David Nurenberg's What Does Injustice Have to Do With Me? offers a thoughtful, reasoned, and pragmatic approach to teaching privileged white students about social injustice and communicating to them why it is actually in their best interest to help dismantle their own privilege. . . . By teaching other viewpoints and engaging privileged white students with the teachings of social justice, we are expanding their lenses of understanding the world around them and are developing their critical thinking. The efforts of this book are worthwhile, and it will constitute a helpful part of educators' social justice "toolkit" for reference and inspiration to do what is right rather than what is easy.
...at the present moment, both politically timely and morally important.
Nurenberg reminds us that White, upper middle class students also have a stake in justice and equity in a society, indeed in a world, that reflects increasing economic, social, educational, and political disparity. More important, What Does Injustice Have to Do with Me? speaks directly to the role of our teachers in ensuring the fundamentals of democracy are taught to and understood by ALL students.
With compassion, nuance, and a critical perspective, Nurenberg draws on research and his own experience to help fill a gap in the educational literature--how to educate privileged white students about social justice. He offers extensive, clear, and practical activities and suggestions for how to engage these students (and others). Written in an engaging, personal style, this book is a welcome and needed resource for educators working with white privileged students.
We need this book! Teaching starts with understanding the learner and that requires caring about the so-called privileged as well as the disadvantaged. Nurenberg got me caring, too.
For any educator concerned about how to engage affluent White students in critical conversations about questions of social justice, past and present, look no further than David Nurenberg's very helpful book. Full of creative teaching examples intended to foster critical thinking, it is a valuable resource for an important audience of educators and their students.
In the 21st century movement to penetrate the limiting lens of privilege, this resource offers a robust range of fresh ideas and tactics. Through storytelling, sample classroom activities, and pedagogical framing David Nurenberg demonstrates how engaging privileged white students in an exploration of power and privilege is far more than knowledge acquisition; the process itself demands of us the critical inquiry skills and self-awareness that makes us better students, teachers, friends, and citizens.