Social Inequality and Social Change Exercise Part 1 This exercise emphasizes the idea that “How you define the problem is prescriptive.” That is, being able to identify manifestations of inequality is a critical first step to determining the intervention or response to the problem. In order to expand our problem definition capacity, the course will expand our collective vocabulary concerning mechanisms and practices within organizations/systems which promote inequality. This includes structural drivers of inequality (such as formal and informal rules, norms and practices) which serve to maintain the advantage of some identities and the marginalization of others at collective levels. Students will apply their expanded vocabulary and models of structural inequality, fairness and conditional inclusion to analyze a real-world scenario reflecting inequality. Students will have the opportunity to pick their own scenario and this analysis will include identifying and describing the manifestations of unfairness (what is wrong), and explain why the mechanism represents unfairness. Students will use at least six references from the course to support their problem analysis and proposed prescriptions.
