Social Location




What Does Income Inequality mean to Americans?




Why the Middle Class Matters




Mia Birdsong: The Story We Tell About Poverty Isn't True




A Subprime Education

This video is available through Frontline.




Becky Blanton: The Year I Was Homeless




Children in Poverty




Exploration Questions

  • How would you describe your identity in relation to your social location?
  • In what contexts, if any, do you feel that your socio-economic and educational status are privileged identities?
  • In what contexts, if any, do you experience oppression because of your socio-economic status & or educational status?
  • How does your socio-economic status & educational status interact with other identities that you hold, such as your ethnicity, race, gender, developmental life stage, and spirituality?
  • What is your comfort level working with clients whose social locations differ from your own?
  • How comfortable are you talking about social location and its impact on identity with clients?
  • In what situations might social location be salient in the counseling relationship?
  • How might you bring up socio-economic status and access to education with your counseling clients?
  • How important do you think it is for counselors to be aware of their own understandings and beliefs related to social location and identity?
  • What activities might counselors engage in to become more aware of how their own cultural identities impact their world views, values, biases, beliefs, ways of working with clients, and ways of relating to clients?
  • What were your reactions to the videos on this page?
  • Were there some you were drawn to?
  • Were there any that elicited strong reactions?
  • How did the videos on this page demonstrate the relationship between social location & identity in relation to other cultural factors such as gender, developmental life-stage, family culture, spirituality, the culture of the United States, and other cultures?