important to you?
    • What would you recommend to do when this guideline is not being followed?
  3. Ask the pair, based on their conversation, to decide which two of the four guidelines they would like to put on the group’s final list.
  4. Do a go-around, and have each pair share their guidelines as you write them on news- print. As you write these down, make sure to ask participants to provide you with examples of their guidelines, and inquire about how the group will manage when guidelines are not being followed.

Facilitation Note & Considerations: Acknowledge to participants that everyone in the group is entering from different social locations, different experiences, and different levels of knowledge. This is also a good time to share that we all have access needs (e.g. captions on for videos, frequent movement breaks, etc.), which can and should be incorporated into the community agreements.
Sample Group Norms and Guidelines:

  • We’ll speak from our own experience and not for others using “I” statements (as in “I think that” rather than “They . . . ”)
  • We’ll be respectful of different perspectives, and try to maintain an open mind and to disagree
  • We’ll actively listen to each other and try not to interrupt:
  • We’ll identify and explain our responses to “trigger words”
  • We’ll use feedback (as in “When you said . . . I felt . . . ”)
  • We’ll agree to maintain confidentiality for what is said here
  • We’ll agree to listen to each other with open hearts and minds
  • We’ll agree that we can make mistakes and that we are all here to learn
  • We’ll agree to assume the goodwill and desire to learn of all participants
  • We acknowledge and value the fact that we each bring different experience, aware- ness, and knowledge to this topic

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: None
Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Instructor Facilitator:

Bell, L. A. (2010). Cultivating a counter-storytelling community. In Storytelling for social justice. New York: Routledge.

Bell, L. A., Goodman, D., & Oulette, M. Design and facilitation. In Teaching for diversity and social justice, 3rd edition.

Sensoy, O., & DiAngelo, R. (2014). Respect differences? Challenging the common guidelines in social justice education. Democracy & Education, 22(2), 1–10. Note: This is the feature article, and there are several articles in response that provide a thoughtful discussion of the challenges in creating counter-storytelling community in a racially diverse classroom.

Names to credit for this activity: Modified from Chapter 4 (Bell & Griffin) and Chapter 5 (Griffin & Oulette) in Teaching for diversity and social justice (2007), 2nd edition. New York: Routledge.

Name of Activity: Religious Oppression Group Norms and Guidelines, Option B: Hopes and Concerns (INT)

Instructional Purpose Category: Icebreakers; Tone setting / developing group guidelines

Instructional Purpose of the Activity: This activity elicits the hopes and concerns of participants in order to make them explicit to all and lays the groundwork for creating community agreements.

Learning Outcomes: Provide participants the opportunity to share and compare their hopes and concerns regarding learning about religious oppression and Christian privilege

Time Needed: 40 minutes

Materials Needed: Pens/pencils and blank index cards

Degree of Risk: Medium

Procedure:

  1. Thank participants for their willingness to explore issues of race and racism and to embark on this learning journey. Explain to them that you are aware that the exploration of so weighty a subject as racism can evoke anxiety and that, therefore, we do this activity to allow us to explicitly examine the hopes and fears we have regarding learning about racism.
  2. Pass out a blank index card and a pen or pencil to each participant.
  3. To assess the hopes and concerns of participants, ask them to write an expectation that they have for the course on one side of the index card and a fear or concern that they have about the course on the other side of the card. Participants should not put their names on their cards.
  4. Collect the cards, reshuffle, and pass them out again so that each person receives someone else’s card.
  5. Participants then introduce themselves by name, describe something about themselves, and read the hope and fear card that they received. If they receive their own card, they should simply read it anonymously.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

  • Facilitators may want to develop a process for establishing norms and guidelines that is directly related to participant hopes and concerns about the topic of religious oppression. This can be accomplished through a set of activities that include sharing “hopes and concerns,” a “read-around,” and brainstorming the norms and guidelines.
  • Clarification and commitment: The facilitator asks for clarification of any norms and guidelines that seem unclear. (“Confidentiality” usually requires clarification.) The facilitator then asks for commitment by going through the list of norms and guidelines, and asking participants to say yes, nod their heads or raise their hands, or in some way to affirm their commitment.

Recommended Readings/Materials for Students: None


Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Instructor or Facilitator:

Chapters 3, 4, and 12 of this volume (Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, 3rd edition)

Names of those to credit for this activity: Chapter 4 (Bell & Griffin) in Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, 2nd edition

Who’s in the Room

Name of Activity: Religious Identity & Oppression: Who’s in the Room, Option A: Common Ground (ID, INT)

Instructional Purpose Category: Tone setting / developing group guidelines; Exploring Privilege

Instructional Purpose: This activity can help set the tone of the workshop. It allows participants to see and hear the different faith groups, atheists, and agnostics that are present in the room.


Learning Outcomes: Participants will have an awareness of the different faiths and spiritual identities present in the room.

Time Needed: 20 minutes

Materials Needed: Sentence stems; see below

Degree of Risk: Low

Procedure:

  1. Ask the participants to form a circle.
  2. Explain that as sentence stems (see facilitator notes below) are called out, participants for whom the statement is true will enter the circle, stand there for a moment, look at who has joined them in the inner circle, and turn to look at who remains in the outer circle, before returning to the full group.
  3. Prepare in advance statements from the examples listed below to emphasize various family and intergenerational religious affiliations held by group members in the class. Also provide statements that identify experiences not represented in the group. Actively encourage the participants to call out their own sentence stems.
  4. When all of the prepared sentence stems have been called out and the participants have had time to offer their own sentence stems, ask the group to remain standing in the circle to talk about what stands out as “privileges” experienced by Christians as an advantaged religious group, and as “challenges” or “exclusions” experienced by non- Christians as targeted religious groups. This is a brief closure for the circle.
  5. Ask the participants to hold their substantive questions until they return to their seats.
  6. After discussion in the circle of privileges and challenges, ask the participants to return to their seats and briefly write questions and personal feelings about this activity.
  7. After a few minutes, ask the participants to join groups of three to four (or pairs) to discuss issues that arose for them personally or that they noticed.
  8. If time permits, ask volunteers from the small groups to offer to the whole group some of the insights, issues, or questions that came up for them in this activity and the discussions.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: Example sentence stems for the Common Ground Activity in the Religious Oppression class:

  • If your family attended a church . . .
  • If your family attended a synagogue . . .
  • If your family worshipped at altars in your own home . . .
  • If your family traveled to sacred sites for worship . . .
  • If you or members of your family found it challenging to find an appropriate place to worship . . .
  • If you or members of your family had to create an appropriate place to worship . . .
  • If your language of worship was English . . .
  • If your language of worship was a language other than English . . .
  • If you have developed your own form of religious faith or mode of worship . . .
  • If your family members were the only members (or among very few members) of your religious group in your home community . . .
  • If you were one of the few members of your religious group in your K–12 schools . . .
  • If you were part of the majority religious group in your K–12 schools . . .
  • If you had to make special arrangements to eat at school because your religion has requirements about what you eat . . .
  • If public prayers and religious references acknowledged your own religion . . .
  • If you were bullied, harassed, teased, or publicly embarrassed about your religion . . .
  • If you wore signs of your religion without fear or concern (cross, Star of David, other)
  • If you felt unsafe wearing indicators of your religion (kippa or yarmoulke, head scarf,turban, other) . . .
  • If members of your religious community felt that other religions were wrong or faced damnation . . .
  • If you were proselytized by members of a majority religious community . . .
  • If members of your religious community helped each other find jobs . . .
  • If members of your religious community provided help and support to each other in crises . . .
  • If your family members identified with orthodox or traditional or unquestioning branches of your religion . . .
  • If your family members identified with liberal or progressive or questioning branches of your religion . . .
  • If people made incorrect guesses about your religion because of your ethnicity . . .
  • If your religious holy days were not recognized by the school calendar . . .
  • Others you’d like to mention?

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: None
Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Instructor Facilitator: None
Names of those to credit for this activity: Maurianne Adams

Name of Activity: Religious Identity & Oppression – Who’s in the Room, Option B: Treasure Hunt (INT & ID)

Instructional Purpose Category: Icebreakers; Exploring privilege

Instructional Purpose: This activity can help set the tone for the workshop. It allows participants to see and hear the different faith groups, atheists, and agnostics that are present in the room.

Learning Outcomes: For the group members to meet one another and gain insight to the different faiths and spiritual identities present in the room

Time Needed: 20–30 minutes

Materials Needed: “Who’s in the Room: Treasure Hunt” handout

Degree of Risk: Low

Procedure:

  1. Ask the participants to move around the room in order to meet people, and in the process to find, talk briefly with, and note the names for people in the room who answer yes to these questions. It is also important to notice if there is no one in the room who answers yes to specific questions. “Yes” answers can be for members of extended family or close friends.
  2. After 10–15 minutes, ask the participants to return to their seats to talk about what was easy or hard to identify, as well as what felt awkward or difficult. Were there items with which no one in the room identified?
  3. As the participants asked each other about these items, did anything stand out for them as “privileges” experienced by Christians as an advantaged religious group, or as “challenges” or “exclusions” experienced by non-Christians as targeted religious groups? Use this as a moment to talk about religious advantage or disadvantage, and privilege or marginalization and exclusion.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for Students: Each participant needs a copy of the “Who’s in the Room: Treasure Hunt” handout

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Instructor Facilitator: None

Name(s) of Those to Credit for this Activity: Maurianne Adams

Who’s in the Room: Religious Oppression Treasure Hunt- INT, ID

Go around the room, introduce yourself, and get to know your peers in the room. Write down the names of the people who do the following in the list below. Individuals may answer for themselves or family members. Individuals may answer in relation to their past or their current life situation.
Do any of the following statements apply to you, or any family members, or close friends?
1. You attend a church . . .
2. You attend a synagogue . . .
3. You worship at altars in your own home . . .
4. You travel to sacred sites for worship . . .
5. You find it challenging to find an appropriate place to worship . . .
6. You need to create an appropriate place to worship . . .
7. Your language of worship is English . . .
8. Your language of worship is a language other than English . . .
9. You have developed your own form of religious faith or mode of worship . . .
10. Your family identifies as non-believers, freethinkers, agnostics, or atheists . . .
11. Your family are or were the only members (or among very few members) of your religious group in your home community . . .
12. You are or were one of the few members of your religious group in your K–12 schools . . .
13. You are or were part of the majority religious group in your K–12 schools . . .
14. You feel that your questioning of belief, or agnosticism, or atheism leads people to question your morality . . .
15. You have to make special arrangements to eat at school because your religion has requirements about what you eat . . .
16. Public prayers (prayers at public events) and religious references acknowledge your own religion . . .
17. You were bullied, harassed, teased, or publicly embarrassed about your religion . . .
18. You wear or wore signs of your religion without fear or concern (cross, Star of David, other) . . .
19. You have felt unsafe wearing indicators of your religion (kippa or yarmoulke, head scarf, turban, other) . . .
20. Members of your religious community believe that other religions are wrong or the members face damnation . . .
21. You were ever proselytized to by members of a majority religious community . . .
22. Members of your religious community help each other find jobs . . .
23. Members of your religious community provide help and support to each other in crises . . .
24. Your family members identify with orthodox or traditional or unquestioning branches of your religion . . .
25. Your family members identify with liberal or progressive branches of your religion . . .

Personal Awareness and Reflection Activity

Name of Activity: Personal Awareness and Reflection Activity: Religion and Stereotypes (ELS & MANI)

Instructional Purpose Category: Identifying stereotypes; Exploring internalized oppression, internalized messages, or implicit bias

Instructional Purpose: A short presentation on stereotypes is followed by an activity in which small groups generate stereotypes of marginalized religious groups, share their examples, and discuss the sources and common themes in the information generated.

Learning Outcomes: For participants to understand that stereotypes are learned (even if we do not believe them), and that the stereotypes for marginalized religions impact our interactions with different marginalized religious groups.

Time Needed: 40 minutes

Materials Needed: Newsprint paper, markers, tape

Degree of Risk: Low

Procedure:

  • The instructor or facilitator explains that we tend to ignore or deny acknowledging stereotypes because we know they are simplistic, essentializing, and hurtful.
  • The participants form groups that should not be larger than four members and that they self-select. The number of different group stereotypes explored depends in part on the size of the overall group. For a group of 32 participants, it is possible to have eight different groups. We recommend the following marginalized religions, one for each group: Agnostics/Atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, Indigenous/Spiritual Religions, Jews, Latter Day Saints (Mormons), Muslims, and Sikhs. Decisions about which groups to focus on will depend on the context and makeup of the participant group. (The facilitator may want to note that there may be overlaps among groups, and Latter-Day Saints, Seventh-day Adventists, and Quakers are considered by some to be marginalized Christian sects.)
  • Each group will be given a newsprint to note the stereotypes that they generate. They have ten minutes in their group. They then post their newsprint and walk around to read each other’s lists.
  • After they have read each other’s list, the group can brainstorm “common themes,” especially using questions 2 and 3 among the prompts below.

Participant Prompts to Generate Stereotypes on Newsprint:

  • What stereotypes do you associate with this group?
  • What interactions do you see between the religious, ethnic, racial, and cultural stereo-

types attributed to members of this group?

  • In what ways did dominant Christian culture “interpret” the religion and culture of these groups?

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

  • Definition of stereotype: An undifferentiated, simplistic attribution that involves a judgment of habits, traits, abilities, or expectations and is assigned as a characteristic to all members of a group, regardless of individual variation, and with no attention to the relation between the attributions and the social contexts in which they have arisen.
  • Acknowledge to participants that everyone in the group is entering from different social locations, different experiences, and different levels of knowledge.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students:
Castaneda, Flexing cross-cultural communication. In Readings for diversity and social justice (3rd ed., pp. 134–135).
Wasserman, Creating an Inclusive Learning Community.
Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: None
Names of Those to Credit for this Activity: Modified from Chapter 4 (Bell & Griffin) and Chapter 5 (Griffin & Oulette) in Teaching for diversity and social justice (2007), 2nd edi- tion. New York: Routledge.

Understanding Religious Oppression as a Social Justice Issue

Framework for Religious Oppression as a Social Justice Issue

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Social Justice Approaches to Religious Oppression

Name of Activity: Social Justice Approaches to Religious Oppression, Option A: Levels of Christian

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring institutional-level oppression; Exploring individual/interpersonal-level oppression; exploring cultural- or societal-level oppression

Instructional Purpose: The purpose of this activity is to provide an overview of social/cultural (macro), institutional (meso), and personal (micro) manifestation of religious advantage and disadvantage with examples at the different levels.

Learning Outcomes: For participants to understand how Christian advantage plays out at different levels in society; and to understand how Christian advantage is embedded in our public policies, how it may be invisible, and how it is present in everyday interaction

Time Needed: 45 minutes

Materials Needed: “Levels and Examples of Religious Hegemony” PowerPoint presentation

Degree of Risk: Medium

Procedure:

  1. Instructors should first present the PowerPoint framework that explains how these “levels” help to identify the various manifestations of religious oppression.
  2. Following the PowerPoint presentation, participants form groups of three or four (based on where they are sitting, randomly) to generate examples of ways in which Christians have advantages at individual, institutional, and societal/cultural levels.
  3. Processing question: Which level is the most difficult to “see”?
  4. Field questions.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Instructor Facilitator: None

Names of Those to Credit for this Activity: None

Levels and Examples of Christian Advantage

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Overview of Five Faces of Oppression

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Understanding Christian Privilege – Knapsack of Christian Privilege

Name of Activity: Knapsack of Christian Privilege (MANI & PRIV)

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring individual/interpersonal-level oppression

Instructional Purpose: The purpose of this Knapsack activity is to generate from the participants a composite list of Christian privileges that they themselves have experienced or can imagine experiencing, either as people advantaged by Christian hegemony or targeted as non-Christians.

Learning Outcomes: Participants will learn the concept of privilege and be able to generate examples of having privilege and not having privilege.

Time Needed: 30–45 minutes

Materials Needed: Chalkboard or newsprint for facilitator; pens and paper for participants

Degree of Risk: Medium

Procedure:

  • This “Knapsack of Christian Privilege” activity derives from the work of McIntosh, White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack (1998) and White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack (1988), which introduced the idea of “unpacking” the racial and gender “assets” or “privileges” that remain generally invisible to groups with advantage, while generally known all too well by targeted groups. The “knapsack” idea was adapted by Schlosser, Christian privilege: Breaking a sacred taboo (2003, available as pdf) and Clark, Brimhall-Varas, Schlosser, & Alimo (2002) in discussions with multiple examples of Christian privilege. Schlosser’s listing of 40 examples of Christian privilege can be accessed on his website: http://pirate.shu.edu/~schlosle/cpexamples.htm
  • Other examples are available in S. Killerman (2012), 36 Examples of Christian Privilege: http://everydayfeminism.com/2012/11/30-examples-of-christian-privilege
  1. It helps if students have been able to read Schlosser’s or Killerman’s list of examples of Christian privilege before engaging with this activity.
  2. Whereas Christian privilege refers mainly to the recipients of the privilege, Christian normativity refers directly to the norms, traditions, and belief systems that characterize Christian advantage in social systems. Examples of the norms, traditions, and assumptions behind law and policy that benefit Christians but marginalize, harm, or disadvantage non- Christians will be discussed later in this chapter.

  3. Facilitators open this activity by explaining the concept of “privilege” before explain- ing the characteristics of Christian privilege and the relationship between privilege (which refers to the assets that people with privilege can count on) and normativity (which refers to the culture that produces both privilege and its absence, disadvantage). These terms are defined in Chapter 8 on p. 3 as follows:
    • Christian privilege refers to the social advantages held by members of privileged groups – in the US, these are Christians. Having privilege with respect to normative Christianity means familiarity with ‘the assumptions underlying institutional rules and the collective consequences of following those rules.’ Christian privilege is generally unacknowledged by those who hold it, because it is maintained through the pervasive cultural power of normative religious practices.
    • Whereas Christian privilege refers mainly to the recipients of the privilege, Christian normativity refers directly to the norms, traditions, belief systems that characterize Christian advantage in social systems.”
  4. Facilitators make a transition from their explanation of “privilege” to the metaphor of a “knapsack” of assets and materials that help people get through the challenges of the journey. Because these assets and materials (the “knapsack”) are not available to everyone, they become a privilege that members of the advantaged group receive early in life and that provide guides and roadmaps for daily life. A list of general examples is provided below for use in making this explanation. After explaining the concept of a “Christian privilege knapsack” and providing general examples, ask participants to write at least five examples of privilege that they have experienced, observed, or heard about. Ask participants to read aloud their examples. Write the examples on chalkboard or newsprint with checks next to items that are repeated.
  5. The facilitator then asks participants to take out two sheets of paper, labeling one “(As a Christian) (As a non-Christian) I can ......................” and labeling the other “(As a Chris- tian) (As a non-Christian) I cannot .........................” (Participants who believe they occupy religious in-between status might want to think about specific ways they receive Christian privilege as compared to specific ways they do not. See Chapter 4, Quadrant 1, SJE Approach, Option A, Slide 22, the “Matrix of Oppression,” which provides a listing of “border identities.” Remind participants of the multiple examples of Schlosser’s Christian privilege that they read for homework, and ask them to work in pairs to develop their own personal lists of Christian advantages that they have experienced or observed—or disadvantages they have experienced or observed if they are not Christian, or if they see themselves as in-between.
  6. When the pairs have developed their own lists, ask for volunteers to offer their own examples. The experience of developing the “knapsack” is processed by the following questions for the whole group:
    • What common themes do you notice among the items in your knapsacks?
    • Who gets to make use of this “religious privilege” knapsack? How is it useful?
    • What is the experience of people who do not have a “religious privilege” knapsack available to them?
    • Who are the religious groups that do not have a “religious privilege” knapsack?
    • Are there “in-between” groups?
    • How do you account for their “in-between” status?
  7. Ask participants to keep their knapsack examples for a later activity if you plan to return to them, as noted, in Module 4, activity 3, and as facilitator, keep the posted lists for future reference.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

  • One alternative to paired discussion can be a whole-group brainstorm working with two chalkboards or newsprint sheets. A second alternative uses a “Common Ground” for- mat in a circle format, using the Schlosser examples for sentence stems and inviting participants to add their own sentence stems. “Common Ground” can also be conducted in a large classroom and/or fixed seating format whereby participants respond to the sentence stems by standing up, remaining silently in place, looking around, and then sitting down, as the facilitator reads out sentence stems and then invites participants to add further stem stems.
  • It is important to find a way for participants to become familiar with the notion of invisible privileges, by reading the privileges listed in McIntosh, Schlosser, or Killerman . These examples “prime the pump” and help participants understand the differ- ences between the experiences of those advantaged and those targeted by hegemonic and/ or majority religion. If the lists are reviewed for the first time immediately preceding the group activity (except for use as “Common Ground”), it may be difficult for participants to come up with their own examples from their experience or observation.
  • The citations and resources listed below can also provide additional examples for use in this activity.

Recommended Materials/Reading for Students:

Preparation Involves Reading One of the Following:

Clark, C., Brimhall-Vargas, M., Schlosser, L. Z., & Alimo, C. (2002). It’s not just “secret Santa” in December: Addressing educational and workplace climate issues linked to Christian privilege. Multicultural Education, 10(2), 52–57.

Killerman, S. (2012). 36 examples of Christian Privilege. Retrieved from http://everydayfeminism. com/2012/11/30-examples-of-christian-privilege

McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see cor- respondences through work in Women’s Studies. Working Paper 189. Wellesley, MA: Wellesley Centers for Women.

McIntosh, P. (1998). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. In Beyond heroes and holi- days: A practical guide to K-12 anti-racist, multicultural education and staff development (pp. 79–82). Wellesley, MA: Network of Educators on the Americas.

Schlosser, L. Z. (2003). Christian privilege: Breaking a sacred taboo. Journal of Multicultural Coun- seling and Development, 31, 44–51.

Recommended Supplementary Materials Reading for the Facilitators: None

Name(s) to credit for this activity: None

Closing Activity

Name of Activity: Religious Oppression Closing – Option: A Take the Temperature (CLOS)

Instructional Purpose Category: Processing / debriefing the process


Instructional Purpose: This activity provides an opportunity for a brief check-in by asking participants to offer one word or a brief comment about how they are feeling at the end of this first segment.

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will …

  • Feel a sense of closure at the end of the first quadrant.
  • Build further connection and understanding within the group.
  • Mentally prepare themselves for transitioning into the next segment.

Time Needed: 10 minutes

Materials Needed: None

Degree of Risk: Low to medium. This depends somewhat on the reflections shared.

Procedure: Bring all participants together in a closing circle. Go around the circle and ask people to then share out one word or phrase describing how they’re feeling at the end of this quadrant. Let participants know they can pass if they’re still thinking. Come back to them at the end. This activity can also be adapted to use a few different questions, such as:

  • What is a feeling you’re leaving this session with?
  • What is one takeaway or wondering you’re leaving this session with?

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:
There may be participants who prefer to respond tacitly. If possible, you can also provide the option to write a closing thought on a post-it or board to be shared out by the facilitator or viewed in a gallery walk.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: None

Name(s) to credit for this activity:This is a legacy activity credited to many generations of facilitators, most recently updated by Mariah Lapiroff.

Name of Activity: Religious Oppression Closing – Option: B Geometric Shape Check-in (CLOS)

Instructional Purpose Category: Processing / debriefing the process

Instructional Purpose:Participants reflect individually and submit a handout with their new learnings and remaining questions.

Learning Outcomes:After this activity participants will …

  • Feel a sense of closure at the end of the first quadrant.
  • Mentally prepare themselves for transitioning into the next segment.
  • Share their reflections and needs further with their facilitators.

Time Needed:5 minutes

Materials Needed: Geometric Shape Exit Slip

Degree of Risk: Low to medium. This depends somewhat on the reflections shared.

Procedure: Provide all participants will the exit slip handout. Let participants know they’ll be completing a sheet for this quadrant that will be anonymously collected. This is an opportunity for their own reflection, as well as supportive feedback for the facilitators. They will be filling out the following:

CIRCLE – A question that keeps circling in my mind . . .
SQUARE – What squares with my values and beliefs . . .
X – Something I really disagree with . . .
TRIANGLE – Three things I learned . . .
Additional comments and suggestions for improvement . . .

Recommend they try to fill in something for each shape and let them know also they’re not required to fill them all in. Encourage them to move with where their reflections take them.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:
There is an option here to also let participants know that they may draw instead of write for any of the shape segments, if that feels more generative for them. Be sure to review each handout and incorporate feedback prior to the next session.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: None

Name(s) to credit for this activity:This is a legacy activity credited to many generations of facilitators, most recently updated by Mariah Lapiroff.

Geometric Shape Exit Slip

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Quadrant 2

Check-In

Name of Activity: Religious Oppression Check-in (PROC)

Instructional Purpose Category: Tone setting / developing group guidelines; Processing / debriefing the process

Instructional Purpose: Participants review the previously documented agreements, have the opportunity to update each other about their present access needs and additional thoughts on agreements, and amend the written list as needed.

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will...

  • Feel confident that the group guidelines will support a positive process
  • Know enough about each other’s access needs to practice meeting them collective access

Time Needed: 10 min

Materials Needed: The group guidelines that were previously developed, on an easel pad, slide, and/or handout. If notes were taken about access needs, those also should be available on an easel pad, slide, and/or handout.

Degree of Risk: low to high, depending on how the process has been up until now.

Procedure:

  1. Review the overall agenda for the day. Explain that before launching into the agenda, the group will review and update guidelines and share any additional access needs.
  2. Remind participants of the guidelines that were previously developed. Show them visually and also read them aloud (or elicit volunteers to do so). Invite participants to share any reflections they have on how the guidelines have been working, or not working, to support the group’s process, and any clarification or additions that would be helpful. If participants propose changes or additions, facilitate discussion about the changes until there’s a degree of consensus, add them to the displayed guidelines.
  3. Remind participants of the incorporation of access needs into the agreements. Point out that people’s access needs may change day to day, based on their own variable mind/bodies and on the varying requirements of the day’s agenda. Invite participants to share any updates they may have about their own access needs. (If facilitators have new or continuing access needs, naming those can be helpful modeling.) Add them to the displayed notes. Facilitate discussion about how the facilitators and/or group can help meet any new needs. 
  4. Transition to the next activity.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

In many cases, this activity will bring up little or no changes, and may take less than the allotted time. It’s worth doing anyway, because it reinforces the practice of collective access and normalizes that people have variable needs. 

If the process in previous sessions was challenging or if conflict occurred, this activity may feel higher risk. It may be helpful to remind participants that the goal of formulating guidelines is not to categorize people or even behavior as good or bad, but rather to communicate clear expectations that will help this particular group function together for this particular workshop. Furthermore, the purpose of guidelines is not to prevent all conflict, but rather to enable the group to navigate conflict that comes up in constructive ways. If participants feel the guidelines didn’t “work” in previous sessions, some may frame it as a failure on the part of the group or the facilitators. It can be helpful to reframe it as a learning opportunity, and as a normal process of negotiation in groups of people with different needs.

Rarely, a participant may propose a guideline or access step that conflicts with someone else’s needs or, people may simply disagree about what the guidelines should be. In that case the facilitators should try to avoid adjudicating who is “right” or whose needs are more important, and instead aim for a “both/and” approach, using creative problem solving to meet as many needs as possible.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: none

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: Chapter 2: Pedagogy and Chapter 3: Design and Facilitation

Name(s) to credit for this activity: This is a legacy activity we have learned from generations of facilitators, most recently updated by Davey Shlasko.

Timeline: History of Religious Oppression and Christian Normativity in the US

Name of Activity: Timeline: History of Religious Oppression and Christian Normativity in the U.S. (HX)

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring History; Exploring cultural- or societal-level oppression

Instructional Purpose: This activity provides the historical evidence to show that Christians in the U.S. have had advantages, and other faiths have been discriminated against for hundreds of years. This activity also provides evidence for the presence of systemic religious oppression and for individuals to understand that, although we have freedom of religion with the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, there is a long history of religious discrimination against the religiously oppressed as well as advantages to Christians.

This activity is intended to go over the patterns in U.S. history to illustrate the systematic and enduring features of racism, and highlight historical moments when racism was challenged or altered by collective human action. Since many people do not know this history, they are likely to assume that the U.S. has made steady progress in eliminating racism, and that racism is a problem of individual bigotry or discrimination. Knowledge of this history can help participants understand the basis for contemporary racial problems, and makes it possible to imagine solutions that address these underlying problems.

Learning Outcomes:

  • To identify and analyze the consequences of religious oppression for people with marginalized religious identities in the U.S.
  • To describe the cultural and institutional privileges/advantages for Christians in the U.S.

Time Needed: Time for activity: 45–90 minutes; prep time for the instructor will vary

Materials Needed: “Religious Oppression, Christian Privilege, and Religious Pluralism in U.S. History” handout; lecture notes or PowerPoint; historical cards or sheets of paper with dates on some/events on others

Degree of Risk: Low for students/participants; medium/high for instructor

Procedure:

  1. Review the key points in the history of religious oppression and the experiences of different marginalized religious groups in the U.S. using the timeline provided. Make sure to dis- cuss how the events on the timeline perpetuate Christian normativity. The timeline we provide is fairly extensive, so it is not likely you will have time to go over every item listed. Be selective and encourage participants to note and follow up on other events that interest them. You can also assign this as homework.
  2. You may you use any of the following formats to review the information included on the timeline:

Format 1: Ahead of time, put historical events on cards or sheets of paper and the dates on another set of cards or sheets of paper. Give some participants the sheets with dates printed on them and other participants the sheets on which the events are printed. Then ask participants to work together to match the dates and events. The participants holding the sheets with dates should have several people clustered around them at the end of the activity.

Format 2: Post the dates in sequence around the room. Give the participants cards that have descriptions of the events and ask them to tape their cards on the posters (stand in the space) with the appropriate date.

Format 3: In advance, construct a racism history quiz. Have participants complete the quiz on their own, then discuss the answers to the quiz. Participants can score their quiz, grade themselves, and discuss how much or little they knew about the history of racism and why.

Format 4: Construct in advance a racism history “Jeopardy” game using the format of the Jeopardy television show.

Format 5: Present a brief lecture based on the materials noted above. Post the timeline on newsprint paper or as a PowerPoint presentation so that it is visible to all the participants. Also provide a handout of the history timeline for each participant. Ask the participants to follow the lecture by making notes on the timeline as you go.

Format 6: The facilitators select enough items from the “Key Events” timeline so that each participant has one item with the date deleted. Distribute these items on slips of paper individually to the participants and ask the participants to form themselves into a historical timeline based on their best guess about when the event noted on their slip of paper took place. When they have formed their timeline, ask them to explain why they placed their event in that location. The facilitators then distribute a copy of the historical timeline from Appendix 11E with the dates. Ask the participants to re-group in the four corners of the room chronologically as follows: Corner 1: 1492–1760, Corner 2: 1777–1864, Corner 3: 1868–1944, Corner 4: 1946 to present day. Ask each group:

  • Do the events in your time period illustrate Christian privilege and/or exclude oppressed religions?
  • What privileges do you see for the Christian majority in the events in your time period?
  • Were political or legal protections in place for targeted religious groups?
  • Are there intersections of racism or classism with religious oppression in the examples in your time period?

Ask the group to create a newsprint with their responses to these questions for their historical time periods. Their slips of paper can be taped onto these newsprints to illustrate their answers.
When they are finished, ask the four groups to post their newsprint in their corner. Ask the other three groups to visit each corner for a report from group members of their newsprint. When all four groups have been visited and had a chance to report, close the activity by asking the whole group:

  • Do you see any changes over these four historical periods in examples of Christian privilege and oppressed religious group exclusion?
  • Do you see commonalities in the exclusions of oppressed religious groups?

General Processing Questions for Formats 1–6: After participants have completed examining key points in the history of religious oppression through one of the formats above, segue into a large-group discussion using the following questions:

  • What is one thing that you learned in this activity?
  • What surprised you about this activity?
  • What do you want to find out more about as a result of this activity?
  • What events described in this activity did you learn about in school?
  • What events described in this activity did you not learn about in school? Why do you think that is?

Facilitation Notes: None

Recommended Readings/Materials for Students: None

Names of Those to Credit for this Activity: Khyati Y. Joshi and Maurianne Adams

Christian Privilege, and Religious Pluralism in the U.S

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Processing of Historical Legacies

Name of Activity:Processing of Historical Legacies, Option A: Social/Cultural, Institutional, and Personal Manifestations of Christian (Protestant) Hegemony and Marginalization of the Religious Other

Instructional Purpose Category:

4. Exploring institutional-level oppression
5. Exploring individual/interpersonal-level oppression
6. Exploring cultural- or societal-level oppression

Instructional Purpose:The purpose of this activity is to transition from discussing historical timelines to contemporary examples of oppression.. Facilitators may do this using the “Levels and Types of Oppression” (Option A) and/or the “Five Faces of Oppression” (Option B).

Learning Outcomes:After this activity participants will understand the use of the Levels and Types analytical frameworks.

Time Needed:40 minutes

Materials Needed: “Levels and Types of Religious Oppression” handout or digital link to the document

Degree of Risk: Low-risk

Procedure1: Review or introduce the “Levels and Types of Oppression.” Oppression is defined as a system that maintains advantage and disadvantage based on social group memberships and operates, intentionally and unintentionally, on individual, institutional, and cultural levels:

  • Individual: Attitudes and actions that reflect prejudice against a social group (intentional and unintentional)
  • Institutional: Policies, laws, rules, norms, and customs enacted by organizations and social institutions that disadvantage some social groups and advantage other social groups. These institutions include religion, government, education, law, the media, and the health care system (intentional and unintentional)
  • Societal/cultural: Social norms, roles, rituals, language, music, and art that reflect and reinforce the belief that one social group is superior to another (intentional and unintentional)

Using the attached handout, ask the participants (or small groups) to generate examples of oppression at each of the three levels. Clarify any examples that are unclear. Call attention to the misconception among many people that oppression operates only on the individual level and note that this is often what is most obvious in day-to-day interactions. To fully understand oppression, it is essential that the participants recognize that it operates on multiple levels, sometimes simultaneously. Some examples (concerning individual teachers, police officers, health care workers) might also be used to illustrate institutional policy (schools and colleges, the legal system, health care). In these cases, an individual might be discriminating against someone while also representing institutional policy. Differentiate individual prejudice from oppression and emphasize that it is only one of the three levels on which oppression operates.

Post a large copy of the matrix (newsprint, white board, or digital platform) and fill in the empty boxes with as many examples as the participants provide. (Alternatively, groups can work in small groups, brainstorm examples and post their sheets in a gallery and walk around the room to read all of the composite lists.) After the posted matrix has been completely filled in, conduct a group discussion that raises questions such as these:

  • Which subordinated identity groups have been left out of these examples?
  • Do different subordinated identity groups experience different levels of oppression? Or do all subordinated groups experience all levels?
  • What commonalities did you notice across the experiences of all or most of the subordinated identity groups?
  • What are additional examples of religious oppression?

Presenters might get participants started with some of these examples:

Individual Unintentional:

  • An elementary school teacher assumes that all of her students celebrate holidays (i.e. not accounting for students who may be practicing Jehovah Witnesses).
  • A middle school teacher who prides himself on being inclusive routinely calls winter break, “Christmas Break.”
  • A Muslim student practing “wudu” is reprimanded for using a school bathroom sink.
  • A teacher asks a child to take off their head scarf or hijab to participate in a class activity.
  • A conduct officer believes that a Sikh person carrying a Kirpan dagger is a policy violation.

Individual Intentional:

  • Someone uses anti-semitic slurs to refer to Jewish people.
  • A teacher refuses to excuse a non-Christian child during Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim religious holidays, claiming that to do so would affect their grades.

Institutional Unintentional:

  • Students celebrate Easter in school, but not other religious holidays.
  • Office policy is decided during a happy hour where alcohol is served and some team members feel comfortable to attend based on their religious practice of abstaining from alcohol.

Institutional Intentional:

  • A state adopts a law prohibiting the legal recognition of same-gender relationships, based on law-makers interpretation of Christian doctrine.
  • An employment agency steers women from marginalized religious groups toward low-paying or domestic positions.
  • People who are perceived as Muslim having a hard and longer time getting through security at the airport.

Societal/Cultural Unintentional:

  • A belief being an atheist is anti-American.

Societal/Cultural Intentional:

  • Protestant Christian culture is assumed to be foundational and synonymous to “American” culture.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: The facilitators should consider the purpose of their workshop or course, as well as the audience, when selecting examples that they want to offer the participants. Facilitators should brainstorm key examples that they want to include even if participants don’t think of them, and connections they wish to draw among manifestations.

Because of the racialization of religion, it is nearly impossible to separate racism from religious oppression in some manifestations of religious oppression. Facilitators should encourage participants to generate such examples, and to hold the complexity of racism and religious oppression happening simultaneously, rather than trying to strictly categorize which examples are or are not mostly about religion.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Participants:
Adams, M., Zúñiga, X., (2018). Core Concepts for Social Justice Education. Readings for Diversity in Social Justice. In Adams, M., Blumenfeld, W.J., Catalano, D. C. J., DeJong, K., Hackman, H.W., Hopkins, L., Love, B.J., Peters, M. L., Shlasko, D., Zúñiga, X., (4th ed., pp. 41 – 49). Routledge.

Hardiman, R., Jackson, B., & Griffin, P. (2007). Conceptual foundations for social justice education. In M. Adams, L. A. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice (2nd ed., pp. 35–66). Routledge.

Interchange Counseling Institute. (2013). Oppression 101.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkxi4V8zO2k

Pipes, E., (2016). Legos and the 4 I’s of Oppression. Encompass at the Western Justice Center. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WWyVRo4Uas


Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator:
Adams, M., Zúñiga, X., (2018). Core Concepts for Social Justice Education. Readings for Diversity in Social Justice. In Adams, M., Blumenfeld, W.J., Catalano, D. C. J., DeJong, K., Hackman, H.W., Hopkins, L., Love, B.J., Peters, M. L., Shlasko, D., Zúñiga, X., (4th ed., pp. 41 – 49). Routledge.

Adams, M., Zúñiga, X., & Varghese, R. (2022).Getting started: Core concepts for social justice education (chapter 4). In M. Adams, L. A. Bell, D. Goodman, & D. Shlasko, R. Briggs, & R. Pacheco. Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice (4th Edition). Routledge.

Hardiman, R., Jackson, B., & Griffin, P. (2007). Conceptual foundations for social justice education. In M. Adams, L. A. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice (2nd ed., pp. 35–66). Routledge.

Interchange Counseling Institute. (2013). Oppression 101.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkxi4V8zO2k

Pipes, E., (2016). Legos and the 4 I’s of Oppression. Encompass at the Western Justice Center. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WWyVRo4Uas

Name(s) to credit for this activity:

  • Updated by Rani Varghese & Ximena Zúñiga (2021) from
  • Adams, M., & Joshi, K. Y. (2007). Religious oppression curriculum design (Chapter 11, Appendix 11A: Participant worksheet: Levels and types of religious oppression). In M. Adams, L. A. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice (2nd ed., pp. 255–284). Routledge.
  • Bell, L. A., Joshi, K., & Zúñiga, X. (2007). Racism, immigration, and globalization curriculum design (Chapter 7, Handout 7G: Levels and types of oppression). In M. Adams, L. A. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice (2nd ed., pp. 145–166). Routledge.
  • Catalano, C., McCarthy, L., & Shlasko, D. (2007). Transgender oppression curriculum design (Chapter 10, Appendix 10I: Levels of oppression). In M. Adams, L. A. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice (2nd ed., pp. 219–245). Routledge.
  • Hardiman, R., Jackson, B., & Griffin, P. (2007). Conceptual foundations for social justice education. In M. Adams, L. A. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice (2nd ed., pp. 35–66). Routledge.

1If conducting this activity on a digital platform such as Google Meet, Zoom, or other, be mindful of how the facilitator will create small breakout groups and support them (via chat or through digital access to materials).

Legacies of Religious Oppression

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Levels Types of Religious Oppression

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Name: 5 Faces of Christian (Protestant) Hegemony and Marginalization of the Religious Other

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring institutional-level oppression

Instructional Purpose: To draw out a variety of examples of manifestations of religious oppression, and to explore some overlaps and interconnections with other systems of oppression.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Participants will deepen their understanding of Christian Hegemony by generating, as a group, a wide range of examples of manifestations of religious oppression
  • Participants will explore overlapping manifestations of religious oppression and other systems of oppression

Time Needed: 40-90 minutes

Materials Needed: easel paper, markers, plenty of wall space and movable chairs

Degree of Risk: medium

Procedure:

This activity is based on “The Five Faces of Oppression,” a model articulated by Iris Marion Young (1990) to describe different manifestations that oppression takes. Whereas the “levels of oppression” (micro, meso, macro) identify the scales at which oppression operates, the five faces describe qualitatively how it operates.

A brief version of the activity can be conducted in as little as 40 minutes, and more in-depth versions can take several hours. Based on your estimate of students/participants previous understanding, and your time constraints, adapt the timing to meet your needs.

  1. Set-up: Create a station for each of the five faces consisting of an easel sheet titled with the name and brief definition of the face, several blank easel sheets, and several markers. Stations should be spread out around the training space.
  2. Introduction (5-10 minutes): Briefly review the Five Faces model by presenting a summary definition of each face (such as those below) and/or asking students/participants to generate them (if they have read the article in advance). Provide and/or ask students/participants to generate two or three examples for each face (related to different isms, not only religious oppression), to ensure that participants understand the definitions.

Exploitation is the systematic transfer of resources (such as land, wealth, or labor value) from one group to another

  • Examples: Naming the religions of Africans “heathen” or “ungodly” to justify their enslavement. The mischaracterization of indigenous spirituality as “infidel” justifying the theft of their towns, farms, and fertile farming areas. Jews as Christian Europe’s “bankers” (beginning of capitalism’s “usury”), followed by denunciation, blame, and scapegoating of Jews for economic downturns.

Marginalization is the prevention or limiting of full participation in society through exclusion from, for example, the job market, healthcare system, public benefits programs or community activities

  • Examples: Professed faith as a requirement for holding public office. Until the 1950s, Jews were kept out of elite schools and professions through quotas. Catholics and Jews were not in elective office (John F. Kennedy was the first Catholic President). Jews in Christian Europe were excluded from workers’ guilds and not permitted to own land. Post 9/11 fear of those perceived to be “Muslim” in airports, law enforcement or other professions.

Cultural Imperialism isthe valuing and enforcement of the dominant group’s culture, norms and characteristics

  • Examples:Calendar marked by “B.C.” and “A.D.” (or BCE and CE) with years running forward or backwardfrom birth of Christ. Marketing of watered-down or distorted non-dominant-cultural practices such as yoga, kabala, and indigenous art, by and for people who are not of those cultures.“Separation of church and state”; “In God We Trust”; Christian holy days and normalization of the Christian narrative; Supreme Court cases not protecting non-normalized religious expression; forced Christian residential schooling for Native American children; Asian children segregated in mission schools.

Violence includes physical, sexual and emotional violence and the threat of violence, including policies and structures that condone violence

  • Examples: Christianity a “state religion” in many European countries; identification of Christianity with nationalism and justification for violence as demonstrated in the Nazi Holocaust; white supremacist movements in the United States and worldwide. Racial profiling of Muslim identified people or those perceived to be Muslim. Rise of antisemitic hate crimes such as the Tree of Life synagogue mass shooting.

Powerlessness is deprivation of the ability to make decisions about one’s living or working conditions

  • Examples: Racial profiling by law enforcmeent targeting people who practice Islam or appear to practice religions others than Christianity, Patriot Act; Unnecessary restrictions on behavior during the workday, for example, limiting the number and length of prayer breaks that workers can take or lack of facilities to practice “wudu.” Japanese Buddhist Americans detained in WWII internment camps in the U.S..

Small group work (15-30 minutes):

  • Divide participants into five small groups of 3-6 people. Each group will begin at a different station, where they will generate specific examples of manifestations of religious oppression that fit into that face, and record their examples on the easel sheets. The easel sheets will remain fixed at the station for the next rotation to refer to. Inform participants of how much time they will have to work on the first face.
  • When the time is up, have the groups rotate to a new face. At the new face, each group should review what the previous group has recorded, and then add their own new examples for that face.
  • Continue rotating until every group has worked on every face. (The amount of time spent at each face may decrease in subsequent rotations, since the previous groups will have already generated many of the most relevant examples. However make sure to give groups enough time to discuss the examples and really wrap their minds around each face.)
  • In briefer versions of the activity, each group may only spend time with 1-2 faces before reporting out. However when time allows, allowing each group to spend time with all the faces is preferable because it builds a richer field of examples for the whole group to work with.

Report out (10-20 minutes): After each group has rotated through all five stations, ask for a volunteer to read aloud the easel sheets from each station. This gives all participants an opportunity to see and hear what has been written by the groups that came to each station after them.

Discussion (20-60): During and/or after the report-out, pose questions to the group (and encourage participants to ask questions of each other). If needed, some questions should prompt participants to fill in gaps in the examples generated, to make sure that examples address different levels/scales of oppression (micro, meso, macro). For example you might ask:

  • The examples on this “face” mostly address interpersonal behaviors. How might this “face” place out at an institutional level?
  • The examples on this “face” mostly address institutional examples. How might this “face” play out in terms of cultural norms and assumptions, media representations, or interpersonal behavior?
  • How might the examples on this face be internalized by people who are targeted by them?

Other questions should support participants to get more specific in their descriptions of manifestations by specifying who is targeted, under what circumstances, and in what ways the manifestations are linked to larger system of power. For example if someone wrote “racial profiling” as an example under “powerlessness,” you might ask:

  • Who tends to be disproportionately likely to experience racial profiling based on percieved religious identity? (participants will probably say “Muslims” among other responses.)
  • Referring to the answers participants give, dig deeper with questions like
    • Why Muslims?
    • Under what circumstances?
    • Who besides Muslims?
    • What factors (social group memberships and/or other factors) contribute to people’s vulnerability to racial profiling?

These questions often draw out parallels and intersections among –isms, such as the fact that transgender people, People of Color, and young Black/Latino men more specifically, are all groups that are disproportionately vulnerable to racial profiling in addition to Muslims and those perceived as Muslim. Further questions can focus on the relationship incarceration to systems of power:

  • Who has power over racial profiling practices that target people based on perceived religious identity? In what ways? (e.g. judges, police officers)
  • Who has power over those people (e.g. who has power over judges, police officers)?

Facilitation Notes: This activity involves a lot of time- and task-management. Facilitators should think through timing and room logistics carefully in order to effectively direct participants.
The discussion questions are key to this activity’s effectiveness. Facilitators should have follow-up questions on hand and be ready to improvise based on their knowledge of the group and its particular goals.
Because of the racialization of religion, it is nearly impossible to separate racism from religious oppression in some manifestations of religious oppression. Facilitators should encourage participants to generate such examples, and to hold the complexity of racism and religious oppression happening simultaneously, rather than trying to strictly categorize which examples are or are not mostly about religion.

Accessibility: In this activity, participants often end up standing around an easel sheet together for lengthy periods. Many participants who can walk and stand may nevertheless need accommodation because of the length of time spent standing. Facilitators can easily address this by inviting participants to bring chairs over to each station as needed.

Recommended Readings/materials for Students:

Young, Iris Marion. “Five Faces of Oppression.” Selection 7 in RDSJ4.

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Instructor or Facilitator: Young, Iris Marion. “Five Faces of Oppression.” Selection 7 in RDSJ4.

Name(s) to credit for this activity: Davey Shlasko

Five Faces of Oppression Handout

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Intersections with Other Isms, New Insights, New Questions, and Takeaways

Name of Activity: Intersections with Other Isms, New Insights, New Questions, and Takeaway (Religious Oppression)

Instructional Purpose Category: 
Exploring internalized oppression, intersectionality

Instructional Purpose: The purpose of this activity is to provide an opportunity for participants to deepen their understanding of the effects of social group memberships on their experiences of privilege and disadvantage using an intersectional lens.

Learning Outcomes: Participants will be able to have a deeper understanding of the effects of group memberships as it relates specifically to religious/spiritual identity.

Time Needed: 60 minutes

Materials Needed: Print handouts and/or a digital link to the document or other digital platform

Degree of Risk: Low to medium risk

Procedure: Give the participants the Privilege and Disadvantage Inventory (see Chapter 4). Ask everyone to take 10 minutes to complete the inventory individually. When everyone is finished, ask the participants to gather in discussion groups of four to five people and instruct them to use the following questions to guide their discussion of the inventory. Encourage the participants to work with people in the small groups that they have not worked with yet in class.

Process Questions:

  1. What are your reactions to the process of doing this activity?
  2. What are your reactions to identifying some of the privileges and disadvantages associated with some of your social group memberships?
  3. What statements were particularly striking to you? Why?
  4. What questions about privilege and disadvantage are raised for you?
  5. How was your experience of privilege and disadvantage the same or different from others in your discussion group?
  6. Which identities on the inventory are most salient for you? Why? Which were least salient? Why?
  7. How do these identities intersect with your current religious or spiritual identity? Is there a correlation or intersection between religion and other identities  (e.g. Irish Catholic)?
  8. How is the religious identity you were raised with differ from how you identify now, if at all? How does that differentiation manifest in terms of privilege or disadvantage?

Allow for about 30 minutes of small-group discussion. At this point, you might consider giving participants a brief break before returning to discuss the inventory with the whole class. When the class has reconvened, invite the participants to share their responses to the following questions:

  1. What did you learn about your own privileges and disadvantages?
  2. What questions were raised for you about the privileges and disadvantages of others?
  3. How did this activity help you better understand how your own identities intersect?
  4. How do the identities you shared intersect with the isms you have learned about so far? 
  5. What new insights about the intersectionality of religious oppression do you have now that you have completed this section?
  6. What new questions do you have about religious oppression related to other isms?
  7. What is one new take-away you can share from this activity?

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: This activity can be an eye opener for participants who have never thought about the ways in which they are privileged and how those identities intersect with other isms. For participants who are already aware of the ways in which they are disadvantaged by some of their social group memberships, it is an important insight to realize that they also have privileges based on other social group memberships they have. If some participants are struggling with the idea of seeing their own or their family’s accomplishments as partly due to privilege, acknowledge that this realization can be confusing. Encourage them to remain open to further exploration of the effects of their social group memberships and listening to the experiences of other participants who have different identities and experiences. Invite them to continue to explore these questions throughout the remainder of the workshop.

For some participants it may be easy to identify how certain advantages and disadvantages are about identities other than religion, and harder to understand how they are also connected to religious oppression. Facilitators should hold a both/and approach, while continuing to remind participants how religious oppression is connected with other isms.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: None

Name(s) to credit for this activity:
Hardiman, R., Jackson, B., & Griffin, P. (2007). Conceptual foundations for social justice education (Chapter 3 in M. Adams, L. A. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice (2nd ed., pp. 35–66). Routledge.

Closure

Name of Activity: Religious Oppression Closing – Option: A Take the Temperature (CLOS)

Instructional Purpose Category: Processing / debriefing the process

Instructional Purpose: This activity provides an opportunity for a brief check-in by asking participants to offer one word or a brief comment about how they are feeling at the end of this second segment.

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will...

  • Feel a sense of closure at the end of the second quadrant.
  • Build further connection and understanding within the group.
  • Mentally prepare themselves for transitioning into the next segment.

Time Needed:10 minutes

Materials Needed: None

Degree of Risk: Low to medium. This depends somewhat on the reflections shared.

Procedure: Bring all participants together in a closing circle. Go around the circle and ask people to then share out one word or phrase describing how they’re feeling at the end of this quadrant. Let participants know they can pass if they’re still thinking. Come back to them at the end. This activity can also be adapted to use a few different questions, such as:

  • What is a feeling you’re leaving this session with?
  • What is one takeaway or wondering you’re leaving this session with?

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:
There may be participants who prefer to respond tacitly. If possible, you can also provide the option to write a closing thought on a post-it or board to be shared out by the facilitator or viewed in a gallery walk.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: None

Name(s) to credit for this activity: This is a legacy activity credited to many generations of facilitators, most recently updated by Mariah Lapiroff.

Name of Activity: Religious Oppression Closing – Option: B Geometric Shape Check-in (CLOS)

Instructional Purpose Category: Processing / debriefing the process

Instructional Purpose: Participants reflect individually and submit a handout with their new learnings and remaining questions.

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will …

  • Feel a sense of closure at the end of the second quadrant.
  • Mentally prepare themselves for transitioning into the next segment.
  • Share their reflections and needs further with their facilitators.

Time Needed:5 minutes

Materials Needed: Geometric Shape Exit Slip

Degree of Risk: Low to medium. This depends somewhat on the reflections shared.

Procedure: Provide all participants will the exit slip handout. Let participants know they’ll be completing a sheet for this quadrant that will be anonymously collected. This is an opportunity for their own reflection, as well as supportive feedback for the facilitators. They will be filling out the following:

CIRCLE – A question that keeps circling in my mind . . .
SQUARE – What squares with my values and beliefs . . .
X – Something I really disagree with . . .
TRIANGLE – Three things I learned . . .
Additional comments and suggestions for improvement . . .

Recommend they try to fill in something for each shape and also let them know they’re not required to fill them all in. Encourage them to move with where their reflections take them.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:
There is an option here to also let participants know that they may draw for any of the shape segments, if that feels more generative for them. Be sure to review each handout and incorporate feedback prior to the next session.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: None

Name(s) to credit for this activity:This is a legacy activity credited to many generations of facilitators, most recently updated by Mariah Lapiroff.

Handout: Geometric Shape Exit Slip

Download Now (PDF 59KB)

Quadrant 3

Opening Activity

strong>Name of Activity: Religious Oppression Check-in (PROC)

Instructional Purpose Category:  Tone setting / developing group guidelines; Processing / debriefing the process

Instructional Purpose: Participants review the previously documented agreements, have the opportunity to update each other about their present access needs and additional thoughts on agreements, and amend the written list as needed.

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will...

  • Feel confident that the group guidelines will support a positive process
  • Know enough about each other’s access needs to practice meeting them collective access

Time Needed: 15 min

Materials Needed: The group guidelines that were previously developed, on an easel pad, slide, and/or handout. If notes were taken about access needs, those also should be available on an easel pad, slide, and/or handout.

Degree of Risk: low to high, depending on how the process has been up until now

Procedure:

  1. Review the overall agenda for the day. Explain that before launching into the agenda, the group will review and update guidelines and share any additional access needs.
  2. Remind participants of the guidelines that were previously developed. Show them visually and also read them aloud (or elicit volunteers to do so). Invite participants to share any reflections they have on how the guidelines have been working, or not working, to support the group’s process, and any clarification or additions that would be helpful. If participants propose changes or additions, facilitate discussion about the changes until there’s a degree of consensus, add them to the displayed guidelines.
  3. Remind participants of the incorporation of access needs into the agreements. Point out that people’s access needs may change day to day, based on their own variable mind/bodies and on the varying requirements of the day’s agenda. Invite participants to share any updates they may have about their own access needs. (If facilitators have new or continuing access needs, naming those can be helpful modeling.) Add them to the displayed notes. Facilitate discussion about how the facilitators and/or group can help meet any new needs. 
  4. Transition to the next activity.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

In many cases, this activity will bring up little or no changes, and may take less than the allotted time. It’s worth doing anyway, because it reinforces the practice of collective access and normalizes that people have variable needs.

If the process in previous sessions was challenging or if conflict occurred, this activity may feel higher risk. It may be helpful to remind participants that the goal of formulating guidelines is not to categorize people or even behavior as good or bad, but rather to communicate clear expectations that will help this particular group function together for this particular workshop. Furthermore, the purpose of guidelines is not to prevent all conflict, but rather to enable the group to navigate conflict that comes up in constructive ways. If participants feel the guidelines didn’t “work” in previous sessions, some may frame it as a failure on the part of the group or the facilitators. It can be helpful to reframe it as a learning opportunity, and as a normal process of negotiation in groups of people with different needs.

Rarely, a participant may propose a guideline or access step that conflicts with someone else’s needs or, people may simply disagree about what the guidelines should be. In that case the facilitators should try to avoid adjudicating who is “right” or whose needs are more important, and instead aim for a “both/and” approach, using creative problem solving to meet as many needs as possible.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: none

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: Chapter 2: Pedagogy and Chapter 3: Design and Facilitation

Name(s) to credit for this activity: This is a legacy activity we have learned from generations of facilitators, most recently updated by Davey Shlasko.

Examining Institutional Religious Oppression

Name of Activity: Examining Institutional Religious Oppression, Option A: U.S. Constitutional Protections: “You be the Judge” (MANI & HX)

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring institutional-level oppression; Exploring History

Instructional Purpose: The purpose of this activity is to provide the opportunity for students to use the Constitutional protection of religion clauses to guess at the outcome of real legal cases dealing with religious oppression.

Learning Outcomes:

  • To understand the presence of a Christian norm in U.S. Supreme Court decisions, which impact everyone in the U.S.
  • To understand that our laws and court decisions are not neutral, and that Protestant Christians have had advantages throughout history
  • To recognize the norm present in different cases

Time Needed: 75–90 minutes

Materials Needed: Newsprint paper, markers, index cards, “You Be the Judge” handout

Degree of Risk: Low

Procedure:

  • Present a lecture to provide participants with a background on the historical context for the “separation of Church and State” and the religion clauses of the 1st Amendment.
  • Distribute the handout.
  • Explain to students the two “religion” clauses: (1) no established religion, and (2) no prohibitions on the free exercise of religion. Stress that the following cases were actually brought before state and federal courts.
  • Reinforce the instructions on the handout. Explain that groups can arrive at majority and minority opinions, just as a court would, but they must clearly express their reasoning.
  • Students can work in pairs or small groups to go through the cases.
  • Provide answers and go through the cases with the entire class.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: If time is limited, you could divide the class into nine groups (one group taking each case). Having a dyad is fine. Have each group present their decision and have them provide a rationale.

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Instructor Facilitator:
Eck, D. L. (2001). A new religious America: How a “Christian country” has become the world’s most religiously diverse nation. New York: Harper San Francisco.
Feldman, S. M. (1997). The fruits of framing: Church and state in nineteenth-and early-twentieth- century America; and The fruits of framing: Church and state in late-twentieth-century America. In Please don’t wish me a Merry Christmas: A critical history of the separation of church and state (pp. 175–265). New York: New York University Press.
Long, C. N. (2000). Religious freedom and Indian rights: The case of Oregon v. Smith. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
Maddigan, M. M. (1993). The establishment clause, civil religion, and the public church. California Law Review, 81(1), 293–349.
Mazur, E. M. (1999). The Americanization of religious minorities: Confronting the constitutional order. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Rievman, J. D. (1989). Judicial scrutiny of Native American free exercise rights: Lyng and the decline of the Yoder doctrine. Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, 17(1), 169–199.

Name(s) of Those to Credit for this Activity: Maurianne Adams

You Be the Judge

Download Now (PDF 135KB)

Text for Lecture Presentation of US Constitutional protections

Download Now (PDF 238KB)

Name of Activity: Examining Institutional Religious Oppression, Option B: Guided Discussion Groups (MANI & HX)

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring institutional-level oppression; Exploring history

Instructional Purpose: Make connections among themes in readings and lecture content, including readings from Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, 3rd edition and content on Constitutional protections.

Learning Outcomes:

  • To understand the presence of a Christian norm in U.S. Supreme Court Decisions, which impact everyone in the U.S.
  • To understand that our laws and court decisions are not neutral, and that Protestant Christians have had advantages throughout history.

Time Needed: 30 minutes total (10 minutes for each group)

Materials Needed: Newsprint for major insights to share with whole group; reports and discussions

Degree of Risk: Low

Procedure:

  1. Divide the class/group into three groups.
  2. Assign groups #1 and #2 questions based on assigned readings.
  3. Tell the students, “Use these questions (or others that are important for you) to share with each other what came up for you in the process of reading, and what you were thinking about in the process of reading.” Ask the students to comment on major insights and questions to report back to the whole group:
    • What aspects of the assigned readings confirmed information or impressions that you had already?
    • What aspects of the assigned readings challenged or led you to question assumptions, information, impressions that you held (or didn’t know you held)?;
    • In what ways did the readings help you (or not help you?) to see manifestations of Religious Oppression in daily life? In your professional settings? In your schooling? In your experience of US culture? In local and national politics?
    • What questions and/or new understandings are you thinking about, as generated by these readings?
    • As you situated yourself in target or agent roles in relation to Religious Oppression, how did your other identities (race & ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, ability, etc.) come into play?;
  4. Assign group #3 to discuss the 1st Amendment protection of religious liberty as follows:
    • Students should summarize their understanding of the 1st Amendment: What it protects, what it doesn’t protect.
    • Ask the students to discuss their understanding of the “intention” of the 1st Amendment, and what they believe it has come to mean in U.S. culture.
    • Ask the students to select only one or two of the scenarios, which reflect actual Supreme Court cases deciding 1st Amendment complaints. Students should dis- cuss the cases and make their decision in their role as Supreme Court justices.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: It is possible to have a group devoted to the role of religion in U.S. or global politics, if there are students who understand the intersections of privilege and marginalization based on religion and national identity and nationalism, as these intersect with economic advantage and disadvantage, ethnicity, race, class, and gender. These can be difficult intersections and they have not been prepared for in this specific design. It may be helpful to refer to the cases in Activity 2A, “You Be the Judge.”

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Instructor Facilitator: None

Name(s) of Those to Credit for this Activity: Maurianne Adams

Recognizing Everyday Christian Hegemony and Religious Oppression

Name of Activity: Recognizing Everyday Christian Hegemony and Religious Oppression in the U.S. Today, Option A (MANI & PRIV)

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring institutional-level oppression

Instructional Purpose: This three-part activity has participants identify current U.S. Christian hegemonic norms and the ways in which they become oppressive, exclusive, and discriminatory to non-Christians. The second part asks participants to generate a list of “intersections” or “reinforcers” for examples of Christian hegemony and religious oppression from other forms of advantage and disadvantage. The third part of the activity visualizes the ways in which these norms or exclusions operate as a societal and cultural “web” of religious oppression.

Learning Outcomes:

  • To identify specific examples of Christian hegemony in U.S. institutions
  • To make linkages across the institutions to understand the daily presence and impact of Christian hegemony

Time Needed: 40 minutes

Materials Needed: “Everyday Christian Hegemony” handout; ball of yarn

strong>Degree of Risk: Medium



Procedure:

There are three parts to this activity. The knowledge, awareness, and skill level required builds from the previous activity.

Part 1: Handout. Distribute the handout. Participants will work singly or in pairs to list examples of institutional norms or policies that advantage Christians (left column) and related ways in which non-Christians are excluded or marginalized (right column).

Part 2: Intersections and reinforcers from other forms of advantage or disadvantage. Participants will create a list of intersections or reinforcers from other forms of advantage or disadvantage for two or three of their previous examples.

Part 3: Web of Christian hegemony and non-religious disadvantage, exclusion, and marginalization.

The facilitators ask the participants to stand in a circle and take turns “calling out” a social institution. Here the instructor could keep it at the meta level and have the students identify institutions such as education, health care, corporations, etc.; or instructors could have the students select specific institutions, such as a summer camp, elementary schools, or the emergency room at a hospital. After calling out the institution, the participant says another participant’s name and tosses the yarn ball to that person. It is important that the person “called out” is across the circle from the person doing the calling, so that the yarn ball is thrown across the circle, and that everyone continues to hold the yarn after it’s been thrown to them. In this way, the yarn ball can be tossed back and forth across the circle, and participants continue to hold their place on the yarn.

Each time the participant whose name is called catches the yarn-ball toss and names a specific example of religious advantage or disadvantage in the institution just “called out.” That person receiving the yarn ball and naming an example of religious oppression continues the process by calling out another participant’s name (across the circle), naming another social institution and tossing the yarn ball. The new recipient catches the ball and names an example of a social institution. When participants feel they are running out of names of social institutions, they can do a second turn on institutions named earlier. The process continues until everyone in the circle has caught the yarn ball, named an example, and tossed it to someone else. Participants continue to hold their end of yarn, and the yarn ball gets smaller and smaller with each successive toss.

By the time everyone’s name and numerous social institutions have been “called out,” there is an intricate “web” of yarn linking all of the participants in the circle and representing the “web” of all the instances of religious oppression that have been identified. The web comes to represent the interaction of all of the social institutions named in maintaining the “web” of religious oppression.
The first part of this activity enables participants to prepare for this activity. If the facilitator does not use Part 1 of this activity, the examples below will help “prime the pump” for this activity:


Name of Social Institution

Example(s) of Religious Oppression

Family

Opposition to religious intermarriage

Schools

Holidays linked to Christian calendar; religious food requirements may not be met in school cafeteria; school may not accommodate the wearing of religious garb (hijab by observant Muslim women, the yarmulka or kipa by observant Jewish men)

The media (TV, magazines, newspapers, radio)

Muslims may be presented as terrorists; Native American spirits may be commercialized as mascots or advertisements; the assumption is that all families are Christian; major emphasis on Christmas and Easter in programming and in storylines

Local police

Religious and racial profiling

Local, state, and federal courts

In religious freedom cases, the courts may see non-mainstream religions as “private preference” or as less important than local laws or regulations

Child adoption agencies

May not know or consider it important to place adopted or foster children in same-faith families

Building code enforcers

May be designed (intentionally or unintentionally) to rule out preferred temple or mosque or minaret architecture; may enforce “same style” regulations as the prevailing neighborhood

Prisons

May make no allowances for non-Christian faith practices

Drug and alcohol agencies

May forbid religious use of peyote for members of the Native American Church

Fashion industry

Design “hip” clothes using Native American or Hindu styles and symbols

Businesses and workplaces

Make no “reasonable accommodation” for daily prayer or for holidays other than Easter and Christmas or for days of worship other than Sundays

Colleges and universities

There may be no affirmative effort to create prayer space or religious meeting space for non- mainstream religious groups

Other social institutions

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: The success of this activity depends largely on the participants having sufficient information to provide examples of institutional oppression—from readings, films and videos, discussions, observation, their own experiences—to generate examples quickly. The facilitator should have examples in mind to help out if participants have no examples, and in order to keep the process going.

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Reading for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Instructor Facilitator: None

Names of Those to Credit for this Activity: Maurianne Adams

Everyday Christian Hegemony Handout

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Name of Activity: Recognizing Everyday Christian Hegemony and Religious Oppression in the U.S. Today, Option B: Everyday Scenarios (ELS & MANI)

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring individual/interpersonal-level oppression; Exploring liberation and social action

Instructional Purpose: The purpose of this activity is to understand how everyday situations result in exclusions of marginalized religious groups.

Learning Outcomes: Upon receiving four “everyday” scenarios, students will identify and discuss the advantages to Christians in that particular scenario and the marginalization or exclusion that the marginalized religious group in the scenario experiences.

Time Needed: 25 minutes

Materials Needed: “Everyday Harassment Scenarios” handout; newsprint

Degree of Risk: Medium

Procedure:

  1. Divide the class/workshop into three groups. Ideally there are three or four people in each group. If you have a large group, then two different groups can have the same scenarios.
  2. Assign each small group one of the three scenarios and have them respond to the questions on the handout, and then provide a brief summary of their discussion, either verbally or on newsprint (for a newsprint gallery).

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: None

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for Facilitator: None

Name(s) of Those to Credit for this Activity: Khyati Y. Joshi

Everyday Christian Hegemony Handout

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Closure Activity

Geomtric Shape Exit Slip

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Quadrant 4

Opening Activity

Name of Activity: Opening Activity, Option A: Interfaith Four Square (LIB)

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring internalized oppression, internalized messages, or implicit bias; Exploring liberation and social action

Instructional Purpose: The purpose of this activity is to expose students to the different world religions present in our society. /p>

Learning Outcomes:

  • Students will be able to recognize what fundamental information they have and don’t have with respect to major world religions in the U.S.
  • Students will come to have an understanding that religious literacy is important in our pluralistic democracy, and that a lack of basic knowledge about religions can lead to misunderstanding.

Time Needed: 30 minutes; preparation time varies, so adjust this activity grid to reflect the students in your classroom. Do any research needed to explain any answers you are uncertain about or unfamiliar with.

Materials Needed: Handout, answer key, accompany PowerPoint presentation for instructors

Degree of Risk: Low

Procedure:

  1. Distribute the handout. Have the students fill out as many boxes as they can individually. Once they have filled out all they can, ask the students to walk around the room saying hello to their colleagues and asking for assistance in completing the task. Instructions are also on the handout.
  2. Give students no more than 10 minutes to complete the activity.
  3. Ask the participants to take their seats and distribute handout 12.4b and review the answers one by one.
  4. Bring students together and ask the following questions:
    • What does it feel like to do this activity?
    • Why do you feel this way?
      • Facilitator should allay concerns about students feeling stupid, etc.
      • Distribute the answer key.
      • How challenging was this activity? How many squares were participants able to fill out in the 15 minutes allotted? Did anyone fill all of the squares correctly? How does it feel to know the answers or not know the answers? Where did they learn the information? Ask the participants why they think they were or were not able to answer these questions. Where could this information be learned? Who should teach it?
      • Go over the PowerPoint presentation about how religion can be discussed legally in schools.

Facilitation Notes:

  • During the initial activity, make sure that everyone is not congregating around one person to get all the answers. Most participants will not be able to answer most of the questions correctly. There are squares that ask about basic information about Christianity, and some participants who identify as Christians may be embarrassed to admit they did not know those answers.
  • This activity teaches religion; it does not promote a specific religion, and therefore, can be used in public schools. It does not go into a full description of different religions, but instead, gives the building blocks of information needed for students to be acquainted with all of the religions observed within the classroom.
  • Start with who is in your class; by changing some of the boxes to incorporate the religions of the students in your classroom, you will be implementing culturally responsive teaching into your classroom.
  • Keep in mind that some of your students may be atheist; if so, find a way of implementing this into the activity.
  • Acknowledge that even though a student may observe a specific religion, they may not necessarily know the answers to the questions regarding their religion. This is okay!
  • Be sure to make time for going over the answers in class, and allow time for discussions that may be prompted by each box.
  • Explain to participants that knowing basic information, such as the examples on hand- out 12.4, helps them become informed, engaged citizens in a pluralistic democracy. Participants may express feeling overwhelmed as to where and how to start learning about different religions. Inform them that knowing the names of sacred scripture, names of holy cities, and major holidays is an excellent place to start. For example, it is important to know that the Sikh holy book, Guru Granth Sahib, should not be called the Sikh Bible.
  • Remember that this is not a world religions class, and you are not a religion teacher. Therefore, you do not need to know everything about each religion in the class. How- ever, by doing a little research on the religions present in the class, it will show your students that you care about who they are.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students:

Haynes, C., & Thomas, O. (2007). Finding common ground: A guide to religious liberty in public schools. Nashville, TN: First Amendment Center.

**Specifically, students should read Chapter 5.

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for Facilitator:
Haynes, C., & Thomas, O. (2007). Finding common ground: A guide to religious liberty in public schools. Nashville, TN: First Amendment Center.

Names to Credit for this Activity: Khyati Joshi

Interfaith Four Square Handout

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Interfaith Four Square Answer Key

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Interfaith Four Square PowerPoint

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Name of Activity: Religious Oppression – Opening Activity, Option B: Action Continuum – Room-Stations Activity (LIB)

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring liberation and social action; Developing action plans

Instructional Purposes: The purposes of this activity are (1) to identify the range of possible actions one can take to address Christian hegemony and religious oppression, and (2) to enable participants to identify where they currently are on an Action Continuum with regard to this issue.

Learning Outcome: Students will identify where they might want to be to take their next steps toward action in coalition with others. Instructors/facilitators have an Action Continuum posted or distributed to introduce the concept and the different steps or stages.

Time Needed: 30 minutes

Materials Needed: Handout, newsprint paper, markers

Degree of Risk: Low

Procedure:

  1. Post the “Action Continuum” so it can be seen by all participants. Introduce the activity by explaining that both internal and external barriers discourage or encourage taking action against any form of inequality, and religious oppression is no exception. There are internal barriers in one’s own attitudes and beliefs; and external barriers exist in the institutional policy, norms, laws, and attitudes and beliefs of others.
  2. Give the following lecture or remarks:

1. When we as individuals or when institutions maintain the system of oppression, it can be because we are:

A. Actively participating: This means that the actions we take directly support Christian hegemony and the oppression of the people marginalized by their religions. Can anyone give me an example of maintaining the system of oppression by actively participating in any ism? Examples include the following:

  • Making fun of people who wear a kippa or a turban
  • Engaging in verbal or physical harassment of a person who visibly belongs to a non-Christian faith tradition
  • Opposing legislation that would provide paid Holy Days for people whose holidays are not Christian

B. Denying or ignoring: This means we are denying that religious oppression is a problem and/or ignoring discrimination against people with of non-Christian faith traditions. Examples include the following:

  • Failing to speak out when others make fun of, discriminate against, harass, or are rude to people with of non-Christian faith traditions
  • Refusing to acknowledge the effects of Christian hegemony on the lives of people who are not Christian

C. Recognition, but no action: This means we are recognizing that discrimination against people of different faith traditions is a problem, but failing to take any actions to address Christian hegemony. Examples include the following:

  • Feeling uncomfortable when a friend tells a joke that targets a marginalized faith tradition, but not speaking up to object to it
  • A teacher realizes that her course materials are not religiously inclusive, but decides not to address this problem

2. When we as individuals or as an institution begin interrupting the system of oppression, it can be because we are:

D. Recognizing and interrupting oppressive behaviors: That is, we understand and take action against ableism. Examples include recognizing and responding to oppression against people of different faith traditions or people who take a posi- tion outside a faith tradition. This is a transitional stage where one goes from maintaining the system of oppression to interrupting the system of oppression.

E. Educating self: This means we learn about oppression against people of different faith traditions or outside faith traditions and come to know the people with dif- ferent religious or non-religious beliefs. Examples include the following:

  • Reading a book, watching films, or researching on the Internet to learn more about such people and communities
  • Attending events and actively connecting to the community of such people and communities

F. Questioning and dialoging: This means we research and understand all levels of the field of Christian hegemony and religious and non-religious differences, and we talk with others about these issues. Examples include the following:

  • Educating others about Christian hegemony and religious oppression
  • Going beyond just interrupting oppressive behaviors to engage people in dialogue about these issues

3. When we work to change ourselves, other individuals, or institutions, it can be because we are:

G. Supporting and encouraging: We take action and support members of different religious and non-religious people and communities. Examples include actions that support and encourage others in the breaking of the Cycle of Oppression against people of marginalized religious and non-religious traditions.

H. Initiating and preventing: This means we take the first step toward breaking the Cycle of Oppression and accommodating the needs of people from marginalized religious and non-religious traditions in order to create greater access and prevent discrimination. Examples include actions that actively anticipate and identify insti- tutional practices or individual oppressive behaviors and interrupt them.

3. Following this lecture or set of remarks, have participants identify where they currently see themselves on issues of Christian hegemony and religious oppression on the Action Continuum. Tell the participants to do the following:

  • Place yourself in front of the statement on the Action Continuum that best describes how you currently see yourself on the Action Continuum with regard to religious advantage and disadvantage. Share with other participants at that location some examples of what it’s like to be at that location. Also, consider whether you might be at another location on another one of the isms (racism or sexism or classism, for example).
  • Then, move to a new location that best describes where you would like to be in order to begin to take steps for action and change. Share with other participants at that location of what it’s like to be at that location. Also, consider how you might build across-religion (or across other ism) coalitions, or use networks to effect change. Talk with others at this location about how you see your own religious identity roots influencing or overlapping with other identities (your own and others, privileged and/or marginalized) to support or challenge your moving forward on the Action Continuum regarding religious oppression.
  • This activity can conclude here, or it can continue as follows while participants remain at their locations: Have participants spend a few minutes discussing what benefits they experience when taking action against social injustice. Encourage participants to name benefits such as the following:
  • I feel good making my workplace more religiously inclusive. It’s the right thing to do.
  • My sister has a partner who is [Muslim, Hindu, Sikh] and I want to work to make their lives better.
  • Someday, I might be change my religious views and will need these changes.
  • I have religious doubts now and opening discussions with people who question or don’t believe (agnostics, atheists) will help me in my own journey.
  • I want to feel like I can make a change for the better. When participants are finished with these tasks, ask for volunteers to share some of their insights or concerns with the whole group. Close this activity by telling the participants that next they will look more closely at how to become effective advocates and coalition partners to take action against Christian hegemony and religious oppression.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: None

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: None

Names to Credit for this Activity: Adapted from:
Wijeyesinghe, C. L., Griffin, P., & Love, B. (1997). Racism curriculum design. In M. Adams, L. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice: A sourcebook (pp. 82–107). New York: Routledge.

Moving Forward

Name of Activity: Religious Oppression – Moving Forward, Option A: Walking the Line in Public Schools (MANI & LIB)

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring institutional-level oppression; Exploring liberation and social action

Instructional Purpose: The purpose of this activity is to help students understand what is legally permissible in public schools in terms of religion and religious acts.

Learning Outcomes: Students will have a better understanding on how religion is addressed in public schools by a number of different scenarios given in this activity.

Time Needed: Preparation time: 5 minutes (make copies of the activity); activity implementation: 25 minutes

Materials Needed: Enough copies of the activity for each person participating in the activity; writing utensils; a copy of, or access to, the 1st Amendment text

Degree of Risk (low, medium, high): Low

Procedure:

  1. Hand out copies of the activity to those participating.
  2. Allow ten minutes for each person to determine whether or not they think each item listed is “okay” or “not okay.” (If time allows, have them write out why they came to this decision.) This should be done independently.
  3.  Once everyone has answers written down, start up a discussion as a group, using up the final 15 minutes of the activity.
  4. Without giving away the correct answer, go through each scenario aloud and see what people wrote down.
  5. Ask them why they chose the answer they did.
  6. Tell the students what the correct answer is, and why.
  7. Once you have gone through the entire list of scenarios, open the floor up for overall commentary on the activity.
  8. Ask the students what they thought about the activity. Was it difficult? Why? What experiences did they have in school? Could anyone relate to any of the scenarios?
  9. Finally, ask the students how they might handle religion in public schools after having done this activity. Allow them to make up their own situations, give them examples, or use the scenarios given in the activity.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:;

  • It is important to read the answers to this activity prior to the time when the activity is taking place. There is a detailed answer sheet that will help you to facilitate knowledge as well as help you prompt your students for further discussions.
  • Many people are surprised by the answers to these scenarios. Have your explanation of the correct answer ready to go. The “why” will help in any future situations that are similar to the specific scenarios in the activity.
  • Some students may relate to a scenario, or may have a story or personal experience similar to one of the scenarios above. This may cause the activity to take a longer amount of time.

Source:

Marshall, J. (2003). Religion and education: Walking the line in public schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 85, 239–242.

Recommended Materials/Reading for Students:

Haynes, C. & Thomas, O. (2007). Finding common ground: A guide to religious liberty in public schools. Chapter 5 in Finding common ground: A teacher’s guide to religion in the public schools. Nashville, TN: First Amendment Center.

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Instructor or Facilitator: None


Name(s) to Credit for this Activity: Joanne Marshall

Walking the Line in Public Schools Handout

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Name of Activity: Religious Oppression – Moving Forward, Option B: What’s Possible in Professional, Organizational, or Community Settings (MANI & LIB)

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring institutional-level oppression; Exploring liberation and social action

Instructional Purpose: The purpose of this activity is to help students raise questions and find answers for the questions, as changes of policies or procedures are possible and feasible in their current or anticipated professional, organizational, or community settings.

Learning Outcomes: Students will have a better understanding on how religion is addressed in professional, organizational, and community settings by a number of different scenarios given in this activity.

Time Needed: Preparation time: 5 minutes (make copies of the activity); activity implementation: 25 minutes

Materials Needed: Enough copies of the activity for each person participating in the activity; writing utensils; a copy of, or access to, the 1st Amendment text

Degree of Risk: Low

Procedure:

  1. Hand out copies of the activity to those participating.
  2. Allow ten minutes for each person to determine whether or not they think each item listed is “okay” or “not okay.” (If time allows, have them write out why they came to this decision.) This should be done independently.
  3. Once everyone has answers written down, start up a discussion as a group, using up the final 15 minutes of the activity.
  4. Without giving away the correct answers, go through each scenario aloud and see what people wrote down.
  5. Ask them why they chose the answer they did.
  6. Tell the students what the correct answer is, and why.
  7. Once you have gone through the entire list of scenarios, open the floor up for overall commentary on the activity.
  8. Ask the students what they thought about the activity. Was it difficult? Why? What experiences did they have in school? Could anyone relate to any of the scenarios?
  9. Finally, ask the students how they might handle religion in public schools after having done this activity. Allow them to make up their own situations, give them examples, or use the scenarios given in the activity.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

  • It is important to read the answers to this activity prior to the time when the activity is taking place. There is a detailed answer sheet that will help you to facilitate knowledge as well as help you prompt your students for further discussions.
  • Many people are surprised by the answers to these scenarios. Have your explanation of the correct answer ready to go. The “why” will help in any future situations that are similar to the specific scenarios in the activity.
  • Some students may relate to a scenario, or may have a story or personal experience similar to one of the scenarios above. This may cause the activity to take a longer amount of time.

Recommended Materials/Reading for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: None

Name(s) to Credit for this Activity: Maurianne Adams

Personal Considerations in Action Planning

Name of Activity: Religious Oppression – Personal Considerations in Action Planning, Option A (LIB)

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring liberation and social action; Developing action plans

Instructional Purpose: The purpose of this activity is to slow down the action planning process to enable participants to consider carefully what is involved for them personally, and to take those considerations into account in the next segment, when they come up with a plan of action.

Learning Outcomes: To analyze the personal ingredients in working for change

Time Needed: Depending on how many of the steps and handouts instructors use, this can take between a half-hour to a full hour

Materials Needed: Copies of the handout and copies of other handouts that accompany this activity (“Spheres of Influence” handout)

Degree of Risk: Medium, depending on the depth of the self-assessment

Procedure:

  1. Explain that planning to take action or to propose change takes some advance consideration, especially if it is an action or change that takes place within an organization or community. This first stage involves you considering yourself within this option: What is the action or change you are considering? What (if any) are your risks? What are your spheres of influence? What resources or skills do you bring to the proposed action or change? Are there other personal factors for you in this effort?
  2. Ask participants to think about these issues personally first, and take several notes. Then have them either pair up or form small groups. The groups can be organized on the basis of organizational, professional, community, or personal interests so that there will be commonality among participants as they think through these issues.
  3. Ask participants to be thoughtful about the intervention or change or action they are considering, since what they do in this activity will lead to their plan in the following activity.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: None

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: None

Name(s) to credit for this activity: None

Personal Considerations in Action Planning, Option A - handout

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Name of Activity: Religious Oppression – Personal Considerations in Action Planning, Option B (LIB)

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring liberation and social action

Instructional Purpose: The purpose of this activity is to provide an opportunity for participants to tell stories of times in their lives when they have been advocates for action and change—or times when they wanted to but felt unable to carry through.

Learning Outcomes: Participants will make connections between times they were advocates (or wished to be advocates) and considering becoming advocates or change agents regarding Christian hegemony and religious oppression.

Time Needed: 40–60 minutes

Materials Needed: None, unless the facilitator wants to turn the question prompts into a worksheet

Degree of Risk: Medium-High (depends on the stories that arise)

Procedure: The facilitator explains that taking action, especially on issues that seem new, can be difficult. But everyone can think of a time that they wanted to be an advocate for someone–or felt something was unfair and wanted to change it. Perhaps they tried and were successful. Perhaps they tried and felt unsuccessful. Perhaps they wanted to do some- thing, but they felt they didn’t have the skills or knowledge or self-confidence to intervene or propose change.

Storytelling about these earlier experiences can be an excellent way to learn from your own earlier efforts, and your successes as well as near-misses. The facilitator might be willing to share one or two brief examples of trying and not succeeding, or wanting to do something and not knowing how to do it, or succeeding in making an intervention.

Step 1: Ask participants to pair up and answer these questions:

  • Tell a brief story about a time when you really wanted to do something to advocate or help in a situation, or to intervene, or to create change. What did you do? Or what did you want to do and didn’t do?
  • What gave you the strength and courage to do it? Or what held you back?
  • Do you feel you succeeded, or could you have done better?
  • What have you learned about yourself, as an advocate or change-agent, from this experience?

Step 2: Ask participants to return to the whole group. Ask volunteers to make comments on the last three questions they discussed in their pairs:

  • What gave you the strength and courage to do it? Or what held you back?
  • Do you feel you succeeded, or could you have done better?
  • What have you learned about yourself, as an advocate or change-agent, from this experience?

Step 3: Ask participants to comment on the commonalities. What gave them courage and strength, or held them back? Ask them to think ahead to the possibility of being advocates for people who are marginalized and excluded because of their religion, to intervene or take action, or to propose institutional or organizational or community change.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: None

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for Facilitator: None

Name(s) to credit for this activity: None

Spheres of Influence Handout

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Worksheet for Action Planning, Option B

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Action Planning

Name of Activity: Religious Oppression – Action Planning, Option A: Planning for Action in Schools (LIB)

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring institutional-level oppression; Developing action plans

Instructional Purpose: Work in collaborative teams to develop a calendar that is inclusive of all religions.

Learning Outcomes:

  • By examining a relevant calendar, students will analyze and understand the number of days allotted to Christian holidays.
  • Students will brainstorm and make decisions for creating a calendar that is more representative of our religiously diverse society.

Time Needed: Approximately 35 minutes: 15 minutes for small-group work, 20 minutes for large-group debrief, and 10 more minutes if you decide to have the class create one calendar (see procedure below)

Materials Needed: A K–12 school district calendar, a college/university calendar, or a workplace calendar (depending on the group using it)

Degree of Risk: Low

Procedure:

  1. Divide the group in small groups of three or four individuals. Distribute the appropriate calendar. Ask students what they notice about the calendar. Is it fair to all religious groups? If so, how? If not, what could be done to make it more fair?
  2. Have the group create a new calendar. It should be a school calendar that incorporates all religions. Remind them that a K–12 public school must be in school for 180 days. Also, have them keep the same number of school-related functions in place (i.e., parent/teacher conferences, teacher in-service training, etc.) If you are using a college/ university calendar, keep things such as finals in mind.
  3. Large-group debrief: Have each group explain their rationale for creating a calendar the way they did. Allow students to ask questions while the groups are presenting the calendars.
  4. Time permitting, have the large group create a calendar as a class incorporating what people liked from each group.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: None

Recommended Materials/ Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for Facilitator: None

Name(s) to for this Activity: Jaquelynne Radcliff

Name of Activity: Religious Oppression – Action Planning, Option B: Developing Your Own Plan for Workplace, Organizational, Professional, School, Community, or Other Settings (LIB & KEY)

Instructional Purpose Category: Exploring liberation and social action

Instructional Purpose: Work in collaborative teams to develop a feasible change or action plan around religious oppression that draws on the necessary skills and resources to be effective.

Learning Outcomes: By developing an action plan, students will reflect on and understand areas, steps, changes and coalition building necessary for disrupting and dismantling religious oppression.

Time Needed: 30–60 minutes, if teams report out

Materials Needed:

Worksheets for participants:

  • Action Continuum (for step 1)
  • Levels and Types of Religious Oppression (for step 2); was used in Quadrant 2
  • Action Planning

Degree of Risk: Medium to high, depending on the commitment of the team to the planned action

Procedure: The facilitator should link this activity to the work the group has already done in the previous segment, when they assessed their own skills, spheres of influences, and sense of personal risk, or told stories about their previous experiences in advocacy and change.

The facilitator has participants team up along lines of professional or organizational interest, or in other interest groups, to establish commitment among members of the group to invest in this change plan. It need not be something that will be implemented tomorrow or next week, but the plan does need to be real, feasible, well thought out, and have a reasonable expectation of success.

The facilitator should talk through all seven steps involved (listed below; also see the “Action Planning” worksheet). Hand out the worksheets and move around the space to provide support and guidance.

Action Planning:

Step 1: Participants can draw on the “change plan” they discussed during the previous segment, or they can decide on a common plan, or they can agree to help each other firm up and strengthen each person’s different plan. Whatever their decision, each person needs to have a clear goal of advocacy, change, or greater self or other education in mind. (Note that the Action Continuum can be a useful reminder of the possibilities for action.)

Step 2: At what level does this change or advocacy or action need to be taken? The facilitator explains that an advocacy action might involve individuals within an organization at different levels of the organization. For this reason, the broad understandings of “individual” and “institutional” need to be more finely nuanced to understand what that means within the organization. A grassroots community effort would also involve individuals who are in networks (political or religious, for example) that could be considered “institutional” and need to be considered.

Step 3: What are the specific steps that need to be taken? Who needs to be approached first, or what needs to be done first? Second or third steps? Simultaneous steps?

Step 4: Who are your allies and coalitional partners in this effort? Who needs to be directly involved, and who needs to be “kept in the loop?” What skills, resources, and levels of institutional power do they bring that you need?

Step 5: What levels or kinds of opposition do you anticipate? What pushback do you anticipate? How do you plan to win them over, or neutralize their opposition, or find ways around any obstacle course?

Step 6: What skills, knowledge, and resources do you and your coalitional partners need? (More knowledge of the structure of the organization? More information about the people involved?) Do you need to bring in people with skills or access not currently available to your group? What specific identification of skills, knowledge, and resources do you currently have and that you will need?

Step 7: Time frame and success: As you discuss this project in your groups, do you see this as a one-time “job done” kind of effort, or will it involve multiple steps over time? What time frame are you setting for yourself and how will you know whether you will be successful?

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: None

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Reading for the Facilitator: None

Name(s) to credit for this activity: None

LIB & KEY Religious Oppression – Q4 Action Continuum Handout

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What’s Possible in Professional, Organizational, or Community Settings

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Next Steps

Name of Activity: Religious Oppression – Next Steps (CLOS & LIB)

Instructional Purpose Category: Processing / debriefing the process

Instructional Purpose: This closing activity enables participants to make a positive, forward-looking closing statement to the group.

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will …

  • Feel a sense of closure with the learning community
  • Feel ready to bring their learning back out of the workshop space into their daily lives

Time Needed: 30 minutes

Materials Needed: Sentence Stems prepared on handout, easel pad, marker board or slide

Degree of Risk: Low - Medium

Procedure:

  1. Post the sentence stems, and read them aloud, as examples of what participants might say. These are all positive and forward-looking statements, that acknowledge the learning, appreciate the role of the group, or look ahead to what participants might do next. The sentence stems can be adapted to the particular group. For example:
    • One thing I’ve learned about Religious Oppression is …
    • One thing I want you to know about my experience learning about Religious Oppression in this group is ….
    • One thing I’m planning to do to create change about Religious Oppression is …
    • One thing I especially appreciate about this learning community is …
    • One thing I want to learn more about with Religious Oppression is ….
  2. Give participants a few minutes to think to themselves and/or journal using the sentence stems as prompts.
  3. Ask participants to arrange themselves in a circle facing each other. Beginning with any volunteer, and proceeding around the circle clockwise, each participant shares one sentence based on one of the sentence stems.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: This activity is appropriate for any group, but particular those which came together just for this workshop and may not have ongoing relationships beyond the workshop space. The goal is to create a sense of closure and continuity. Depending on the overall goals of the workshop, and the learning needs of the group, facilitators may choose different or more specific sentence stems.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: None

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: None

Name(s) to credit for this activity: This is a legacy activity credited to previous generations of facilitators