Power, Privilege, and Learning: Facilitating Encountered Situations to Promote Social Justice

Abstract

As student affairs professionals increasingly move toward developing their students into active citizens that are committed to both social justice and systemic change, it is important for these students to have a keen awareness of the basic concepts that underlie social justice. The authors argue that fundamental knowledge about the concepts of power and privilege plays an important role in the learning process for students and that this knowledge can be gained through experiential learning activities (Kolb, 1984). The authors call attention to important characteristics that are essential for the design and implementation of encountered situations intended to promote social justice awareness and action and offer a clear methodology student affairs professionals can utilize to develop encountered situations that meet the needs of specific student populations.