How to contribute to a social just world? The experience in Portugal
1. Stimulus situation
To introduce the topic, one or two videos about the topic of social and economic inequalities and/or Fairtrade were presented to children.
Examples of prompts to start a discussion on social inequalities with children:
- What was the video about? What problems does the video discuss?
- Have you ever heard of inequalities? What kind of inequalities exists?
- What are the countries with more (or less) inequalities?
- Why are some people poor and some people rich?
Examples of prompts to start a discussion on Fairtrade with children:
- Where does the food we eat come from?
- What are the life conditions of the farmer who planted the food? (Where does he/she live? Does he/she have money to buy food or clothes? Can he/she afford education for his/her children?)
- Who else is involved in the process?
Children between 7 and 10 years old
In a Portuguese school, children between 7 and 10 years old watched two videos and discussed it with the teacher.
The first video was:
First, the teacher asked children about the general ideas that arose while watching the video. Because the video also focused on sustainability and environmental changes, children initially mentioned “we need to save the planet from pollution” and “helping the planet”. The teacher acknowledged that this was one of the problems stated on the video, but that there was another problem that was exposed. One of the children mentioned: “many people are poor, and others are very rich”. Following this comment, the teacher asked if children had already heard about inequalities. Children referred: “some people need medicine but don’t have it”, “life is unfair”, “there are black children who have nothing because of their colour”. The teacher followed: “Do you think black people experience more inequalities?”. The child answered “yes”. The teacher, then, asked in which countries there were more inequalities. One child mentioned “Venezuela” and there was a brief discussion on the current political situation of the country (“there is a gentleman who is a dictator and does not allow elections”; “there is no food in the supermarkets”; one child talked about how he knew a friend that flee from Venezuela to be safe). Then, more countries were mentioned: “France” (the teacher highlighted that in (so called) developed countries there were also inequalities between rich and poor); “the Indian continent” (the teacher clarified that India was not a continent); “Pakistan” and “Brazil”.
The teacher inquired “What can we do?” and followed “In this school there are children with more and less [financial] possibilities. What do we do in our school for children to have the same opportunities?” A child promptly referred “we give money”. The teacher clarified “we give money?”. Another child answered “no, but we give food baskets”. Children added: “we do campaigns to help”, “we share our materials and snacks”, “parents don’t have to buy materials and books”, “we can request books from our readers club”, “we can request tablets and take them home if we don’t have”, “we help each other”. Another child concluded: “here there are people who are poor and don’t have money and we all do the same things”.
Then, children were inquired on why (they thought) some
people were poor. Answers were vast and had different levels of complexity:
“because they spent all the money”, “because rich people stole the money”,
“because they don’t have jobs”, “because their country was at war and there
were no conditions”, “maybe they never had money”, “they produce less food”.
One child exposed that “there are people who don’t work”. In response to this,
another child told that “I knew a lady who told me that she cleans all the
shopping centre and works many hours but receives very little money”. Then, one
child said that “in the past, there were slaves, there were black men working
for whites without receiving anything”. The teacher asked if slavery still
existed. Children shared “yes, in some countries”, “because richer people see
the poorer and say “come work for me”, but then they pay very little”, “they
are envious and they keep all the money for them”, “they pay little to workers
that work very much”.
This discussion was followed by the exhibition of the second video, “Pablo the super banana”, by the Fairtrade foundation. The teacher asked for general ideas about the video. One child told “bananas grow in Colombia”, another referred “there are a lot of bananas in Colombia”. The teacher asked about the worker’s life conditions, shown in the video. Answers were “he worked a lot and received little money”, “he only got 5 euros”, “they give him little money”, “his house is poor”. Then, the teacher explained the Fairtrade symbol, clarifying that it meant that the workers receive a fair price for their work. The next question concerned if children knew where the food they eat comes from, giving the examples of chocolate and rice. “Chocolate comes from cacao”, explained a child. “But where does chocolate come from?”, we asked. “From a plant”, said a child. Children were asked about where those plants grow. One child said “Brazil”, another “Japan”, another “Switzerland”. The teacher emphasized all the people involved in the process, including the farmer, the transporter, the producer and the seller.
Children between 12 and 15 years old
Older children in the same school watched the ISOTIS video.
Following the ideas presented on the video, the teacher asked students about globalization and examples of it in their daily life. “Social networks”, “talking with persons from other countries”, “playing games online” and “online shopping” were mentioned as examples. The teacher asked if students had already heard about the term “global village” or “globalization”. One student mentioned “yes”, in Geography. Then, a student told that it referred to the world and the globe, “to something global, to the whole planet”. After clarifying the concepts of globalization and global village, the teacher asked if globalization was beneficial for all. The answers from students were clear: “no”, especially in “poorer countries where there are children with less possibilities”, students mentioned. The teacher asked for examples of countries. One student referred the Democratic Republic of Congo and how she talked with her mother that children had “practically no rights there”. A student mentioned “Africa” and the teacher clarified that Africa was a continent with very distinct countries. One student mentioned “Mozambique” and another “Angola”. Following this, the teacher asked if everyone in Angola was poor. The student described that there was “great richness and great poverty”.
Subsequently, a student mentioned that “we don’t need to go that far”, “here in Portugal” and “here at school” there were also inequalities. The teacher asked for examples of how students notice inequalities at school. Students indicated possessions such as clothes, shoes and smartphones. A student mentioned when students can’t buy cakes that are being sold at school. Other students mentioned that when students receive letters of notifications to a study trip, it indicates how much students need to pay (depending on their family’s income group) and students discuss with each other often how much they are going to pay (and the differences between the payments required). The teacher referred that he wasn’t aware of it and inquired students about what the school does, in their opinion, to mitigate social inequalities. Students mentioned the shared material, activities from group of responsibilities focused on solidarity and fundraising activities for more expensive school trips.
Then, we discussed what being poor means. Students mentioned “lack of resources, for example, of food”, “not having access to education and having to work to help the parents”, “not having access to goods, such as hygiene products or toys”, “being homeless”. A student argued that being poor could also mean “living a simple life”, “having two parents who earn the minimum wage”. The teacher asked if poverty was a problem. Some students mentioned “yes”. A student referred that “poverty always existed” and another added that “for people to be rich, some people need to be poor, not all people can be rich” and that poverty is needed for “a certain balance for things to work out”. Another student stated that “I think it is a problem, that needs to be improved, but never will be completely resolved”. When asked about the motives for a person to be rich or poor, students referred “descendance”, “jobs that give more or less money”, “occupations more or less valued”, “education”, “studies”. A student talked about how money is needed to study in university and how the state could contribute to more people to attend university with lower costs for their families. A student followed this idea and argued that people also need to have “will”, giving the example of people who work while studying. The teacher mentioned it was a valid point but asked if studying at University only depended on personal effort. Students were clear: “no”.
The teacher asked how poverty could be reduced. The students gave several ideas, that were always countered with problems and objections. For example, the idea of “pressuring the government” was countered with the idea that “the government makes promises that aren’t kept” and “we don’t have solutions if they ask us what we want”; the idea of raising money through campaigns was countered with “money being diverted or stolen” (mentioning specific situations in Portugal when it happened, as reported by the media); the idea of making a manifestation or strike was countered with “there are too many strikes”, “strikes harm people” and “the government doesn’t pay attention to strikes”. Referring to these examples, a student concluded “like in physics, to every action, there is a reaction”.
The teacher then asked for examples of social inequalities. A student mentioned India and how “the money is badly divided”. Another student added that “there is a large group of people who receives much less than the ones leading”. Students also mentioned Portugal (“Portugal is rich, but money is diverted”) and Paris (this specific student had travelled there and shared how he noticed inequalities from the city center to the airport). Then, the teacher asked if it was fair the head of a company receiving 100 times more than his employees: “Is it fair?”. Students seemed surprised. A student said that it wasn’t fair, but another told that it depends on what he does and his responsibilities. Given the concrete example of inequalities in Amazon, some students claimed that it was not fair.
At the end, to introduce them to Fairtrade, students were asked if they could choose between a more expensive package of rice, knowing that workers were payed justly for their work, and a less expensive one, with no guarantees of the workers conditions, which one would they buy. Students said that they didn’t know. The teacher asked if students would buy a chocolate that they know was produced with slaves’ work. Opinions were “it was already produced” and “it isn’t our fault”.
To conclude, the teacher referenced that social and economic inequalities were an urgent problem and thanked students for their involvement in the discussion.Links with the curriculum:
- Geography – countries and continents in the world map, characteristics of each country and region, cardinal points
- Citizenship education – human rights, interculturality, social justice