What Kind of Car Am I? (Naliyah 2nd blog post)

“What Kind of Car am I? An Exercise to Sensitize Students to Social Class Inequality”
Kathleen A. Tiemann, Karen Davis, Teri L. Eide

Teaching Sociology, Vol. 34, 2006 (October: 398-403)

I decided to report on this article because it presents a teaching activity related to a concept discussed in sociology 101 courses, social class inequality. I would also like to create a file of teaching activities that I can pull from. The article explains how to run an active learning exercise about cars to teach students about social class inequality. This activity is used to challenge students’ ideas about competitive individualism and to show students “the salience of stereotypes on people’s lives” (399). The point is for students to realize that inequities in society are due to structure not individual failures. The activity lets students see their flaws and that “common sense” assumptions fail when looking through a sociological lens. The activity is designed for a 50 minute class period.

Preparation: Make a list of different kinds of people students are familiar with making sure you have a good mix of people on the basis of ethnicity, gender, social class, and other ascribed attributes (in non-sociological terms: characteristics you are born with/into). Then make a second list of different kinds of vehicles, including those most common in the area/region. Then put the two lists of people and cars on handouts for the students.

Activity: Have students become familiar with information on stratification and inequality both globally and within the United States or do the exercise first and then teach about stratification and inequality.

1. Divide students into small groups of around 7 students maximum. Give half of the groups copies of the list of people and ask them to list the model and year of the vehicle they think the people listed would drive. Then give the list of vehicles to the other groups and ask them to describe the type of person they think would drive each vehicle. After about 15 minutes ask the groups to come to an agreement on their choices.
2. On the board the instructor should put the lists of people and vehicles leaving room for each group to write their answers. Once the students’ time is up they select one member of the group to write their answers on the board. Once they are finished ask the students why they chose the responses they did. Then the authors suggest asking the following questions:

“Does driving a particular vehicle mean that the driver actually owns it?
Does it tell us whether the owner paid cash, leases the car, or is deeply in debt?
Do race, gender, or age determine the type of vehicle someone drives or are other variables at work? (400).”

Then discuss how the vehicles we all drive are nonverbal, yet public statements of where we fit in the organization of social stratification and how others should treat us. The authors also mention noting that vehicles can be indicative of our social, political, and environmental views.

3. Finally have students do a written assignment asking them to respond to the questions
“What type of vehicle do you own?
What is the year of your vehicle?
Why do you own that particular vehicle?
What does it tell others about you and where you fit in the social hierarchy?
How does it do so?” (400-401).
(If the student doesn’t own a car have them answer the questions about the car they drive most often or the car which the ride in the most).

Then have students think about what they learned about “material culture, prestige, social stratification, inequality, and stereotypes” from the exercise and how it relates to additional material assigned to them in the course (401).

All in all, I think the article is a good way of discussing a sensitive topic and breaking down students’ beliefs about who is most likely to be successful in society and who is not and why without seeming confrontational. Students see for themselves where their common sense view of “those who work the hardest get to the top” fails and how they stereotype others, as well as, how they might be stereotyped themselves. Hopefully a simple activity like this will stick with students and possibly change how they view the world, that they will realize things are set up to benefit specific groups and exclude others and thus will realize that inequality is institutionalized.