Oppression is the use of power to disempower, marginalize, silence or otherwise subordinate one social group or category, often in order to further empower and/or privilege the oppressor. Social oppression may not require formally established organizational support to achieve its desired effect; it may be applied on a more informal, yet more focused, individual basis.
Anti-Oppression work seeks to recognize the oppression that exists in our society and attempts to mitigate its affects and eventually equalize the power imbalance in our communities.
Online Resources
- Anti-Violence Project
Created by the University of Victoria, The Anti-Violence Project (AVP) is committed to addressing and ending gender-based violence on campus and beyond.
"We strive to provide anti-oppressive and sex-positive services, advocacy and action on-campus and off to people of all genders, in partnership and collaboration, in order to address and resist gender-based and all forms of violence." - Teaching Tolerance
Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners—who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.
Recommended Reading
- Integrating mindfulness into anti-oppression pedagogy: Social justice in higher education.Drawing from mindfulness education and social justice teaching, this book explores an anti-oppressive pedagogy for university and college classrooms. Authentic classroom discussions about oppression and diversity can be difficult; a mindful approach allows students to explore their experiences with compassion and to engage in critical inquiry to confront their deeply held beliefs and value systems.
- Toward a Theory of Anti-Oppressive EducationThis article reviews the developing literature on anti-oppressive education (i.e., education that works against various forms of oppression) by summarizing and critiquing the four primary approaches that educational researchers have taken in conceptualizing (1) the nature of oppression and (2) the curricula, pedagogies, and policies needed to bring about change. These four approaches to anti-oppressive education are Education for the Other, Education About the Other, Education that Is Critical of Privileging and Othering, and Education that Changes Students and Society. Engaging in anti-oppressive education requires not only using an amalgam of these four approaches. In order to address the multiplicity and situatedness of oppression and the complexities of teaching and learning educators also constantly need to "look beyond" the field of educational research to explore the possibilities of theories that remain marginalized, including post-structuralist and psychoanalytic perspectives. This article concludes with implications for future research.
- Team-Teaching Anti-Oppression with Diverse Faculty: Challenges and OpportunitiesTeam-teaching, especially with colleagues who are diverse along a number of domains of social identity (e.g., social class, gender, race, tenure rank, academic status, age), represents a rich opportunity to model a social justice, anti-oppressive approach to teaching and learning. In this article, we present pedagogical strategies to consider when team-teaching foundation social work courses with a social justice focus. Constructs related to power dynamics, privilege, social class, microaggressions and social identity are explored. Development of teaching plans, managing challenging team dynamics, and teaching methods are examined. Implications of team-teaching anti-oppression content for social work education are discussed.
Lesley University Counseling Center :
The Lesley University Counseling Center provides individual short-term counseling and services for on-campus undergraduate and graduate students in degree-granting programs. Our counselors are sensitive to issues of ethnicity, spirituality, culture, sexual orientation, gender, disability, learning differences, and body image. We offer traditional verbal therapy and non-traditional methods, such as expressive arts therapies.
Counseling sessions are held in confidence and are not part of your academic record. If you need or want long-term counseling, we can refer you to outside specialists. Students are responsible for the cost of outside services How to make an appointment: We are offering remote counseling services. To make an appointment: Email counselingcenter@lesley.edu to let us know you want to meet with a counselor. You can also use this email for other questions you may have. Call 617-349-8545 and leave a voicemail and we'll get back to you.
Call to Safety approaches domestic and sexual violence intervention and prevention work through a social justice and anti-oppressive lens. We communicate this value through community outreach, continuous training and education for our staff, and by applying anti-oppression theory into our Basic Advocacy Training for incoming volunteers. In the interest of joining the movement for racial justice, Call to Safety recently took on the effort to become an anti-racist organization. We recognize that as we live in a culture that is supported by white supremacy, our work towards racial justice will be on-going and in a constant state of becoming. We welcome feedback from the community at large about how we might better work towards this goal.