There are many resources that can help faculty and students explore how issues of social identity, privilege and oppression are embedded in and intersect with the practice of service-learning. The following articles may serve as an introduction to this critically important component of service.

Readings Exploring the Roles of Social Identity, Privilege and Power in our Personal Lives and in Larger Social Contexts

The Complexity of Identity: “Who Am I?” by Beverly Daniel Tatum
Tatum explores the ways in which multiple identities and the social structure of power and oppression can influence how we view ourselves.

Racism without “Racists” by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Bonilla-Silva challenges the notion of “colorblindness” and describes the nature of interpersonal and institutional racism.

The Cycle of Liberation and The Cycle of Socialization by Bobbie Harro
These two articles educate readers on the process and effect of socialization in our society and how individuals can work to dismantle the forces of oppression that have been embedded into social systems.
 

Readings Exploring the Intersections of Race, Class, Power, Privilege and Service Learning

Power and Privilege: Community Service Learning in Tijuana by Michelle Madsen Camacho
Camacho discusses the challenges of providing “a learning experience that addresses power inequities between students and served” and examines how service-learning students view “power differentials,” “relative social class,” and “racialized differences.”

You Call This Service? The Effect of Project Type on Deficiency Paradigms in a Service Learning Project By Jose Marichal
Marichal examines attitudes towards differences in social identity in service-learning literature through a case example from his own classroom.

Service Learning as Pedagogy of Whiteness by Tania D. Mitchell, David M. Donahue and Courtney Young-Law
Mitchell and her colleagues examine the ways in which race is foundational to the construction of service-learning pedagogy.
 

Videos Exploring the Intersections of Race, Class, Power, Privilege and Service Learning

Are You an Ally? videos
Videos from Mount Sinai Hospital provide first-hand accounts of discrimination and explore how being an ally can make a difference. 

Moving the Race Conversation Forward
Produced by Jay Smooth and Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation, expands in an accessible way on the organization's analysis of media's failure to consider systemic racism.