@article{Platt_2021, place={Washington DC: American Sociological Association.}, title={Conferred Dominance in the Built Environment- A Campus Accessibility Activity}, url={https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/conferred-dominance-in-the-built-environment-a}, abstractNote={This activity builds on Peggy McIntosh’s discussion and reflection on privilege through interactive learning. The concept of “privilege” is a foundational term to understand power and the reproduction of social inequalities for introductory and lower level sociology courses. Many activities have been developed to illustrate the effect of privilege to students ranging from reviewing privilege lists to personal reflections on privileged and marginalized identity categories. While a focus on individual identity is an effective way to think about individual experiences of advantage and disadvantage, it is often challenging for students to understand how privilege is also structural and systemic not just something they experience individually. In this activity, students examine various spaces on the university campus to illustrate how able body privilege is reproduced through the design and function of various spaces. McIntosh describes conferred dominance as a form of privilege that gives power or control over a group. Conferred dominance helps explain why systems of privilege are persistent and reproduced through interaction. This activity illustrates the ways in which privilege is embedded in social structures and organizations and also confers dominance through the design of spaces. While the activity focuses on physical ability privilege, instructors can apply the activity to illustrate how other forms of privilege are also reproduced through the organization and structure of society. }, journal={TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology}, author={Platt, Chelsea}, year={2021}, month={Sep.} }