Unit 3: Evaluation

The evaluation is first carried out in the whole group. Ask the participants to reflect on their own position for themselves:

Now ask individual persons – both people who are in the front and those who are far behind as well as people from the midfield should be addressed- or if the group is not too big, everyone can be interviewed.

Please feel free to choose the adequate questions. In a larger group it is advisable not to discuss too long with the whole group:

• How do you feel in your role?
• How does it feel to be so far ahead? Or what is it like to always not get ahead?
• When did those who often took a step forward realize that others did not progress as fast as they did?
• When did those who stayed far behind notice that others advanced faster?

After individuals have expressed their position, they are asked to present their role to others in the group.

Those who are behind usually notice quickly that they are lagging behind, while those in front often only notice at the end that others are not following. At this point it should be pointed out that in reality, too, those in privileged positions often take their privileges so for granted that they do not notice them at all, whereas those in marginalized positions usually feel their deprivilege every day.

The following evaluation  

The evaluation that follows depends on the size of the group, the time available, the group, the aim of the exercise at that moment, etc. The evaluation can be followed by several rounds of evaluation in small groups with different questions.

There can be several rounds of evaluation with different questions in small groups or you can stay in the large group.

The exchange in small groups, especially in groups of 2 and 3, has been found to be pleasant and productive by all participants. Please feel free to vary the order and the questions selected.

For the second part of the evaluation, participants should “shake off”, “undress” or and “throw away” their character. The further evaluation takes place in a circle of chairs in the plenum.

General

• How did you do with the exercise?
• Were you able to put yourself into the persons/roles you played?
• Were you able to imagine the respective living conditions? What was unclear, where were you uncertain?
• How easy or difficult was it to choose whether you could take a step forward?
• Where were you insecure?
• Which questions did you remember in particular?

Images and stereotypes of the individual roles

• Where did you get the information about the life situation of the roles you drew?
• Why do we know a lot about certain persons/roles and nothing about others? (Here we can discuss the importance of the media)

Transfer to social reality

• What restricted you in your actions in the respective roles? (meaning of parts of difference along categories such as nationality, skin colour, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, social and financial status etc.)
• Is the exercise realistic? To which point do you think the exercise reflects society?
• What possibilities do the different groups or individuals have for changing their situation? What do they have no influence on?
• What should change? What can we change?

Transfer to your own situation

• Where would you stand if you had done this exercise without a role card?
• How can you deal with your own privileges in a responsible and constructive way?
• Or how can you counteract your own marginalization?

• It is advisable to come back and close the evaluation and the whole intervention in the whole group.