{"id":1843,"date":"2012-12-26T15:01:44","date_gmt":"2012-12-26T20:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/?p=1843"},"modified":"2012-12-27T12:53:49","modified_gmt":"2012-12-27T17:53:49","slug":"power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/2012\/12\/26\/power\/","title":{"rendered":"Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"3D<\/a><\/p>\n

Below is an activity that will be included in an upcoming Norton volume on politics.\u00a0\u00a0 The activity could be modified to fit any discussion about power. \u00a0 A few weeks ago, I used it in a human rights law course.\u00a0 We were discussing power and authority as part of a unit on the causes of human rights violations.\u00a0 Thus, the activity below is slightly modified for this discussion, though you could change the questions on power to reflect any class discussion.<\/p>\n

We started the discussion about power with this activity. \u00a0Then, we defined power and talked about why it\u2019s a loaded word.\u00a0 We also talked about a few other assumptions that came up during the discussion, such as the idea that power is only an attribute of people (rather than something structural or institutional) and the idea that only some people have power. \u00a0This activity could be paired with the TSP Special on power, found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Make four signs labeled \u201cagree,\u201d \u201cstrongly agree,\u201d \u201cdisagree,\u201d and \u201cstrongly disagree.\u201d\u00a0 Hang one sign in each corner of the room.<\/li>\n
  2. Tell participants that you will be reading a series of statements about power.\u00a0 After each statement, they should stand under the sign that most closely reflects their reaction to the statement (and that they must choose a sign).<\/li>\n
  3. Read the first statement (listed below).\u00a0 After participants have assembled under the signs, ask each group to discuss why they picked that particular position and to choose a spokesperson to explain a few points of the discussion.<\/li>\n
  4. Ask everyone to leave their group and go to the center of the room.\u00a0 Then ask participants to stand under the sign that most closely reflects their own reaction to the statement again.\u00a0 (This gives participants the opportunity to change their positions if they wish, though this is optional based on how discussion is going and the time you have allotted.)\u00a0 Ask whether, after hearing the various arguments, any participants changed their position.\u00a0 Then ask a few volunteers to explain why they decided to change their positions.<\/li>\n
  5. Repeat this exercise for the following statements.\u00a0 You can add or subtract statements to alter the length of the exercise.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    *Power corrupts.<\/p>\n

    *Power causes human rights violations.<\/p>\n

    *You can\u2019t get anything done without power.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Below is an activity that will be included in an upcoming Norton volume on politics.\u00a0\u00a0 The activity could be modified to fit any discussion about power. \u00a0 A few weeks ago, I used it in a human rights law course.\u00a0 We were discussing power and authority as part of a unit on the causes of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10501,868],"class_list":["post-1843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-authority","tag-power"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1843"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1852,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions\/1852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}