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To enhance your awareness of how social situations impact on your sense of self

Aim

To enhance your awareness of how social situations impact on your sense of self.

Evidence and reflection

Reflect on how the following three situations are likely to influence your perceptions of your own identity: 

    1. Meeting a new class at the beginning of the school year.
    2. Meeting the parents of a particularly challenging pupil
    3. Meeting a new colleague for the first time

All three situations share an element of novelty and are likely to bring about greater self- consciousness than you may usually be aware of. As you think of yourself in each situation make notes on your self- perceptions:

  • Which self- perceptions are likely to be challenged, or threatened, in each situation?
  • Which self- perceptions are likely to be confirmed or entrenched?
  • Which self- perceptions are likely to be changed by this situation?
  • Which self- perceptions are likely to remain intact?

Extension

All social interactions can be examined through the lens of power. Review the activity above but this time think about how the power dynamics of each social interaction influence your perception about who you are.


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