Oppression

1. Oppression Unearned privilege Racism, sexism and poverty

2. Some definitions • Stereotype: Conventional or oversimplified concept of something. • Prejudice: An opinion or judgment of an individual or group formed without knowledge or examination of facts. Bigotry-prejudice against race/religion. • Discrimination: Acts that limit access to resources, rights, opportunities, etc. based on prejudice. • Racism: A belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and a belief in the superiority of one race over others. Definitions often include “existence of institutional power” as part of the definition. What is race? • Oppression: Unjust cruel exercise of power of authority; systematic subjugation of a social group by a group with access to social power.

4. Racism in education • Examples of possible racism include teaching methodology, curriculum content, teacher expectations, admissions, school bus cancellation. • In what ways do these examples represent stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination or oppression? • Relationship between education and poverty?

5. Income and education

6. Race, Gender and income

7. Focus on Immigration • What are some of the common beliefs and stereotypes held about immigrants? • In what way are these institutionalized? • What are some facts? (National Immigration Forum, 2003) • 11.5% of population is foreign-born, compared with 15% of population in early 1900s. • 25-40% of undocumented immigrants entered the country legally and their visa has expired. • Immigrants pay taxes, paying somewhere between 90 and 140 billion/year. • 75% pay payroll taxes, 6-7 billion/year social security funds. • Earnings=$240 billion; taxes=$90 billion; use of public services=$5 billion.

8. Impact in human services? • Children of immigrants are very often eligible for services…they may be citizens even if their parents aren’t. Documented immigrants are often eligible. • Families often won’t seek services, even when eligible, due to fear of being deported. • Immigrants make up 20% of low wage work force. • Children of immigrants are twice as likely to be without health insurance than native-born kids.

9. A case study • Rainier Beach High School • Low enrollment-<600 • WASL trouble: 27.3% of 10th graders passed math portion; 3% passed science • Located in a racially/ethnically diverse neighborhood • High rate of poverty among student body

10. A Proposal • Technology Access Foundation is an organization whose mission is “TAF prepares underserved children of color for higher education and professional success by providing a rigorous and relevant K-12 curriculum. • They have provided after school classes for ten years and have proposed a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) program to be colocated in various public schools, Rainier Beach being one of them. • This program would use the same school assignment process as all Seattle schools with an effort to ensure that most students are kids from the south end where this type of program is lacking. • There would be no additional requirements for admittance and no additional charges from parents. Additional funding would come from TAF, who has obtained support from the Gates Foundation. • There has been support from the district and some resistance from the community of parents, teachers and students at RB.

11. Debating a proposition: The TAF Academy will benefit students and should be supported by the RBcommunity