Teaching Note: Teaching about Privilege and Feminist Research Ethics

© 2014 by the board of trustees of the university of ill inois This essay looks primarily at one approach to teaching about privilege in a feminist research course. I talk about the motivation to ask students to participate in this exercise and the potential as well as the challenges it has for raising awareness of one’s own privileges before setting out to do feminist research. Additionally, the paper outlines the preparation for the activity by attending to the learning climate and how student resistance can itself be made into a learning opportunity. The challenges and risks of raising student’s awareness of their position and of their privileges illustrate that no one single approach or activity, in itself, is sufficient. Embedded into a course where so many other aspects align to make it effective, the paperclip activity contributes to meeting the objectives of raising awareness. Still, the instructor needs to be cautious about how the activity is received by the students.