Students’ Experiences with Diversity in Media

Return to the list of TV shows, movies and video games you made at the beginning of the lesson.

Divide the class into five groups and assign one of the categories (comedy shows, dramatic shows, reality TV, movies and video games) to each group.

Have students access the student chapter Diversity Portrayal and use the first Structure Strip activity to make a list of all of the diverse characters they can think of in each work: How many characters are members of a racialized group? How many characters have an identifiable religious belief (including characters clearly identified as being atheists)? How many Indigenous characters, characters with disabilities, and 2SLGBTQ+ characters are there? (Note that reality shows or online streamers/influencers/creators may not have “characters” but will still have people who appear regularly in major or minor roles, as described below.)

Next, have students use the second Structure Strip to sort the characters they identified into Lead characters (the show is about them or they are part of a group of four or fewer main characters), Major characters (a secondary character in a show about one person or a significant part of an ensemble of five or more characters) or Minor characters (does not fit either of the other two categories).