A Path to Social Change

Abstract

College students from various institutions completed questionnaires regarding their beliefs about privileged and oppressed adults’responsibility for the onset and offset of social inequities, the emotions linked with privileged and oppressed adults’responsibility, and the behaviors that should result from the privileged and oppressed adults’ responsibility for social equity. A path analysis revealed two causal pathways. The first path starts with responsibility of the privileged for offset of societal inequities that leads through frustration of oppressed as well as pity of the privileged. The second path leads directly from the perception that privileged adults are responsible for the onset of societal inequities without the mediation of guilt of the privileged, as predicted by attribution theory. Results imply that inclusion of privileged adults’guilt within the social justice curriculum may contribute to students’ resistance to multicultural discourse while also being important for motivating students toward social change.