Name of the tool

“My life – his life” Enhancing socio-cultural awareness via biographies (film)

Links to the keystones
attitudes, awareness, knowledge

Aim of tool/ Brief overall description
Based on self-biographical elements, help teacher trainees to understand similarities and differences with the life of people form other socio-cultural milieu.

Brief overall description
The students compare their family backgrounds and (family-life) stories with the story of the Romani person in the film they watch and they reflect on.

Main methods

• Brainstorming
• Drawing own family trees (following instructions)
• Pairwork
• Observations (watching a film)
• Comparison
• Reflections

Description of the process and the possible stepping stones

• Brainstormig (the meanings of some basic notions, such as socialization and  culture).
• Drawing the family tree of own (individual work, based on instruction)
• Forming pairs.
• Discussing family trees (based on instruction), making notes.
• Pairs presenting differences and similarities.
• Watching a film about a Romani person speaking about his family and his life. (observation instructions)
• Discussing similarities and differences between “my life and his life” (Based on instruction).
• Discussion of the “message”.

Reflection and evaluation

We tried the tool in a group of our students. They participated actively, and at the end of the process they discovered that the similarities in values (with Adolf: the Romani father) are much more then the differences. The film helped them to understand better the milieu and circumstances of Romani people’s life.

Instruments

-

Equipment

• Instructions for drawing family trees
• Instructions for observation
• Film
• Reference to training material, and other sources.

Requirements
Active participation in every phase of the process

References

• Bassis, S.M., Gelles, R.J., Levine, A. (1991): Sociology an Introduction. Fourth Edition, McGraw-Hill, Inc. New York-Tokio.
• Giddens, A. (2003): Szociológia. Osiris Kiadó, Budapest.

Author
Zsolt Mogyorósi, Mária Nagy, György Mészáros

Institution

Eszterházy Károly College, Eger, Hungary