Name: Ben Connolly

Social Justice Group: Race and Education

Date of Fieldwork: December 11, 2017

Name of Organization: LREI

Person (people) with whom I met and their job titles: Sandra Chapman

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did:

We asked Chap if we could have an interview, so we met over lunch. We asked about Chap’s experiences at LREI. We talked about affinity groups and how that helps LREI as well.

What I learned:

We learned a lot about how Chap’s work help around LREI. She talked about affinity groups and why they’re so helpful for students of color. An affinity group is where students of a certain minority are grouped together so that they feel more empowered in a classroom. We addressed how affinity groups could be taken as segregation, and why it isn’t. This is because unlike segregation, they’re still with all the other students, just grouped together to feel safer. We also learned about the difference between equality and equity. Equality is giving everyone the same thing, while equity is giving everyone what they need to succeed. For example, is a tall person, a medium sized person, and a short person all cant see over a wall, and they’re each giving one box, only the tall person and the medium person can see over the wall, but if the short person is giving two boxes, while the tall person and medium person get one box, that is equity.

What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:

We learned how students issues should be addressed one at a time, and that they’re isn’t one solution to helping all students with learning. This is because giving all students the same thing doesn’t mean it works for everyone. Equity is necessary so that all students can recieve a proper education.